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This is an archive of past discussions about Jesus. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

The phrase "more than 40 years"

It is false to claim that the canonical gospels were written more than 40 years after the death of Jesus. Although there are some people who still hold that view, there is in fact good evidence to show that most of them were written much sooner than that. One simple piece of evidence is the absence of information about the attack on Jerusalem or the martyrdom of the Apostle Paul in the Acts of the Apostles(a book which speak at length about Jerusalem and other martyrs). Because the maryterdom was in AD 65 and jerusalem was attacked in AD 70 it is reasonable to conclude that Luke (which acts is a sequel to) must have been written before that. Also, according to the very commonly accepted 2 source theory of authorship, the gospel of Luke would have been based upon the gospels of Mark and Q which puts their authorship sooner still.

Granted there is evidence that other books (like Revelation) weren't written until almost a century after the death of Christ, and that it wasn't compiled until much later (a fact that people often confuse with the date the bible was written)

Even if you don’t agree with me about the dates of authorship, I think you will have to agree that that information is in far too disputed to be included. Even so I was afraid to delete it myself. This page has a pretty long history and I don’t know if that sentence is a hot button issue!

Still I strongly suggest that that sentence be deleted by someone who has been around for longer than I have.

too long?

Do we really need the note at the top saying the article is becoming "too long"? Doesn't a topic this important deserve a long, extensive article? rvinall 01:21, 07 November 2005 (UTC)

Intro sentence

"The preceding paragraph verges on redundancy in its frequent rewordings of what could easily be a three-line paragraph without all the "However, some scholars..." waffling. Its attempt to be 100% NPOV verge on the ridiculous; stuff like "and some also suggest earlier dates for the entire New Testament than those typically proposed" doesn't merit opening-paragraphs mentioning and should be moved to Historicity or Chronology."

I removed this becasue this is an article not something to post your opinion about. Now, I don't really agree with this above. The NT dates are highly debated and while there is a "Main stream" there are also signficant followings for earlier and later dates. The waffling should be avoided, but it should not leave them out either. Many prominent scholars have differing opinions on Jesus. Despite what I said above, I do believe that the introduction is in poor condidtion, lacks clarity, and doesn't go over much about his life which is what an introduction to a biography is supposed to have. Newbie222 01:38, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Question

Is the introduction's greek stuff, and sentence on some scholars vandalized or is it just my comp not seeing it? Newbie222 01:29, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Broken Unicode

I fixed it in the first few para's but it seems broken throughout. Do we know the reason whey these things happen and an efficient way to fix? ←Humus sapiens←ну? 04:14, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Removal: Satanism

How is Satanism point of view relevant with this article? It looks like its added for a more mischevious benefit. I request for comments and suggest to remove it Yohajohn 05:28, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Satanism is too minor to merit that much cpverage, and it's an incomplete description of Satanistic views anyway; many Satanists believe Jesus was a normal man, or even that he never lived. Move it to religious perspectives on Jesus and leave at most one line in "other perspectives" on this page for Satanism. -Silence 05:53, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Although I don't agree with satanism either, it is still another perspective and should be kept as is Mandeaism and new age movement. But it does not need its own "Religious perspectives" section in the article. --a.n.o.n.y.m 18:52, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

We can't list every religion's view of Jesus; I say we stick to the majors (Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, maybe a couple of others...the major "world religions"). KHM03 18:58, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Satanism still counts as an "Other Perspective" even if it is not given an own religious section. --a.n.o.n.y.m 19:03, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Gain consensus for its addition - if you cannot gain any support then it does not add to the article and should not be included. - Tεxτurε 19:07, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

And we simply can't list everything, or the article would get way too long, unwieldy, and out of hand. KHM03 19:08, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

What are the chances that satanism will gain support on the Jesus page? :) I don't agree with satanism views of Jesus either, but it does not mean they don't count. We should clarify the section rather than remove it. Other perspectives are listed in the section, such as the New Age movement; how is adding satanism any different. --a.n.o.n.y.m 19:10, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Nothing here is about supporting satanism. Article on George Bush have criticisms as do articles on the Catholic Church. However, the view of Jesus by satanists does not add to this article. I'm glad to hear that it is covered in the satanism article. - Tεxτurε 19:16, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't see what the George Bush article has to do with this. Iif other perspectives are listed in the section, such as the New Age movement; how is adding satanism any different? --a.n.o.n.y.m 19:40, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

If the rule is that only the major religions' views on Jesus will be represented, then Satanism should not be included. It's a very small sect.

Gratuitous satanism removed

I have removed the following just added to the article:

Satanists have a variety of attitudes towards Jesus, just as they do towards Satan. Many prefer to mock him, as when Anton Szandor LaVey writes in the Satanic Bible,

Look at a crucifix

What do you see?

Pallid impotence

Hanging from a tree.

