Talk:Historical background of the New Testament

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This verges on too much

CheeseDreams summarized what I wrote above thusly:

Slrubenstein disputes translating "Yohanan" as "Jonathan" rather than "John". FT2 points out how David's associate "Jonathan" is "Yohanan" in Hebrew, to which Wesley states that the New Testament is Greek. Slrubenstein states that "Yonatan" is "Jonathan" and "Yohanan" is "John". Slrubenstein states that FT2 is a nut, and questions whether FT2 is masturbating Slrubenstein.

First, it is a compelte misrepresentation of my point; I do not claim that Jonathan is Yohanan. Second, the link seems obnoxious and uncalled for. Slrubenstein

I wondered about that as well, but you did write "Ar eyou yanking my chain?....what you are saying here is a charicature of a nut" User:Tigermoon 11:24, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Yanking my chain" means, toying with me in order to waste my time and make me angry; it does not mean that he his stoking my penis with the intention of bringing me to orgasm. If CD doesn't understand the idiomatic expression, surely it was clear from context. Slrubenstein

And Ive just found this at the same place, also written by you "Yonatan is represented in English as Jonathan. Yohanan is represented in English as John." User:Tigermoon 12:29, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this up -- as you make clear, I had explained to FT2 what his mistake was, and corrected him, long before he (finally) did his research. Slrubenstein

My research is not as shoddy as SIrubenstein has at times freely claimed. Specifically:

dictionary.com: "John - Middle English, from Old French Jehan, from Late Latin Ioannes, Iohannes, from Greek Ioannes, from Hebrew yôhanan, 'Yahweh has been gracious'..."
Nomenology Project: "John - DERIVATION: English, from the Hebrew name, Johanan, meaning, 'God is gracious.' Found in the New Testament as the name of John the Baptist."
Emtymology and History of Biblical 1st names: "JOHN - m English, Biblical English form of Johannes, which was the Latin form of the Greek name Ioannes, itself derived from the Hebrew name Yochanan meaning 'YAHWEH is gracious'..."

Thats the derivation of "John". Next time, a little trust and respectful talk beforehand would be in order.

Next time, a little research before you write in an article would be in order. Then, you may earn some trust. Slrubenstein

More to the point, not making a mountain over a single minor tiny item would also be in order. This is what has characterised the problem with this article all the way - no sense of proportion. The appropriate "fix" would have been to (a) check it yourself, or (b) just edit the one word you didnt think right. Not make a huge deal of it. I think this happens to be a good example why this article is in dispute. FT2 07:52, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

FT2 I appreciate that you have finally done some research, and your willingness to accept that John is Yochanan. I wish you had done this research before writing your version of the article. You are right -- in general -- that rather than make a big deal out of such mistakes editors should simply fix them. But you are disingenuous. I explained why this was an error and you mocked me. I wish you did your research then. Be that as it may, you have finally odne reseach, it is not shoddy, and I applaud your effort. But to the reall matter at hand: I didn't think I was making a big deal about this one point. Rather, I was listing this one point along with a dozen or more points that showed sloppy research or writing in your revision of my revision. Rather than go through each of these thirteen or fourteen problems in your version, I though it would just save a whole lot of time to revert to the earlier version, which was not plagued by this and so many other errors. Here is what it comes down to: I have done a lot of research on this period, and wrote a version that is to the best of my knowledge neutral (and which took into account virtually every single previous "vote" and discussion). It was clear to me that you had not done a lot of research. You say "check it yourself" and I say, well, let's do this before writing, it will save a lot of trouble. I did check such things before writing, but you did not. Why start with a very weak, error-prone version and spend a lot of time fixing it, when we can start with a relatively strong version and just improve it from there? Slrubenstein

fair points all of these. I think there was a difference, I wasnt aiming for perfect content - I was after 75% ok content. It had to be that way as so many people had added material. But poor factual information can be discussed, cited and fixed. I was after an approach and a broad view to get towards a consensus like "okay, so apart from these sloppy individual facts, and that occasional poor wording, basically we now have a direction to go forward from, and a version not written by either 'side'." I didnt think it was factually perfect, I was more interested to get reactions in general first. I figured simply saying "please leave it stand a while" would be enough, without a heavily detailed explanation. Hope that explains? FT2 18:07, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

FT2, I really don't question your intentions and if (in this specific instance) I said anything that questioned your intentions I apologize. Your intentions aside, I just felt there were so many errors and distortions in your version that it would be easier to go back to mine (which I must add was -- in my mind at least! -- built on your earlier work!). I understand that you did your best and did not claim it to be perfect. I just thought the previous version was better and made for a more practical continuation. Although I know your intentions were good, I do admit that it bothers me that you expected people to wait two days before editing work that you had not really researched, when you had just completely rewritten a draft for which I had spent considerable time researching. If anything, the principle should be that the more researched an article, the more time people allow themselves to think about it before editing; the less researched an article, the less time people allow themselves to think about it before editing. Slrubenstein

