Talk:Jesus

Major changes. I look forward to reading the final product. It will be important to analyze the changes after this major reworking is complete. Happy writing and best of luck on this huge article! -Tom Kelly (Talk) 00:58, 15 January 2007 (CST)

This one has gone from bad to worse - so far. Stephen Ewen 21:53, 16 January 2007 (CST)

will the history of jesus according to the Christian gospels still be included in the final product? [comment added on 19 January 2007 by User:Thomas E Kelly ]

Feel free to join in... I had assumed that each of the gospels would have its own article. How much time do we have, anyway? Bei Dawei

I don't think there really is a time limit. It's going to be a long time before CZ has a ton of articles so just work hard on a few articles that you are passionate about. The reason I liked the history according to the gospel is because a lot of people won't actually go to the gospel subpages but will read this article. I think it's important anyone else? -Tom Kelly (Talk) 14:00, 19 January 2007 (CST)

Yes, I think it is absolutely important. Stephen Ewen 19:47, 19 January 2007 (CST)

I just want to point out that the article in its present shape is horribly biased. The very first thing the article says under "Sources" is: "The major historical difficulty concerning Jesus is that the most important sources of information, the four canonical gospels, are works of sectarian propaganda. As historical sources, they suffer from the following shortcomings: ..."

Pathetically biased--and I say this as a confirmed nonbeliever, by the way.

And the first sentence is bizarre in its description of Jesus as "a Palestinian Jewish religious figure": "Jesus (or Jesus Christ) was a Palestinian Jewish religious figure who was executed by the Roman government by crucifixion around AD 30 or 33. He is chiefly remembered as the (perhaps unwitting) founder of Christianity, and as a prophet of Islam."

Sure, he was Jewish, sure he lived in what is now called Palestine, but surely these aren't the first most notable things to say about Jesus.

In every controversial subject, the only way to proceed according to the neutrality policy is to begin with a vanilla description (such as "Jesus (or Jesus Christ) is generally regarded as the founder of the Christian religion") and then proceed to describe the controversy as neutrally and engagingly as possible.

This article does something quite different. It pretends that skepticism is equivalent to neutrality, when that is so obviously (since it is a topic about which so many people have faith) incorrect. The Wikipedians have certainly completely gotten the neutrality policy wrong in this case. --Larry Sanger 21:38, 19 January 2007 (CST)

I not trying to privilege "skeptical" views of Jesus here, just start from the least-contested and proceed to the more controversial. (A common approach in Jesus Studies, by the way.) While other Palestinian Jews were crucified at this time, this opening does serve to pin him down to as close as we can come to a generally-agreed historical event. Anything else, such as a description of his teachings, would be far more iffy, and in any case less influential as a sheer symbolic image.

The very next line does describe him as the Christian founder (and Muslim prophet). And two more paragraphs of the introduction cover the essentials of how they see Jesus. Later sections should go into even more detail. In what way is this inadequate? Is it a matter of language, or of presentation? I'm afraid I don't understand your objection.

On rereading, I think you object to the phrase "sectarian propaganda." "Sectarian" means that the gospels were created and promoted by a religious sect. "Propaganda" means that it is material meant for distribution, in order to bring other people around to their views. Both are statements of fact, though I admit the phrase does sound jarring. (But then, you don't want to sound neutral anyway, it seems...?)

Or perhaps I should ask, How would you organize or express the basics of Jesus? Do you think we should begin with a summary of the gospels? Bei Dawei