Others recognize Jesus as the son of Satan, claiming that Satan came to the Virgin Mary "as an angel of light" and seduced her, then appeared during his adulthood to teach him during his forty days in the wilderness. Others no longer insist on the traditional rivalry between Satanism and Christianity, recognizing that though both religions have tended to stereotype one another and that rather they could perhaps learn from eachother.

The quote is gratuitous and the other text is vague ("variety of attitudes") or unsupported. - Tεxτurε 18:58, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Good job. KHM03 19:02, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Satanism still counts as an "Other Perspective" even if it is not given an own religious section. I don't really see vagueness, but I will clarify it more if you want. See satanism article for details. Although I don't agree with satanism either, it is still another perspective and should be kept as is Mandeaism and new age movement. --a.n.o.n.y.m 19:06, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

You have no consensus for its addition. You need to have some support to override the community. Otherwise, consider adding it to article on satanism. - Tεxτurε 19:08, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with user:Anonymous editor - this is a valid point of view that should definitely be included in the article. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's gratuitous. - ulayiti (talk) 19:17, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

You took my statement out of context. I said the quote was gratuitous and it is when added to this article. I did not say the other text was gratuitous but I did say that it does not add to this article. - Tεxτurε 19:22, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Again, we simply can't list everything, or the article would get way too long, unwieldy, and out of hand. KHM03 19:11, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Then what is holding the other "other perspectives" on the article? Anyone of them could be deleted using the same criteria. --a.n.o.n.y.m 19:14, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

The LaVey quotation is an interesting perspective that could be included. Or maybe we could break out a Miscellaneous views of Jesus article. It should be added to Religious perspectives on Jesus — goethean ॐ 19:17, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Not a good title. "Miscellaneous" is vague and undirected. Are you looking for "Religious views of Jesus"? I don't think that would work if you want to add satanism since it is dubious a religion. Perhaps you should create "Non-traditional views of Jesus". - Tεxτurε 19:26, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay but what then counts as a "non-traditional" view? --a.n.o.n.y.m 19:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

This is why the "other perspectives" section is there. The entire section combined is still smaller than other sections on the page, including mostly about what Christians consider as facts about Jesus. Texture, I propose the following since you found the original version vague. --a.n.o.n.y.m 19:25, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Satanists have a variety of attitudes towards Jesus, just as they do towards Satan. Many prefer to mock him, such as LaVeyan Satanists. As Anton Szandor LaVey writes in the Satanic Bible,

Look at a crucifix

What do you see?

Pallid impotence

Hanging from a tree.

Others recognize Jesus as the son of Satan, claiming that Satan came to the Virgin Mary "as an angel of light" and seduced her, then appeared during his adulthood to teach him during his forty days in the wilderness. Others no longer insist on the traditional rivalry between Satanism and Christianity, recognizing that though both religions have tended to stereotype one another and that rather they could perhaps learn from eachother.

The quote is gratuitous and only for shock value. The remaining text is from one single esoteric pseudo-religion and is not at the appropriate level for this article. It should remain in the satanism article. - Tεxτurε 19:30, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I say move it to Religious perspectives on Jesus. KHM03 19:27, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't see satanism as religious and would not agree to that title. - Tεxτurε 19:30, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Satanism is a religious, semi-religious and/or philosophical movement

Close enough.— goethean ॐ 19:50, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I would just like to point out that the Religious perspectives on Jesus is not a dump where material that is considered "gratuitous" can be thrown. I am, however, still considering the move proposal, but the "Other Perspectives" section seems acceptable to me. I'd like to say that the "other perspectives" section does not call Satanism a religion. --a.n.o.n.y.m 19:33, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Religious perspectives on Jesus is not a dump

You're the only one implying that it is. It's the main article where the less-than-major views are described. Islam and other major religions have around a billion adherents. Satanism isn't in that league. To put the mention in the main article on the subject is not deprecating it. — goethean ॐ 19:48, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, I was just referring to various occasions where disputed material was moved off the main article and into religious perspectives article. I agree that satanism has fewer adherents but it can be comparable to the other perspectives listed in the "other perspectives" section. I still don't know whether it can be moved either because of disagreement whether it should be considered a religion or not. --a.n.o.n.y.m 20:11, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Satanists are a very small and noninfluential group. Why doesn't the article have a paragraph on what the followers of Adi Da think of Jesus? That's why there's no Satanism section.— goethean ॐ 20:31, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

What do you propose then Goethean. So far I have seen you say yes it should be included and no it shouldn't. I told you that many don't consider satanism a religion that is why it can't be moved without discussion (read texture's message). Also there are so many things that are considered "satanism", but aren't. What do you propose? --a.n.o.n.y.m 20:38, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. The text on Satanism should be added to Religious perspectives on Jesus, not the article under discussion.— goethean ॐ 21:19, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't have a problem calling Satanism a religion, I just think that the "Religious perspectives" page is a more appropo place to put the discussion. This page should really only mention the major world religions. I have too much respect for, say, Islam, to suggest that a tiny religion like Satanism should receive equal coverage in an NPOV encyclopedia. KHM03 20:32, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, in that case, adding it to the religious perspectives page won't be any different will it? It will be alongside major religions like Islam and Christianity. --a.n.o.n.y.m 20:38, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