Suggestions for next set of revisions

Sooner or later the article will be unblocked. Here are some suggestions for the next round of revisions. SOme are my own, others come out of others' comments on the talk-page.. Slrubenstein

Didn't you think CheeseDreams summarised the above satisfactorially? (copied below) Tigermoon 12:05, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't think it should be summarized, which is why I wrote "summarized prematurely." These comments are not about what has happened, but what should happen. Slrubenstein

Format:

2.4.1 is misnamed. I suggest renaming it to "Kings, Procurators, and the Sanhedron" OR "Local Governance under Roman Occupation"
2.5, on the Sicarii etc, should be made 2.4.4
2.5.1, on Jesus in this context, should be simply 2.5

Content: People have raised issues about the introductory paragraph. I still think FT2's is poorly written, but he was right to raise other issues in that section. I suggest that we revise this to introduce people to the historiography of the period. First, be clear that the Gospels are the major textual source for information about Jesus. This should help clear up NPOV issues because there is no endorsement of the theological status or claims of the Gospels, only recognition that they are an historical source of central importance to historians researching Jesus and the first century. Second, a clearer explanation of how historians (as opposed to theologians or clergy or religious people) read historical texts critically. Third, an explanation of how historians go outside of a text to look at its context, which means looking at other historical sources and archeological evidence.Slrubenstein

If you are going to distinguish between historians and religious people and discuss their methods, you should specify what sort of historians you mean. On the one hand, a number of religious people employ the same historical methods to which you seem to be referring; on the other hand, some historians don't, including just about all historians before the Enlightenment and probably some other historians today. Wesley 20:40, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good point. I mean historians using critical methods. By the way, such historians may be religious -- they just exclude religious claims from their historical research. Crossan may be such an example. Slrubenstein

People have raised questions about the amount of historical content, and continuity. I too share concerns about excess, although sometimes this is in the service of accuracy. That said, I think that there could be a better transition between the first temple and second temple periods. This transition should stress one important continuity: in both, the Temple and the Law were important institutions. This continuity is an important issue because the status of the law and of the Temple were central issues for Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity; Jesus was read as having taken certain stands on these institutions; we need a general context for understanding what kinds of stands Jesus was likely to have taken and what their significance would have been. It should also stress a discontinuity in "legitimation" -- in the Second Temple period there were questions about the legitimacy of the Temple, and, the Torah having been redacted, the Law emerged as an increasingly important institution (which again had consequences during Jesus' time)Slrubenstein

There can be more discussion of Herod's reign (including how it got started, with a reference to Antipater). But I think we need to connect this to bigger issues at the time, especially how Herod was an Idumean but also Jewish, in other words, there was a reworking of "Jewish" Identity during the Hellenistic period.Slrubenstein

Some people still seem confused about the different movements at the time. We can be clearer that the Pharisees developed during the Hasmonean period. I think we need to add more information about the so-called "Fourth movement," the Sicarii.Slrubenstein

Adding more information about the Sicarii (and Zealots) will address another misconception, that the major conflict was between Jews seeking political independence and religious freedom, and Romans. This was indeed one issue, but the Great Revolt (and thus, tensions throughout the first century) were between poor Jewish peasants and rich Jewish elites. The primary target of the Sicarii were Jewish elites, not Romans. They had an anarchic philosophy that rejected Roman rule but that also rejected Jewish government as well.Slrubenstein

The above sections call attention to various religio-political movements at the time of Jesus. I think another section providing more basic information on the economy of Judea and the Galilee, the degree of class inequalities, and maybe something on taxationl, would also help. This should come before or after sections 2.4.1-4

The account of Jesus in this context is currently synthetic and I believe a very reasonable summary of what most historians would agree to. Nevertheless, I think we can now incorporate more specific material on debates/different views among historians, specifically: Brandon's view of Jesus as a political revolutionary; Smith's view of Jesus as a magician; Vermes' view of Jesus as a Galilean charismatic; Sanders' view of Jesus as an eschatological prophet. Slrubenstein

Meta-issues: What is the article about?

Issues seem to be - yes the gospels are the main source about Jesus. Thats needed to be stated in the intro. But Jesus is not the main source of this article, and thats important. Neither the history, nor the culture, is predicated upon Jesus, and that is a central issue for this article. Even matters impinging upon jesus and the Jews or Christians are not predicated upon the Gospels, but are generally available from non-religious historic sources. If we have to rely on the Gospels for evidence of something, and lack other credible sources, the odds are good it was not a relevant part of the culture and history. What does matter is where the Jews as a group were coming from, and the Romans, the politics, backgrounds and histories, so that readers can understand the isues and tensions which would have arisen for themselves. FT2 07:57, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

I just do not understand your point. This aricle is about Jesus in his cultural and historical context. If we remove Jesus as a basic component of the article, let's just delete the article. I mean, you can't have a background without a foreground, a context without a text. What would be the purpose of this article? We have articles on the Pharisees, Saducees, on Ancient Israel, and Jewish history, and the Great Revolt. In any event, perhaps you misunderstand me or I misunderstand you. The Gospels are the primary sources on Jesus, but nothing in the article clais that the Gospels are the primary sources on Jewish and Roman history. Almost every section of the article relies on sources other than the Gospels. Indeed, this is the rationale for the article: given that the Gosepels give an incomplete account of Jesus' context, we need to look to other sources. Are you suggesting the article relies too much on the Gospels? Can you give an example (or am I misunderstanding you)? Slrubenstein

I think actually, simply put, the above 2 comments almost define whats up. Because the title isnt "Jesus IN his context". It's "The context of the period when Jesus lived".

