Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:49, 10 March 2015

'Misplaced Pages does not care about you or me being qualified scholars. Misplaced Pages is not a scholarly site, but a summary of sources that speak for themselves. We all have the right to edit, but there are rules to make sure that proper sources are used for appropriate articles and editors are civil. If you want to accuse me of a Christian bias:

Please read this.

At Misplaced Pages we must all try to edit from a NPOV. On occasion my Faith has been called into question. Indeed some have honestly wondered how I can write what I have about the Historical Jesus and still be a Christian. The answer is simple, my relationship with God never had anything to do with history or archeology. Let me explain... Christianity not relevant in our modern world As a young litigation lawyer, I believed in God, but felt that Christianity was no longer relevant in our modern world. Jesus' teachings such as "Thou shalt not kill" "Love your enemy" "You can not serve both God and Money" were just not relevant in these modern times. I believed in the death penalty, war, material wealth. I did unto others before they did unto me. I did not get angry, I got even...and a bit! Spiritual awakening Then, a series of events made me reconsider my beliefs and come to the conclusion that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was still relevant today. I read a great deal about people who still believed in the Gospel, including Mahatma Gandhi, Dr Martin Luther King Jr., etc., etc. This led to a Spiritual awaking that forever changed my life. South Africa It was here, working for Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela that my faith was put to the test. Could love and non violence really bring down the Apartheid government? We were out-gunned, out-matched in every way. What the Archbishop was preaching made no earthly sense. Yet before my eyes I witnessed this racist government fall. As I stepped out in faith on a daily basis, I experienced God in a real way. In my heart I came to believe that the Gospel of Christ was the most powerful force in the Universe. The Roman Empire never stood a chance. Nor did the British Empire in India, or, for that matter, Segregation in the South. Twelve Step Program Several years later I was approached by a group who wanted to use my Church. They explained to me that their program was basic Christianity without many of the offensive "buzz words" that had been added over the years. Confessing that we were miserable sinners became "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol or drugs etc -- that our lives had become unmanageable." Faith was changed to "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Accepting Jesus Christ as our Personal Saviour became "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." Accepting that we had all sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God was changed to "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." Making our confession was reworded to "Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs." Repentance became "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character." Bin saved became "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings." "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all." "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." Continued confession became "Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it." "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." Born Again & Witnessing became "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs." This simplified "Gospel" has transformed the lives of millions. It is truly powerful regardless of the packaging. My faith finds form in Anglicanism because of the freedom from "strict dogma", but I have seen the power of Christ in all denominations. Walking with Christ for these many, many years has given me a faith that allows me to edit Misplaced Pages from a NPOV. The reason is that my faith is not based on the "historical evidence" that has survived to 2014 but rather it is based upon my experience over a very very long time...and now to have a Pope whose focus is love, forgiveness and caring for those in need rather than dogma is a true blessing!

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Content

I am pleased at the consensus that we have been able to reach over the past year. It has been very productive. Indeed, as I review my edit history, it appears that all outstanding issues have been dealt with fairly. A special thanks to the Mediator and Moderator.

Ignocrates, PiCo, Eusebeus All retired! No arbitration???? I did not see this coming. Hope it was nothing I said?? PiCo did say something I think we all should ponder. ...And try to remember, behind every funny user-name there's a real and quite possibly vulnerable human being. Anyway my plan is to work on proposed edits (see User Page) and stay away from conflict, particularly the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. As far as I am concerned, it is time to move on! - Ret.Prof (talk) 03:08, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Now back to my proposed edits

Now that ANI against our Mediator has failed (thankfully!!) it is time to get back to work. I am preparing some proposed edits that I plan to put forward in January. - Ret.Prof (talk) 12:23, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

In the interest of helping you express yourself here, your proposed edits deviate too sharply from the consensus mainspace articles so as to be considered POV forks by some. I think you should focus on the diff in broad strokes as to how your version expresses missing pieces and lay them out in that way. Does this make sense? Andrevan@ 22:45, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Nothing should "deviate" nor am I planning to delete any material. My goal is merely to update and try to make the material more readable. Having said that, your input would be most helpful. You have no bias on the topic. I have now completed my proposed edits re Celsus. Could you:

1. Read Celsus
2. Then read User:Ret.Prof/Celsus which is how I believe the article should read. Is there an improvement re clarity? Am I good to go on NPOV and Reliable Sources. If I get your approval (and a few others) I will start merging my edits by consensus into the Celsus article in January.

Thanks again for your help. Cheers - Ret.Prof (talk) 03:25, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Diff utility

I have just looked at the diff utility. Thanks! If you do not find any major faults in my proposed edits, I think I will use it to build consensus when introducing my proposed edits to the main article in Jan. - Ret.Prof (talk) 03:42, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

What I meant by that is that the changes you make to the article need to start with the current article text, and then change one piece at a time with some justification and discussion on each case. In many cases, if the changes are non-controversial, it will be a simple edit with summary explaining. You can't just rewrite an article from scratch as here. Statements like "It is unlikely that Jesus was as nefarious as Celsus alleges." need a direct source, also. But all in all your draft is predicated on a flawed idea of the editing process. Andrevan@ 04:21, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Then I will stop. - Ret.Prof (talk) 05:21, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Re: systemic bias in religion articles about the early Christian gospels

There may be systemic bias towards a certain modern prevailing academic view on a number of articles about the early Christian Gospels. However, I am not well-versed enough in the topic to tangle with what appears to be a bunch of retired theologians and seminary school teachers, and there definitely does seem to be a consensus that your particular set of views are several standard deviations outside the norm. There is ArbCom precedent that, for example by the Transcendental Meditation editors, suppressing minority well-referenced viewpoints can be a major NPOV problem and grounds for topic bans, etc. I have not kept up with this in the last year or so, but I will note that the Gospel of Matthew article does state clearly that "a few scholars hold that some of these source documents may have been Greek translations of older Hebrew or Aramaic sources" and that "Most scholars agree, following what is known as the "Marcan hypothesis", that the authors of Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source when writing their gospels after the Gospel of Mark was completed (written 60-75 CE)," as well as explain about the situation as to how the modern books were constructed from a composite, etc. This seems like a treatment of the issue which acknowledges the existence of minority viewpoints. I don't think it is necessarily undue weight to discuss minority viewpoints in further depth, but I would wonder why years and years of your life are being spent litigating the weight of your particular viewpoint. I will admit that my sympathies were with you as being picked-on by the group in some particularly bitey and unpleasant ways, and I think there were some fairly substantial issues with the treatment of the subject before. However, I think you misrepresented to me that you were acting as a secular seeker of truth and balance when in fact you are a fervent believer in Hebrew Matthew in a religious sense. I do think the examples of anti-Semitism in the Church could be compelling as pertaining to Matthew, but there doesn't seem to be a smoking gun, so I would like to know what exactly you think is missing in the story here. Andrevan@ 02:49, 10 March 2015 (UTC)