As I said at the beginning of this discussion: move it to the religious perspectives page. The fact that not 100% of people think that Satanism is a religion is irrelevant; numerous people do. If we weren't including on the page anything that people dispute the religiousness of, we wouldn't have Buddhist views there either!! Additionally, it's absurd to exclude any philosophical view as long as the religious perspectives page mentions atheism and agnosticism and even irreligion as being "religious"; remove those and add Satanism. Satanism is too minor to merit more than the briefest of mentionings on this page, but it's significant enough to merit a section its own on the Religious perspectives on Jesus page, where many religions are given sections that aren't given much space on the Jesus page (like Buddhism, Bahá'í, and Urantia). -Silence 21:15, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

New template proposal

Although the Jesus article already has a lot of templates on it (the Jesus one, the Christianity one, the Apostles one), I think we should make a new one, jesuslife or jesusevents or gospelevents or gospeljesus, for events and periods believed by various groups (or, if we want to simplify things, which might be a good idea, just have it be a list of events described in the Gospels, though we may also want to include stuff from Christian lore and other Biblical documents, like "Child Jesus") to have occurred during Jesus' life (assuming he existed at all). This template would include links to the following articles:

• Chronology of Jesus' birth and death (should be moved to Chronology of Jesus' life and made the main article for this template, and the only one also linked to from the Jesus template)
• Detailed timeline for Jesus
• Miracles of Jesus (debatable)
• Nativity
• Child Jesus
• Baptism of Jesus
• Temptation of Christ
• Transfiguration
• Passion
• Harrowing of Hell
• Resurrection of Jesus
• Ascension

I recommend that this template be at the bottom of the articles using it; at the top, it would deprive too many good articles of good images, and the middle would make it too hard to find. However, one could make an argument for making this template the same style and position as the Jesus template, and perhaps even listing it immediately below the template in one or two cases (like on the detailed timeline page), so that it easily flows with the other template and takes up very little space. Another possibility, of course, would be to add all these links to the Jesus template itself, but this would make the template far too large and screw up the layout in a lot of pages, and would be unnecessary; but we could achieve the same effect with a distinct template on some pages, if we wanted to. As a side note, keep Template:Liturgical year in mind in discussing possible layouts, since that template includes three of the items on the above list (Nativity, Transfiguration, Ascension).

Accordingly, the following articles would be removed from the Jesus template: Miracles of Jesus, Resurrection of Jesus. This would free up more space for other large, significant Jesus articles that don't directly fall under the jurisdiction of another Jesus sub-article and thus merit inclusion. Possible candidates for addition to the main Jesus template include genealogy of Jesus, Aramaic of Jesus (title a bit awkward; "Language of Jesus"?), etc. -Silence 21:15, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Jesus without the Resurrection is like PB&J without the PB. I say we keep the Resurrection article in the template...I feel that strongly. KHM03 21:16, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

You could get rid of the Harrowing of Hell; that's not nearly as important. KHM03 21:17, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I included "harrowing of Hell" because it's such a high-quality, informative, detailed article, and because it does deal with a significant part of the beliefs regarding Jesus' life, even if very little of the Gospels themselves goes into it. Conversely, I was reluctant to include a few of the other articles on the list because they're still comparatively small and dinky.. but I figured that including them would help improve the articles anyway! So, we've got one vote for removing "Harrowing of Hell" and keeping the other eleven links, but for keeping "Resurrection" in the main Jesus template too despite the redundancy caused. Incidentally, keeping Resurrection on both templates is something which I strongly disagree with doing; of course you can have Jesus without the Resurrection, and just about all Muslims, other religions, and secular historians do! The Jesus template is already too Christian-centric even with the removals I've proposed, keeping "Resurrection" on both would make the problem infinitely worse. Plus it's already discussed and linked to on other articles we've got on the Jesus template, particularly "New Testament views"!

Anyway, does anyone else have any views on what to include or not include (and whether to make the new template at all), before any work on it begins? -Silence 01:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

But Silence, the Resurrection is the crucial piece for the Christian understanding of Jesus. Take it away and you don't have the Christian POV anymore. It really needs to stay; it's crucially important. KHM03 10:02, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