Its not "look up Jesus' story, and relate it back to his period", its "look at the period and the forces which were playing at that period, and within which a person who preached a new message claimed to be a leader or messiah would have lived and by whose impact they would have been affected."

I think you or someone suggested above that we might actually in reality have two separate articles here, namely "Jesus in his historical and cultural context". The two arent the same and I think what we are gradually seeing is a recognition of that. (They are very similar but its the difference between, say, "what does knowledge of Jewish culture teach us about America" and "What does knowledge of American culture teach us about Judaism". You get a basically different result) FT2 17:42, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

The title of this article is "Cultural and historical background of Jesus" CheeseDreams 21:00, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but I believe the purpose of this article initially (and what I personally would advocate as a meaningful purpose for it today) was to help reduce the excessive size of the Jesus article. That article had devoted a great deal of time to attempting to explain the forces at work in the society in which Jesus (allegedly) lived, in order to better understand what the actions and positions attributed to him in the Gospels may have signified to a first-century audience. I think this kind of coverage is likely to be useful to anyone, religious or non-religious, even including those who doubt Jesus' existence. Anyone familiar with modern historiography knows that it's important to understand facts within their cultural context. The Jesus of the Gospels, whether fictionally, semi-fictionally, or factually represented therein, is a character whose actions need to be understood culturally -- much that we may find strange or significant would have been less so to a first-century audience, and much that we may find normal or reasonable would have been most unusual to them. In order for this encyclopedia to offer good coverage of the meaning of Jesus in context, this article (or else an article much like it) needs to exist -- the Gospels are necessary in order to provide the material that needs to be placed into context. It will be difficult to write this article in a manner that pleases everyone, but not impossible, I think. As I note above, I think it's in everyone's best interests to have such an article. I don't know if this resolves much of the impasse here, but I thought it needed to be said if it hadn't been said yet (or hadn't been said since the last archiving). Jwrosenzweig 21:07, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, this seems exactly right to me. In fact, I have a difficult time understanding how this is even controversial. john k 21:50, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Until the 2nd edit war and 2nd protection, the consensus on this talk page was that it was irrelevant what this article had previously been. The generally agreed position was This is not that article. This is an article about background. CheeseDreams 22:26, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It was never the consensus on this talk page that the article's prior history was irrelevant, except possibly for some short span of time between when the claim was made and one of several who disagreed had time to log in and say so. That has been one of the major points of contention as long as this dispute has been going on for the past month or so. The question has repeatedly been raised in different ways, "If it's an article about background, what's in the foreground?" Wesley 02:57, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Which is why The historical Jesus was mooted by Amgine above (and many others earlier) as a possible solution to this controversy. CheeseDreams 22:26, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

All right, then. I'll just work on the article I mentioned at another title. :-) Good luck with this one -- it sounds interesting. Jwrosenzweig 22:50, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

JW Rosenzweig - don't humor CheeseDreams - as you said before, an article about context that ignores the text is simply gibberish. CheeseDreams - I would tentatively somewhat agree with you that the origins of this article should not determine its contents. But this article is an article about the background, or the context, for something specific - the figure of Jesus as presented in the Gospels. It is absolutely impossible to have a useful article on the background or context of something without referring to the subject to which it is supposed to be background or context - in this case, Jesus as depicted in the Gospels - and without making some effort to show how the background and context relates to the material which it is contextualizing. Once again, if any new article is to be created, you should create Cultural and historical background of 1st century Roman Palestine. Or, perhaps Roman Palestine in the 1st century AD. Or whatever. Yes, this article is supposed to be background. But background is not background unless it is presented in relationship to the material to which it is supposed to be the background. The article you want to write is a cultural and historical description of Jewish society in the 1st century AD. This article would provide useful information and background for someone interested in the context of Jesus and the Gospels. But it would not be an article about the context and background of Jesus and the Gospels. In the same way, History of Athens is an article which might provide useful information and background for someone interested in the context of, say, Plato, or the great Tragedians. But that does not mean the article is an article about the context of Plato or the Tragedians. Can you understand the distinction? john k 22:58, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ah, so much respect for people actually attempting to reach compromise. CheeseDreams 23:29, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

All right, then, John -- makes no odds to me. I'm just tired of fighting with someone who's so convinced I'm biased that he won't even have a conversation with me to find out how reasonable I can be. I've fought too many of them in the last 18 months and I didn't care to fight CD, but as it's important, I agree that backing down so quickly probably isn't the right thing to do. I agree that, if this article removes Jesus and the Gospel assertions about him, it will inevitably lose its purpose...after all, we don't have a general article on the culture in any other century for that area. The only reason to have this one is that a remarkably important figure (fictional or no) reportedly existed in it, and we can't understand him as well without it. A correction, though -- the remark about "context" and "text" was made by Slrubenstein, I believe. Jwrosenzweig 23:15, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ah, my bad on that last. One thing that this article has convinced me of is that the doing away with of sub-articles isn't necessarily a good thing. john k 05:48, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, Jesus must be mentioned in this article, but the focus of the article is the cultural and historic context in which he lived (if he lived etc. see other article for that discussison). These cultural, societal and historic forces acted upon all members of the society, and the forces as they acted upon any member of this society are the primary focus of the article, not Christianity, which essentially did not exist in Jesus' lifetime, and not Jesus, as during this period, Jesus was not a major figure, per se. The recognition of his importance came after his death, and the religion that grew from his teachings began, as the story goes, quite near his death. (you, Peter are the living rock upon which I will build my church) So my opinion is that Jesus is mostly not relevant to the article. Same with Christianity. The article is about the environment in which "a Jesus" and "a new religion" could have appeared. This is a daughter article to Jesus, yes, but it isn't a religious article or biography. Pedant 23:54, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

Jesus is absolutely relevant to the article, as his name appears in the article's title. However, I agree that this is not a biography of Jesus or the first part of the History of Christianity. I understand that the Church is traditionally held to have begun on Pentecost, shortly after Jesus' Ascension; however, one could argue that Jesus was (according to the gospels) already trying to spread his teachings and practices by sending out the seventy disciples to preach about the kingdom of God and to heal the sick, etc. But what I see this article doing is perhaps very briefly mention that in the Gospels Jesus is often addressed as Rabbi, and then discuss what a first century rabbi was. Briefly mention his interactions with the Pharisees, Sadducees and other groups and describe in more detail who they were. For that matter, tax collectors and zealots alike could be mentioned. So, Jesus himself would receive small mention and Christianity the same or less, but the stories about Jesus and about Palestine would at least in part determine what it is about first century "Roman Palestine" that makes it worth writing an article about, and more than that, arguing about so vehemently. Wesley 02:57, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, this seems essentially right to me. I feel like the current article mostly does a good job with this. That is to say, the article is not about Jesus, or about early Christianity. But to do its job it needs to explain how the context under discussion relates to Jesus and early Christianity. Otherwise it's not an article about the context of something. john k 05:48, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Jwrosenzweig, please do not weary. I too am tired of CheeseDreams obstructionism. But the fact is you, John K, and Wesley are all pretty much on the same page and have a clear, reasonable understanding of what is going on (and I am sure I have left out some names, but not because I don't recognize their contributions.) To summarize:

The origins of the article are important. That doesn't mean the article is frozen in time and cannot change -- all Misplaced Pages articles are works in process. But of course the origins are important!
When Mpolo originally separated this as a daughter article of the Jesus article and gave it the title "Culturan and Historical Background of Jesus," he could just as well have entitled it "Jesus in his Cultural and Historical Background" Or he could have come up with another title. Daughter articles are strange in this way -- the article exists before the title. Usually it is the other way around -- and the contents of the article must strive to conform to the title. But with daughter articles, the trick is to come up with an appropriate title for an article that already exists. Now, I don't care whether we change the title or not, but certainly, we cannot fetishize it.
Pedant is right to raise the question of focus, but in this case misunderstands what the focus is. Many articles focus on a "thing" (e.g. "physics" or "World War II"). This article, however, focuses on the relationship between two things: Jesus, and the cultural and historical context in which he lived. It is the articulation or conjunction between these two things that is the topic of this article. Perhaps I disagree with John K. and Wesley over how much historical background is necessary -- but that argument (if indeed we disagree) is secondary; all three of us agree that whatever background is presented, it is to provide a historical context for understanding Jesus. In this narrow sense FT2 and I may agree (he provides the analogy, "what does knowledge of Jewish culture teach us about America" versus "What does knowledge of American culture teach us about Judaism". I believe he prefers the second one. If we had to choose between these two, I too would chose the second one. But I think in fact historians work in a more nuanced way. American culture is the totality of American social groups, institutions, and their relationships. You cannot understand American culture without including Jews (and Blacks, Irish, Italians, and so on). Similarly, a historical understanding of Jesus informs our understanding of first century Jewish culture. Nevertheless, this article begins with the point that, historians who do not believe in miracles must start with an understanding of Jewish and Hellenic culture and history, in order to understand Jesus' life. But in this sentence, "Jewish" and "Jesus" are still equally important in determining the focus of the article.
The point that Christianity did not even exist at that time is a red-herring. No one claims that this article is about Christianity. Indeed, in the original Jesus article this section explicitly provided the "historical Jesus" as a contrast to the Christian account of Jesus' life. The purpose for providing cultural and historical background is to show how a non-Christian interpretation of Jesus's life is possible. That said, the article needs to say something about Christianity, because the earliest primary source material on Jesus was written from a Christian point of view. Nevertheless, this article is not about Christianity and no one ever claimed it was.