It's a subdivision (resurrection) of a subdivision (gospel account of Jesus' life) of a subdivision (christian views of Jesus) of a subdivision (religious perspectives on Jesus) of the Jesus article. That may be important to your specific beliefs, but in terms of article organization, it's far from first-tier. We'd be far better off linking to Christian views of Jesus to give a much fuller and truly, indisputably crucial "piece for the Christian understanding of Jesus"—the whole damn thing! Why settle for the biggest slice of the pie when you've got room for the whole pie? Of course, if we added Christian views (or kept Resurrection, which we certainly shouldn't) we'd need to add Isa, and if we added that we'd open the floodgate to Jewish views, Hindu views, etc., and all of those pages are well-covered by the "religious perspectives" article link—even if the resurrection is crucial to understanding Jesus in Christianity, we don't need any more links to articles on religious or Christian understandings of Jesus!!! Even without Resurrection, half a dozen of the articles already listed there deal directly with Jesus in Christianity or, in religious perspectives' case, religion in general. The whole point of the new template is to make it much easier to navigate events of Gospel-Jesus' life, from Reincarnation to Nativity to everything else! Those are the articles in Resurrection's family of articles, not the general infobox for broad subjects concerning Jesus! How important you think this or that is is irrelevant; importance doesn't excuse the redundancy, severe POV bias, mistaken topic grouping, and poor planning and organization of listing "Resurrection" twice just because you think it's special. Once is more than enough, and will make it easier to access and access other articles from anyway! It's not being doubled if we make this template. -Silence 10:19, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

So...it's OK to ignore the group with whom Jesus is most frequently identified...Christians? Understand that in Christianity, Jesus' Resurrection is vital; for Christians, we wouldn't still be talking about Jesus 2000 years after he lived had there been no Resurrection. It is absolutely not only first tier, but right on top. No question. It would be like making a Mohammed template and leaving out the Koran...or making a Ronald Reagan template and leaving out the Presidency...or making a John Lennon template and leaving out the Beatles. Not only would those templates be inordinately POV, they would be extremely poor and inaccurate. If we leave out the Resurrection, which is the piece from the Christian perspective, then there's no point in making a template. KHM03 11:23, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Have you not been paying attention for this entire discussion? We're not ignoring the Christians! They already have over half the Jesus infobox exclusively to express their own views!! And now I'm recommending we create another infobox, specifically and entirely for Christian beliefs regarding Jesus' life!! And your response is to claim that we're "ignoring the group with whom Jesus is most frequently identified (i.e. most frequently identified BY CHRISTIANS), Christians"? Just because I don't agree that we should REPEAT a random event in Jesus' life that you happen to be particularly fond of that's already indirectly linked from the top template in numerous ways anyway and that clearly is only an integral part of the second template, not the first?

It is absolutely not only first tier, but right on top. - Absolute and utter nonsense. If that was true, we'd have "resurrection" as the very first subsection on the Jesus page, and it would take up half the page of the entire Jesus article. Look at the space it has instead.

It would be like making a Mohammed template and leaving out the Koran - A blatantly false comparison. Mohammad is not to the Koran as Jesus is to the Resurrection, Mohammad is to the Koran as Jesus is to the New Testament - and we already have a link to the New Testament views on Jesus!

or making a Ronald Reagan template and leaving out the Presidency - Another false comparison. Ronald Reagan is to the Presidency as Jesus is to his Preaching, and we mention that quite fully as well.

or making a John Lennon template and leaving out the Beatles. - Another false comparison. John Lennon is to the Beatles as Jesus is to the Trinity, and we mention the Trinity quite extensively in the Christianity on Jesus section, which is linked to both New Testament views and Religious views. Not a single one of these comparisons is even remotely equivalent to the relationship between Jesus and Jesus' resurrection.

Not only would those templates be inordinately POV, they would be extremely poor and inaccurate. - Backwards. They're POV if we repeat the resurrection in every single template that's at all related to Jesus, rather than giving all views and all significant articles equal coverage.

If we leave out the Resurrection, which is the piece from the Christian perspective, - I can't even tell anymore whether you're just exaggerating enormously or outright lying. The piece from the Christian perspective is Christian views of Jesus, not Resurrection of Jesus. Resurrection of Jesus is an important part of the Christian views article; it is not the article itself.

then there's no point in making a template. - No one has suggested leaving out the Resurrection. The suggestion has been to move the Resurrection to a new template that will be specifically focused on the Resurrection and events like it, thus allowing the Resurrection to be linked from more articles, and ones that are infinitely more closely linked to it than the ones that currently have it. You aren't satisfied with this, however, and want to have both worlds at the same time. Not happening; there is no practical reason to list "resurrection" twice and not list any other article related to Jesus twice. To do so would be the definition of lack of NPOV.