I am pretty sure John K., JRosenzweig, and Wesley will agree with these four basic points -- if I am mistaken please let me know here or on my own talk page. I know FT2, Amgine, and Pedant may disagree with these points, although I hope that we are closer to some sort of consensus. At the very least, I hope that they think these points are understandable and reasonable. If any of you strongly object to any of them, however, I really do want to understand why and hope that you will take the time to explain it to me. Thanks. Slrubenstein

This argument is raised again.

1. The source of the article is irrelevant to its current status, in much the same way that certain letters which may have been written by member of the Swedish Royalty became irrelevant to World War I. The source is to be remembered, consulted, and considered; nothing more.

Why should it be remembered, consulted, and considered if it is irrelevant? You seem to be saying it is relevant, but that it is not definitive -- which is what I said. So you seem to agree with me. Yet the first sentence disagrees with me. I am confused Slrubenstein

The fact of its creation, why it was created, forces which were involved in its creation, etc. are relevant. But where it came from has very little relevance to the specific contents. - Amgine 19:58, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

2. The title is the tool by which this article will be refered to by Misplaced Pages users. As such it should be neutrally descriptive of the article contents. In short, the article should address the cultural and historical background of Jesus, nothing more or less.

Your second and third sentences seem to be making slightly different points. Sentence two says the title should describe the article contents (I agree); sentence three implies that the contents of the article is dictated by the title (in the case of daughter articles, I disagree). These two sentences seem to contradict -- which is the cart and which is the horse? I am confusedSlrubenstein

The title determines who will see the article. Thus the content of the article should be specific to the title. - Amgine 19:58, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

3. Cultural and historical background is a "thing". A highly nuanced view would (and does) make an excellent book; it would of course not be a useful encyclopedia article. A brief and compact overview of the currently prevalent views of the cultural and historical background in which Jesus would have lived seems most appropriate for an encyclopedia article. (After all, when we consider the source of this article, it was created due to too much information.)

I understand this point and I understand that we disagree. But I still wonder why, if people question Jesus' existence, we need this article at all? You write "A brief and compact overview of the currently prevalent views of the cultural and historical background in which Jesus would have lived" You use the third conditional (would have+past participle) which indicates something that did not happen. It seems silly to write an article in reference to someone that did not exist, when we could instead write articles about times when people really did exist. Surely we all agree Pontius Pilate lived. We all agree that Hillel lived. We all agree that Akiba lived, and that Herod Antipas lived. Why not write an article "Cultural and historical Background of Pilate" or "Cultural and Historical Background of Hillel?" Why do you advocate writing an article about the conditions under which someone could have lived, when there really were people who lived back then. Shouldn't the article be about the background of people who really did live? I am just trying to understand your position. Slrubenstein

You are mistaken about my usage. As an example, an engineering model of the Titanic crash would be used to examine the forces the ship would have experienced. The crash demonstrably existed; the engineers are studying it, just as a Misplaced Pages user looking at this article might be studying the cultural and historical background of Jesus.

I don't believe the question regarding the title of other articles is particularly relevant here; this article is being discussed as it is currently titled. As to the "silliness" of writing this article about someone who may or may not have existed - Misplaced Pages reports on the beliefs of people, and clearly this article is both extremely notable and relevant in this regard. This is an encyclopedic topic regardless of my personal credo (which I do not think I have expressed nor expect to.)

4. Strongly agree the point about the Christian church's nonexistence is a red herring.

- Amgine 18:06, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

And I quote When Mpolo originally separated this as a daughter article of the Jesus article and gave it the title "Culturan and Historical Background of Jesus," he could just as well have entitled it "Jesus in his Cultural and Historical Background"

Therefore I have no objection to the article Jesus in a cultural and historical background existing AS WELL as this article CheeseDreams 19:51, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's completely ridiculous. The two titles mean the same thing. At any rate, I sincerely fail to understand how the current title precludes all discussion of Jesus? That seems completely absurd to me. Amgine, I don't necessarily disagree with the points you're making, but I don't really understand the conclusions you're drawing from these premises. Again I will ask - how can the article meaningfully be the background to something which is never mentioned in the article? The article you and CheeseDreams and FT2 propose seems to me to no more fit the title Cultural and historical background of Jesus than the article Yale University fits the title Educational background of George W. Bush. john k 20:13, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually, John Kenney, I *don't* feel the article should preclude mention of Jesus and have consistently voted that way. This appears to have been a running misunderstanding. I feel Pedant's description of the article's focus is probably best, although I feel some mention of religion is necessary due to its importance in the culture at the time.