Anyway. Here's the current template, quick little simple thing, comment and revise:

Events in the
Life of Jesus according to the canonical gospels
Early life Annunciation Visitation Joseph's dreams Nativity Virgin birth Annunciation to the Shepherds Adoration of the Shepherds Circumcision Adoration of the Magi Flight into Egypt Massacre of the Innocents Presentation Return to Nazareth Finding in the Temple
Ministry Baptism Temptation Commissioning the Twelve Apostles Sermon on the Mount / Plain Beatitudes Lord's Prayer Miracles Parables Prayer Rejection Transfiguration
Passion Triumphal entry into Jerusalem Temple cleansing Second coming prophecy Anointing Last Supper Farewell Discourse Paraclete promised Agony in the Garden Kiss of Judas Arrest Sanhedrin trial Mocking Herod's court Pilate's court Flagellation Crown of Thorns Via Dolorosa Crucifixion Descent from the Cross Entombment Harrowing of Hell
Resurrection Empty tomb Appearances Noli me tangere Road to Emmaus Great Commission Ascension
In rest of the NT Road to Damascus John's vision
Portals: Christianity Bible
v t e

-Silence 11:50, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Silence -- I suggest you review WP:NPA and WP:Civility. I have accused you of nothing, but have strongly advocated for the inclusion of the Resurrection on a Jesus template. I don't think that is unreasonable nor does it justify your tone/language. My view remains that Jesus and his Resurrection need to be tied together at every turn, because no one can understand the Christian view of Jesus (and thus the best known view on the planet) without that topic. I am sincerely sorry if you misunderstood, if I misunderstood, or if I misrepresented my position. KHM03 11:59, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I apologize. I was unnecessarily harsh and pointed in my above statements. I stand by the meaning, and retract the form through which they were delivered. Until you counter my above points, however, they stand; the Resurrection is already covered thanks to the linking to both Christian views of Jesus (via Religious perspectives on Jesus) and New Testament view on Jesus' life. Two indirect links is better than most articles get; also including a direct link would be beyond redundant. Moreover, it would be POV and easily disputable, because it would:

(1) leave the door open to requiring that we also list other major events in Jesus' life according to the Gospels in the template, even though this whole discussion is about making a new template just for events in Jesus' life according to the Gospels; having Resurrection in the list means that we have no counter-argument against anyone who wants to also have —who are we to rule that X aspect of Jesus' life is the only important aspect, and that X religion is the only important religion? My solution solves all of those problems; yours intensifies them enormously.

(2) leave the door open to requiring that we also list specific core, vital beliefs about Jesus' belief from other religions, such as Isa, or list specific core, vital aspects of various theories about the historicity of Jesus, like the synoptic problem. All of those are enormously important to gaining a full understanding of how people view Jesus in this world, but all of them (Isa, Synoptic problem, Resurrection of Jesus) are terrible choices to include in the main Jesus infobox because they're already linked to indirectly by the infobox: Isa through Religious views, Synoptic problem through Historicity, Resurrection through New Testament views. We should not play favorites whenever we can so very easily avoid it.

The qualification for inclusion in the main Jesus infobox is not that "no one can understand the Christian view of Jesus without that topic", as you suggest; if it was, we would also need to have Trinity and four or five other articles in the main Jesus section. No, this is not in any way related to the purpose of the Jesus infobox, which is not to list every Christian view of Jesus that is vital to understand how Christians view Jesus, but to as briefly as humanly possible give the minimum number of articles that are absolutely required to provide access to all major topics directly related to Jesus. The longer the infobox is, the more inconvenience is causes for the entire series of Jesus articles by giving us less adaptability, less space for images and other infoboxes, making it harder to navigate and align with the text and everything else. We should only include a link to something in the Jesus infobox if we absolutely must because it's not a link that we could expect anyone to find by looking at all the other pages already linked to. Resurrection of Jesus fails that test: it is mentioned and linked to very clearly on New_Testament_view_on_Jesus'_life#The_resurrection, and is quite obviously a sub-page of that article that would still be a part of "New Testament view on Jesus" if it hadn't gotten so large. So, our best option is clear, and ten times as clear now that we're working on a template that will easily provide a link to the Resurrection and other major events on any Jesus page we want(!): remove Resurrection from the Jesus template (it's already a sub-page of the articles listed there) and add it to the Jesus-in-the-Gospels template (where it's much more valuable and topical). Where's the problem here? -Silence 12:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

"Racial perspective"

I removed this bit: Jesus is often viewed from a racial perspective, thus, several African Americans view Jesus as being of African descent. Similarly, Middle Eastern potrayals and some Hispanic connotations stem from different racial perspectives. Furthermore, the racial conflict in regards to Jesus often conflicts that of another, sometimes causing racial tension. It's not that I think this topic shouldn't be discussed, but the wording here seemed unclear to me and there were no sources. Now that there's a Race of Jesus article covering the same (I think) idea, maybe there's a nice way to introduce the topic and link to the main article. Friday (talk) 18:52, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I am very tired of having to pull tight ropes around here. Everything I do is rejected, and as far as I am concerned, Friday, you treat vandals better than me. Molotov (talk)
19:56, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I edited the sentence a bit for clarity and added it; I did not link it to the main "race" article (my bad)...maybe someone else could do that. I support this brief mention of Jesus on this page; it has value for a number of reasons. KHM03 19:57, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I deleted it all together. I came here to help edit...not to have my intelligence insulted by people always telling me I am wrong, here, here, and here. Molotov (talk)
20:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I highly support keeping this section in the article. I have made a small section for the race material and linked it. --a.n.o.n.y.m 21:07, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