As to the secondary question, there's little doubt that a very accurate and useful description of my life and times, the cultural and historical elements which would mould me and my worldview, could be written without a single reference to me personally. This is undoubtedly why direct archaeological evidence of Jesus is extremely limited; he was not widely recognized in his own time. The primary difference is that after I am gone there will be very little reason to remember me, while the importance of Jesus grew after his departure. - Amgine 20:25, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Amgine, I'm going to have to politely disagree with your final point. If I set out to write Cultural and historical background of Amgine, I think I could do a tolerable job describing the cultural and political influences affecting someone spending their adult years in the suburbs of, say, San Antonio, Texas. Of course, I have no idea if you come from there. In order for my article to be of any use to an amateur student of Amgine's life, I would have to at least identify the salient features of Amgine's existence in order to provide the proper context. Your religion, your social class, your nationality, your cultural heritage, your profession....all of these things would be important. The only difference with this article is that I think the assumption on the part of some editors is that we don't need to explain the details of Jesus' life because everyone knows them. We can't make that assumption. If someone who knows Jesus vaguely as "that guy who started Christianity, made some miracles, and died on a cross" comes to this article, they need to be given enough information about Jesus to make the background comprehensible. We all may think it obvious that Jesus is claimed by the Gospels to have been a rabbi who had issues with the Pharisees and Sadducees, who opposed the Zealots yet had at least one as an associate, etc. But our readers may not. We have to give enough information about Jesus in order to be sure that a reader will understand how the background connects. Yes, this article is primarily about the society and culture in which Jesus lived. But without enough detail about his life, it won't be clear to our readers how they are to make sense of this "background". Do you agree with me that this is a reasonable goal? I'm not clear as to how much you are opposed to such an idea. Jwrosenzweig 20:44, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to giving enough detail about Jesus' life. I believe specific asides are necessary and important for clarity, and should be qualified and verifiable (e.g. Blah blah as found in X, with Y also saying Blahdeblah.) However, (and this is just an example I do not actually recall anyone using) a discussion of how Jesus may fit a selection of prophetic criteria is not relevant to the cultural and historical background. Conversely, a discussion of prophetic criteria as perceived by the culture would be relevant. Do you see the difference? - Amgine 20:58, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I do indeed see the difference -- more to the point, I agree with you. I think simply noting that the Gospels attribute Messianic claims to Jesus is sufficient on his end (perhaps citing a claim in specific, although I don't know if that's necesary for a general discussion). A more detailed description of what that claim might mean to a first century audience (both Jewish and Roman) would also be a good idea in this article. But trying to match Jesus to prophecy point for point wouldn't make sense -- sounds too much like proselytizing to me. If this is the level of detail we're arguing over, I think we'll come to an agreement quite soon. :-) Jwrosenzweig 21:17, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hey - we actually seem to be getting somewhere! I generally agree with both of you, then. I agree that the article shouldn't be about Jesus. But I also think the article needs to provide the necessary background so the reader will know how the stuff being talked about relates to Jesus. To go a bit further, I'd note that articles that deal with subject matters related to this time period, without even having Jesus in the title, such as Pharisee, mention prominently the connection between their topic and the way it is portrayed in the New Testament. Surely an article which is specifically about the context of Jesus ought to emphasize this kind of thing at least as much. john k 21:44, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with all of the above, when I say Jesus and Christianity aren't the subject of the article, I'm not disagreeing with you. In one sense Jesus is the focus, but the important parts of this article aren't 'what jesus said' 'what jesus did' 'what christians think' etc. as such, ... in other words I think an article can be focused on Jesus without being about Jesus. Does that make sense? I think most of us are pretty much on the same page, from reading the article. I'm not trying to hold anyone back, or keep the page protected in any way. "But trying to match Jesus to prophecy point for point wouldn't make sense" is exactly the kind of thing I mean, that would be too much Jesus and not enough background. I do think the time period this article covers is a bit wide, but if that's what it takes to cover the background, I can live with it. I think stuff from more than a couple hundred years in either way might do with a bit of trimming down, though, where possible. Pedant 00:05, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

Amgine writes,

a discussion of how Jesus may fit a selection of prophetic criteria is not relevant to the cultural and historical background. Conversely, a discussion of prophetic criteria as perceived by the culture would be relevant.

I too see the difference, and I too agree with Amgine, but with two ammendments. First, in addition to the relevance of prophetic criteria, I do think it is important to include a discussion of how historians re-evaluate Jesus in terms of what we know about prophetic criteria. Do you see the difference? Most people assume that the Gospels' claims about prophetic criteria (and a host of other things, such as the nature of the Pharisees) are true. But those claims may reflect Christian beliefs that developed after Jesus was executed. A discussion of prophetic criteria as perceived by the Jewish culture of the time might lead to a diffeent understanding of Jesus. I think that would belong in the article (if scholars have indeed discussed this). Second, I may disagree with Jwrosenzweig, at least as far as I understand his statement, (or maybe I agree and am trying to spell it out more specifically?)