This sentence: "These unique portrayal are sometimes concerning to those of European heritage, and certain portrayals have been the source of controversy." Can someone please diagram the first clause? It just makes no sense to me. I am not contesting the clause's accuracy or objectivity, I just have no idea what it means. (Although I am sure that once I understand what it means, I will ask what the source is, or is this an example of original research?) Slrubenstein | Talk 20:58, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I think I understand why the first clause is problematic for you. "Concerning" is being used here as an adjective, I think. Perhaps something like "These unique portrayals are sometimes a cause of concern to those of European heritage.." is more clear. Or I could be very wrong. Friday (talk) 21:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I did a touch-up. Hope it's not taken as an insult

Let's be clear. According to orthodox Christian theology Jesus's birth was a miracle. He had no human father. So conventional arguments about his race are irrelevant on this view. God could have chosen to incarnate himself looking like Bjorn Borg, Ho Chi Minh or Eddie Murphy. Artists have generally been working within orthodox Christian cultures and so have accepted this position, using whatever body-type was considered ideal at the time. It was not until the 19th century that ethnic specificity came to be an issue, and even then the assumption remined that his "race" was a matter of divine choice, not of anthropological history. Among some non-believers the "Aryan Jesus" did have a brief vogue, but was always a minority view. It was not uncommon to portray Jesus as blond at this time, but that was more because of assumptions about the "ideal look" than arguments about race. Paul B 21:38, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Let's. The article Jesus is not about what orthodox Christian theology thinks Jesus' race is—it's about Jesus. In-depth exploration of the specific views of various Christian denominations and noteworthy Christian individuals regarding what Jesus' race is belong on Race of Jesus and, to a lesser extent, Christian views of Jesus; they are extraneous here. We should be working on further trimming down Jesus at this point by transferring information to other articles, not cramming every single detail onto one page. The information you've supplied so far would make an extent beginning to a "Racism" subsection of the "Race of Jesus" article, what with your claims about Jesus being depicted as a Caucasian because that was considered the "ideal" race at the time, rather than just because it's what the artists were most familiar with. Incidentally, I'd love to see some sources for "and even then the assumption remined that his "race" was a matter of divine choice"; not only do I find it unlikely that that was the dominant assumption even into the 19th century, but I don't even think it was a common one, despite the prevalence of racism. -Silence 21:51, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I confess I can't make sense of your argument here. The article discusses all important views of Jesus – which includes both religious and secular ones (I am a non-believer as it happens). Hence the opening paragraph and sections on religious views etc. If race is to be discussed – and I did not introduce the topic – then these varied perspectives should be included. A brief line is all that's needed here, and that's all I provided. A lot more could be a added to the Race of Jesus article. You say that this article should be 'trimmed down', well that's just your view. It's not a fact. The point about blondness above is not that white Europeans were thought to represent an "ideal race". It's to do with conventional norms of beauty. However several writers including Blumenbach – the inventor of the concept of a "Caucasian race" – did believe that humans were created white. The notion that dark skin was a result of a curse on the sons of Ham was commonplace. See Hamitic and Curse of Ham

BTW, much of this section was badly written and semi-coherent. Many of my alterations were copy-editing. The last sentence on artists was designed to improve the article by creating a smooth lead-in to the section on artistic representations of JC. The picture is a reconstruction of a specific skull, not an attempt toportray a "typical Jew". Paul B 22:53, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it provides all important views of Jesus—and you have yet to provide any citations showing that the view that Jesus is one race or another. However, I've been lenient and allowed the passage to stay, as long as it is as clear and brief as possible; please go to Race of Jesus for any elaboration you want to make on it, since, as I said, the Jesus series of articles should convey every important perspective on Jesus in-depth, but the Jesus article itself should avoid going into anything in-depth that fits better onto another, related article anyway specifically created for in-depth analysis and presentations like this.

I'm also already well-acquainted with the Curse of Ham and other ancient racist doctrines of Jewish and Christian thought, and with the origin of the "Caucasian" label. Again, all these matters go into Race of Jesus wherever they are relevant to this specific topic. Also, you are incorrect in saying that the recreation was not based partly on "textual sources" and was not an attempt to recreate a typical Jew living in the time and place of Jesus; please read. -Silence 23:51, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Your comments merely repeat what I have already said – that I provided a brief summary, but that detailed discussion should go in the Race of Jesus article. That is no justification for blind reverts to versions containing garbled sentences. The link you provide only refers to a textual source being used to justify the fact that the hair is short, which is hardly relevant to race. It also makes it clear that the reconstruction was not presented as that of Jesus himself. On the central issue – the important point to make here is that anthropological arguments about race don't apply within orthodox Christian theology, since JC's conception is considered to be miraculous. His physique is therefore a matter of theological debate. The argument that his physique must have been ideal can of course be co-opted for racist ideologies, but is not in itself racist and should not be characterised as such. To do so is misleading. Paul B 00:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

No, the hair issue was only an example of how they used textual and many other sources to help reconstruct the face, not "just a skull" as you've repeatedly claimed. And of course it wasn't of Jesus himself, but it was an attempt to get as accurate a picture as possible of Jesus, and states so many times throughout the article; its stated goal was not "make an image of a random guy who lived in the same general time and place as Jesus".

His physique is only "therefore a matter of theological debate" within certain parts of orthodox Christian theology, and this article is not just about what some orthodox Christian theologians think, or, indeed, just about what religious people think, which is more important to briefly summarize than a single part of a single denomination of a single religion's attitudes towards Jesus' race which you insist on including jsut because you apparently think that it's the only "important" religious view. Oy. Just not including any here makes in any but the most briefest of overview-allusions makes much more sense, as it avoids any possibility of the biased mentioning of one religious POV in place of another that has equal weight and likelihood.

The argument that his physique must have been ideal is not in itself racist (and none of the versions of the paragraphs that have ever been on this page have ever suggested that it was, that's a result of your misreading), but the argument that his race was one of the those physical attributes that could be made "ideal" is inherently racist, which is all the statements have been saying. But, as the discussion below makes clear, including the statement at all is a bad idea because of the amount of explanation necessary to clarify; simply going into depth on the matter on Race of Jesus without bothering to give a half-hearted and half-sided summary on this page is without a doubt the best course of action. -Silence 05:58, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

New edits

I've trimmed down "religious perspectives" greatly; there's no need to have it be four times longer than every other section in the article when we have a whole article called religious perspectives on Jesus that's still got more than enough room to go into every religion's views in enormous depth.

I've also made a lot of other edits, like implementing the template changes we discussed above, merging and renaming "Chronology" and "Timeline" articles and reorganizing those sections into the Life section (which we should keep "according to Gospels" on for as long as they obviously deal exclusively with summarizing what the Gospels claim happened, not even bothering to critically analyze most of it), moving around a few images (a pop culture image of Jesus is appropriate in "artistic depictions", and the Baptism image works better in the section that describes that, and once I'd moved that there wasn't enough space for the Jesus-at-12 image, so I've moved that to the specific article about that event until the text's expanded enough to merit it). Also added a new image and moved "races of Jesus" into the section on Jesus' background. Lots of stuff like that. I'm also seriously considering moving "religious perspectives" to near the end of the article, and possibly. Probably what would make the most sense would be 1. Intro, 2. Life, 3. Historicity, 4. Background, 5. Names and titles (or possibly 2, if shortened?), 6. Religious perspectives, 7. Aristic portrayals.

I think I'm also going to have to start a new fight to get Historical Jesus deleted, and to instead give all articles on Jesus a bit of a "historical view" by interjecting where historians dispute X event or Y claim wherever relevant. We don't have a "historical Muhammad" article, now do we? Historicity of Jesus does that job well enough, and there's far too much redundancy right now anyway: Jesus, Historical Jesus, Christian views of Jesus, and New Testament view on Jesus' life all basically tell the exact same story, over and over again. -Silence 09:52, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, also cut down the redundant sections on Historicity and "Birth", "Death" and "Ressurection". --a.n.o.n.y.m 15:43, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Which redundant sections on Historicity, specifically? Are you referring to the page, or the section? I think there's certainly a lot to trim on the Historicity and Life sections of Jesus; the pages, though, I dunno. -Silence 15:48, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

The sections in this article. Also, "Life according to Gospels" section is long and ofcourse features only one perspective of Jesus. Since there is already a main article on this, it needs some major trimming. Thanks - a.n.o.n.y.m 16:00, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree, though of course in some ways the "Life" section should be one of the longest, since it's the one that actually analyzes what happened in Jesus' life; ideally, this section will eventually become the centerpiece of the article, the first section after the introductory paragraphs, where readers get an idea of what people think happened during Jesus' life, if anything, and then after that comes the analysis of various perspectives on Jesus, analysis of textual evidence on Jesus, Jesus' name and background, etc.; all of that should be secondary to the actual person Jesus, as he is understood.