I think simply noting that the Gospels attribute Messianic claims to Jesus is sufficient on his end

This gets to the crux of the problem, I think: what is the status of the Gospels as historical documents? Writing this article would be easy if we believed that they are entirely authoritative historically, or if we believed that they are entirely spurious. The problem is, most historians I have read take a different view: some elements of the Gospels provide partial evidence of historical events, while other elements express theological and doctrinal claims. For those historians, the trick is separating the two. And in this article, I think we should be concerned with the historical elements, but not the theological ones. "The Gospels attribute Messianic claims to Jesus." Well, if the verses in the Gospels to which John K. refers were written after Jesus' death, then they actually may not be relevant to this article -- not only may they not be evidence of historical and cultural background of Jesus, they may actually disguise or distort that background. Other verses, on the other hand, may very well reflect things people said, did, believed, while Jesus was alive. The basic method historians use is this: if a claim in the Gospel supports later claims by Orthodox Christianity, but have no parallel in Jewish texts from the period (100 BCE-100 CE, let's say), then this claim is not reliable historical evidence. On the other hand, if a claim in the Gospel is consistent with things found in Jewish texts from this period, then it may be reliable historical evidence. Example: there were many "healers" in the Galilee during this period. Now, that doesn't mean Jesus could actually cure a lame person. But it does mean that it is very likely that many Jews at the time believed that Jesus could do this. I am trying to get at a basic point about how "historical and cultural background" might actually be relevant to (informative of) "Jesus." To me, this approach puts historians ahead of the Gospel -- but allows for the fact that many historians selectively rely on the Gospels. I do agree with Jwrosenzweig that this should not be going over Gospel claims point by point. But I think I disagree with John K. -- in a certain way, I think this article is "about" Jesus (what I really think is what I stated above: the article is not about Jesus, nor is it about the Cultural and historical context; it is about the relationship between the two). It is NOT about the "Christian" Jesus or even the Gospels' Jesus. It is about a Jesus that historians have constructed out of historical evidence, which includes a critical reading of the Gospels in terms of all other historical evidence from the period. Slrubenstein

Slr, I don't know that you and I will ever be in perfect agreement about the status of the Gospels as historical documents. :-) I may be wrong, though. Personally I would apply a slightly less stringent test than the comparison with Jewish texts that you propose. However I am willing to allow this may be idiosyncratic on my part, and certainly arguing over that minute level of detail is not a hill I'm willing to die on. If we proceed as you suggest above, I wouldn't object, but I personally would contend that I think the scholarship in New Testament Studies supports dating the Gospels (in the form we now have them) essentially to the latter half of the 1st century AD (and where within those 50 years is anyone's guess). I'm not interested in tussling over such contentious ground, though -- readers can inform themselves if they like. Jwrosenzweig 22:30, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"in this article, I think we should be concerned with the historical elements, but not the theological ones" well said. Pedant 00:05, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

But we do have other, more reliably dated, sources about the culture and history of the period, and those might better serve the purpose of reference texts than the Gospels, when possible. I think that the Gospels, in their present state, are not that suitable historical references. They are paraphrases of translations of translations. or something similarly altered from what the originals were Pedant 00:05, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

Are you missing my point? It can't be that you disagree with me -- this is not a matter of whether you or I think there are or are not more reliable sources, because Misplaced Pages forbids original research. I was trying to explain how the historians who write about the cultural and historical background of Jesus do use the Gospels as historical sources, but critically. Slrubenstein

I do not remember this article being Historiography of the bible, or Jesus according to historians or The historical Jesus, so I don't really see the relevance of whether the gospels are an accurate account of history or not. CheeseDreams 23:10, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Uh-duh, if you are going to provide "historical background" you need historical sources. Jwrosenzweig, I don't really think there is any argument between us -- I certainly don't want one. I was summarizing, perhaps not too well, a view taken by some scholars, e.g. Fredricksen and maybe Sanders. Surely you are informed by other scholars, and their views should be represented in the article as well. Please consider my discussion concerning the Gospels to be an example of one way the material has been handled by historians. This should be represented int the article, but of course not exclusively. The Gospels "in general" are indeed dated to a relatively short time after Jesus was executed. Still, even in the course of a generation, a culture can change (anyone live through the sixties? Or even the seventies?). But the real issue is that we don't have the original Mark. We have many early manuscripts and some of them have textual variations and critics debate whether the book you read when you open up your King James or NRV or whatever is exactly what Mark wrote -- indeed, it may not be (see Bart Ehrman's books e.g. The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture or something like that). I honestly do not think we are that far apart. Or have I misunderstood you? Slrubenstein

Just wanted to note that, aside from CheeseDreams, all of us involved in the discussion in this section seem to essentially be on the same page in terms of how much Jesus should be in the article. There seems to be some significant disagreement about how this actually works out in the details. Pedant - I don't think Slr is saying to use the gospels as the principal historical source to explain the context of Jesus. It seems to me that putting Jesus into context and putting the gospels into context is essentially the same thing, since, aside from a few references here and there, our independent knowledge of Jesus comes pretty much entirely from the Gospels. At any rate, I think the best way to hammer all this out would be to actually work on the article. The bigger question, and perhaps the one about which there is more genuine disagreement, is about organization. FT2's version, which separated out history, politics, and culture into different sections, seemed to me ultimately incoherent and difficult to follow. Such an approach will either result in a great deal of unnecessary repetition, or else a huge amount of incoherence (as here) by splitting up subjects that ought to be discussed together into different sections. At the very least, any article which attempted to separate it out in this manner could not consist largely of Slr's text cut up and separated into incomprehensibility, as it seems to do now. But let's start discussing this. john k 00:41, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Edit conflict