But for that to happen, first we need to interject much more neutrality and a wider perspective on Jesus' life than it currently has, including other major views on the matter, such as historical and Islamic ones. I'm not sure we need to trim down the section, per se; if anything, I was thinking we should expand a lot of it, since it seems to give only a bare-bones analysis of the part of Jesus' life between his baptism and his crucifixion, putting undue weight on claims of his resurrection and ascension. What we definitely do need, however, is something that's provided nowhere else in all of Misplaced Pages: an NPOV recounting of Jesus' life. This would be more valuable than simply summarizing the "New Testament view on Jesus' life" article anyway (though if we did merely plan do that, I'd agree on trimming the section significantly; that's not what I hope this section to eventually become, though). -Silence 17:09, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Well many of the sentences are just minor details that can be moved to the main articles. But I agree that other major views on each section should be added in order to expand. However, if we do this right, we can end up with sections the same size as they are now but offering more diverse views. --a.n.o.n.y.m 06:47, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Images

As I've said before, this article has too little image diversity. The purpose of images on Misplaced Pages is not only to look pretty, but also to actually provide new information that is specifically useful for the article they appear in! When every image is of basically the same thing on a page, that isn't happening. Previously, out of the ten images on this page, nine were specifically Christian (and the other one is barely of any informative value at all, just showing a generic image of sand dunes), eight of these were European art from the 11th to 17th centuries, seven were paintings (the others being the sculpture and the mosaic), and five were rather generic portraits of Jesus not depicting any specific event, often nearly identical. Considering how many dozens of articles we have in Jesus to use all those images in, and considering the enormous variety of images throughout human history we have available to us to choose from, the Jesus article itself should be a paragon of image selection. I've started to try to fix this, replacing an image of a relatively minor event in Jesus' childhood (though it should be re-added if we expand the section enough for there to be enough room for the image) with a more unusual image depicting an event that had previously had no illustrations: the Resurrection.

I also removed a generic Byzantine image that is nearly identical to the first image on the page and contributes no new information, moved the "Head of Christ" painting to the Religious views on Jesus page (and I think I'll move it to Christian views too) because it didn't contribute information (either in the image or in the description of the image, whereas the new one at least adds the latter) on the many diverse views on Jesus in different religions, and replaced it with an image of Gandhi, who is extremely often compared to Jesus and is one of the most famous non-Christians in history to base his philosophies directly on what he believed to be Jesus'—the only person I can think of who could rival Gandhi for "frequency of comparisons to Jesus" and "noteworthy person who claimed to base beliefs on Jesus' teachings" is Hitler, but I figured that Gandhi would be a much more appropriate, and much less controversial, addition to the section, as well as having the benefit of not being a Christian. If anyone finds any other images appropriate to the specific section, I welcome you to add that image in place of the Gandhi one, since I concede that the image itself doesn't directly relate to Jesus or Christian belief, rather pointing out an important non-Christian religious person who was inspired by Jesus; a better image, one that actually illustrates some non-Christian belief regarding Jesus, would be superb. But until someone does find a better image, I request that the Gandhi image not be removed, since whether that image is ideal or not, it's certainly appropriate, certainly adds some much-needed diversity to the image selection, and certainly helps balance the page out more by putting an image in an area that has previously been a long stretch of un-illustrated text, making it more likely to be read. So: replace the image if you want, but don't just remove it and leave that area of the page barren.

Anyway, I also added an interesting image of an attempt to scientifically reconstruct Jesus' approximate appearance, and added a movie photo of Passion of the Christ, the most famous recent artistic depictions of Jesus. All of this has helped greatly with giving the Jesus page more balance, and makes it look less like a generic gallery of European Medieval Christian paintings. There's still even more that can be done, though: I could see the second image on the page being replaced with an image that actually relates to historicity in some way and is less redundant to the other Jesus images, and some better image illustrating Jesus' background than Image:Judea.jpg would be great, though I'm in no great hurry to fix either problem now that the major concerns of the page's images have been solved; it's just something to keep in mind as we continue to work on the page, and eventually improve when a good replacement image surfaces. -Silence 17:09, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

It strikes me as really strange to not have an image to accompany the introduction to this article, and rather to have a list of links in a box (note my thoughts on "see also" templates). I realize that on controversial topics the idea of choosing a single NPOV image is going to be a challenge (what could you put down that everyone agrees about with Jesus? A photo of Jerusalem?) But the article looks ugly without making a choice. I think that picking a nice picture and saying "hey, this is only one of many popular Images of Jesus" in the caption is a better way to go—especially since that article exists Metaeducation 19:27, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree that which image to choose is a matter of controversy; it's obvious without saying anything that any image we choose won't be representative of everyone's views, anymore than an image of Siddhartha Gautama or Moses or Santa Claus will be universally accepted. However, I think this article works fine without an image at the top; many featured articles don't have an image at the top because they work better without them. While I agree with you as a general principle that images are very important, I think the top of this article works perfectly fine layout-wise as is. If you disagree, just pick an image and start experimenting with layouts for the top of the article that incorporate a high-quality image, all the information currently conveyed at the top of the article, and the infobox. (Moving the infobox down too much is a bad idea, as we've already done that with the Christianity and other infoboxes that would normally be at this article's top.. wait, I think someone removed the Christianity template.. oh well, anyway.) If it works well enough, we'll keep it. If it doesn't, we'll keep this. Experimenting never hurts. (Oh, I just came up with an interesting possibility to solve the lack-of-image problem: have you considered adding an image to the top of the Template:Jesus template?) -Silence 21:51, 22 October 2005 (UTC)