So, not to put too fine a point on it, where are we as regards to what this article is about? It seems we are mostly on the same page about the basics. Here are the points as I see them at the moment (this *does* seem to be a moving target):

Length and depth
I see this as a compact supporting article for Jesus. I believe Slrubenstein sees this as a more nuanced history essay. I am unsure of others' opinions on this matter.
Sources and bias
Slrubenstein views the article as primarily a historian's state of the science, and therefore privileging (probably correctly) academic texts and sources. While a reasonable heuristic, there is certainly a bias in this approach, not least of which is the preponderence of western and christian POV in the available literature. I am not opposed to this approach per se, but the common knowledge base is not to be utterly disregarded either; there is much in the world which does not appear between the pages of books (horrible paraphrase, sorry.) - Amgine 01:00, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Collaboration
There are strong feelings on all sides regarding the current article and how to proceed from this point. Does anyone have suggestions as to how to proceed, working together rather than singularly?

- Amgine 01:00, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Summaries

What on earth is the point of all this summarizing? Why can't we just archive the old material and be done with it? The summarizing just seems to be just one more place where everyone can get into fights. john k 21:46, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The purpose of a summary is to retain important details to the discussion, whilst removing unnecessary asides, and repetition, obfuscation, and junk. As I have pointed out the summary is declared as written by 1 user, and is declared as being contested.

I haven't finished editing the summary, and in fact am doing so over here --- >

in another copy of this page, every time I click save, it will update to the latest stage, so I advise editors not to try to change the summary until I have finished writing it, since it will overwrite their changes and comments without my notice. CheeseDreams 22:52, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Further, removing the summary is a way of supressing the discussion previously held. I will restore it.CheeseDreams 22:52, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I also advise readers to note archive 6, which contains the summaries. I advise you not to duplicate it, since this would be pointless. CheeseDreams 22:52, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think I agree with John. Do any other talk pages have such summarizing? There is NO NEED for summaries; people should just look over the archives. Slrubenstein

Following John's point I am taking most of the "summaries" and just archiving them. Summarizing archived material just defeats the point of archiving. This page keeps getting too long and the solution is to archive. To summarize archived material just makes it even longer. So, let's stop summarizing, and keep archiving. Slrubenstein

I have not "supressed" any summary I have archived it. If anyone wants to see it, go to the archive. Slrubenstein== Summaries == What on earth is the point of all this summarizing? Why can't we just archive the old material and be done with it? The summarizing just seems to be just one more place where everyone can get into fights. john k 21:46, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I haven't finished editing the summary, and in fact am doing so over here --- >

Further, removing the summary is a way of supressing the discussion previously held. I will restore it.CheeseDreams 22:52, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I also advise readers to note archive 6, which contains the summaries. I advise you not to duplicate it, since this would be pointless. CheeseDreams 22:52, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think I agree with John. Do any other talk pages have such summarizing? There is NO NEED for summaries; people should just look over the archives. Slrubenstein

I have not "supressed" any summary I have archived it. If anyone wants to see it, go to the archive. Slrubenstein

Injunctions

1) I would like to ask for an injunction to stop people removing the summary from this talk page, or reverting this talk page. Whilst it may be disputed, I have no objection to people filling in the dispute-of-the-summary section of it. Further, it is important to summarise the points that we do not agree on, what the arguments are, and where we think we should be going. Otherwise we will end up going over the same ground repeatedly.

CheeseDreams 01:11, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

NO. Do not summarize, archive. Slrubenstein

2) I would like to ask for an injunction to suspend the discussion of "is this article a history essay or a set of topics" and "is this this Jesus in background or background of Jesus" for the next 4 days, as this seems to result simply in holding the discussion up with ridiculously verbose comments, and just continuously going round in circles. Could we actually try to make some progress please? There is no point in repeatedly attempting to change the structure or nature of this article when we all know where we stand and that we have made our arguments and have come to the conclusion that the other side isn't listening to reason.

CheeseDreams 01:11, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

NO! You do not dictate to others what to talk about. You are refering to one of the most civil, productive discussions we have had in days and you want to put a stop to it? Just go away. Slrubenstein

- Are we back to one of Cheezedoodle's silly revert wars? Note, her version -- a soi-dissant summary -- is 85 kilobytes. This version (in which a lot of stuff has been archived) is closer to 58 kilobytes. All C is doing by "summarizing" is imposing her point of view (since she chooses what to include and exclude, and how to phrase things) while adding more and more material to the page. Sorry, but that is not Misplaced Pages protocal. First, do not rewrite someone else's words. Second, as an article gets too long, archive (don't summarize). Slrubenstein

Archives

This verges on too much

Suggestions for next set of revisions

Meta-issues: What is the article about?

Summaries

Injunctions