Talk:Cultural and historical background of Jesus

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Contents 1 Archives 2 The origin, scope and focus of this article 2.1 the above is false 2.2 no it isn't 2.3 see for yourself 2.3.1 How about this 2.4 Intro/opening 3 Proposals

[edit] Archives

• Archive 1 has been lost.

It contained discussion prior to the big dispute. We do not know where it is.

restored archive 1 I think this is accurate, it might overlap the later archives... I haven't summarised it Pedant 21:01, 2004 Dec 20 (UTC)

I'm not sure there ever was an archive 1; the link was created by Sam Spade on Nov 7, at 20:25; but he never deleted any material from the talk page. Ben Standeven

• /Archive 2 -- (Amgine 20:59, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC))

votes; son of man; 10 key issues in dispute; the meaning of messiah

• /Archive 3 -- (Amgine 00:31, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC))

votes; debate over "new messiah" paragraphs, meaning of messiah

• /Archive 4 -- (CheeseDreams 20:29, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC))

FT2's version vs. SLR's version; due process

• /Archive 5 -- CheeseDreams 21:35, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

increasingly verbose discussion of outstanding issues

• /Archive 6 --CheeseDreams 22:36, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

summaries of the above; meta-debate about this talk page

• /Archive 7 --Slrubenstein

Please be aware that Archive 7 is infact predominantly a duplicate of archive 6 caused by an editor acting too hastily to suppress information. CheeseDreams

• /Archive 8 --Slrubenstein

very similar to archive 7

• /Archive 9 --Slrubenstein

very similar to archive 7 (again)

• /Archive 10 -- CheeseDreams 22:04, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

predominantly a repetition of events in archives 1-6 - summarised here

• /Archive 11 -- Ben Standeven 01:14, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

questions about use of the word "fundamentalist", listing of CheeseDreams' still outstanding objections to SLR's version, listing of SLR's objections to FT2's version that CheeseDreams countered by his earlier list. The impasse caused is discussed below.

• /Archive 12 -- Slrubenstein 20:39, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ben Standeven's take on the differences between SLR and FT2's versions; FT2 and SLR work out compromises. CheeseDreams views on Cohen and Crossan.

• /Archive 13 Arch O. La ^{Grigory Deepdelver} 07:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC): Archiving everything over a year old.

surrounding towns; Bar Kochba revolt and Christianity; neutrality; Wesley and the four Gospels; anonymos user and Cheese Dreams; TY; Dealing with editwarriors; Refreshing Objection?; explaining my recent revert; announcing new policy proposal; dates; Does anyone really object to the Jew infobox?; Sanders

• /Archive 14 Arch O. La ^{Grigory Deepdelver} 07:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC):Archiving everything over six months old.

Current round of edits (Oct 2005); my changes; two changes; Rule by proxy.

• /Archive 15 Arch O. La ^{Grigory Deepdelver} 07:49, 5 September 2006 (UTC): To June 1, 2006.

March 2006 round of edits; Jesus and Good Article Collaboration of the week; Jesus article, the cultural and historical background, and sources; recent changes; 3 RR warning; Another perspective on the BC/AD vs. BCE/CE debate; SV comments

• /Archive 16 Arch O. La ^{Grigory Deepdelver} 07:49, 5 September 2006 (UTC): To June 5, 2006. A lot of discussion in just 4 days!

Scope; NPOV tag (june 2006); Priest kings section placement; Suppression of viewpoints; "Critical Scholars"?; Minor wording tweak, views?; Notes; Scope Paragraph; What is this article about?

[edit] The origin, scope and focus of this article

This article was originally created to discuss the history and culture of the time in and place in which Jesus is traditionally held to have lived, without treating the subject of who Jesus was or whether he did or did not exist. The focus of the article is not Jesus per se but the 'stage setting' in which the (choose any of:) Miracle of Jesus's life/Jesus Myth/Historical Jesus/Jesus the Prophet/Bedtime story/Jesus Fable/ occured. This was the actual and definitive reason for creating the article and should to a great extent determine its scope. Anything about: Jesus' teachings/his life/evidence that he was a historical figure/evidence that he was not a historical figure/ etc. belong in one or more of the other articles in the Jesus and history constellation or in Jesus.

The reason this was created was that information on this topic, notwithstanding Jesus existence or nonexistence or humanity or divinity, is useful for anyone involved in studying the context but much of the contextual information was being disputed as 'not belonging in' various of the Jesus articles. This article was created to retain the context, while allowing NPOV to be maintained in all the other articles, as some of the context was being used as 'evidence for Jesus' and some was being used as 'evidence against Jesus', there was much editing and reverting and gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair and it was not good.

In my opinion, this original scope and focus ought to be maintained, for the same reason the article was created one year and one day ago. User:Pedant 07:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the above is false

The above account is false. This section was originally created as a section in the Jesus article on the "historical Jesus" meaning the one discussed by Vermes, Sanders and fredriksen. One editor entitled the section "in historical and cultural context" to convey that this is why Vermes, Sanders and Fredriksen´s views of Jesus differ from that of Christians. An article that is solely about the culture and history of Jews would obviously simply be an article on Jewish history and culture. No, this article is about a set of similar interpretations of Jesus informed by a study of the historicla and cultural context in which he lived. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:25, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] no it isn't

Nope. It isn't. I'm not gonna argue about this with you, you were there, cheesedreams was there, lots of folk were there, regardless that the archive of the original discussion is 'lost'. (and how did that happen?) I know how this article happened to be created, I was the one who suggested that it be created and suggested the name. Maybe it has changed and evolved to not be that any more, I still stand by what I said, and I think that its obvious I didn't say, as you characterised it: "solely about the culture and history of Jews" I said "the history and culture of the time in and place in which Jesus is traditionally held to have lived, without treating the subject of who Jesus was or whether he did or did not exist" as anyone can read above. The time and place in which Jesus is traditionally held to have lived is not about Jewish history alone, as anyone can see from a cursory examination of the article itself. The arguement arose between you and Cheesedreams about whether the section on history was too long and whether it was POV or not, and I suggested a new article to break out the relevant text, so that we didn't lose data but had an appropriate place for it... without an endless debate between the two of you. You seem to me to cherish arguments, but I don't.

Remember the conext this quote from you came from?: "Again, you miss the point. If the article is to provide background for the NT, then it should cover the history of Palestine as well as the Roman provinces in what is today Turkey and Greece from 70 to 382. But since the article covers an earlier period, it is providing background for the life of Jesus. Slrubenstein"

You and I both know the truth, and this is all I will say about it. User:Pedant 05:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] see for yourself

Anyone who is interested in the original discussion of the scope and focus of the article should look at the talk pages in this vicinity and the Talk:Jesus discussion from the time which just precedes the date of the origin of this article (Cultural and historical background of Jesus). User:Pedant

First, Pedant, you are factually wrong. You are distorting the history of this article. This article began as a section entitled "The Historical Jesus of Nazareth" in the Jesus Article (around August 14, 2004). The title itself signals the acceptance that there was a Jesus - a non-existent Jesus cannot be a historical Jesus. Moreover, you take the history out of context. This section in the Jesus article was preceeded by a short sections called WThe Historicity of Jesus" and "Academic Historians and Religious Texts" that plainly described the existence of a particular POV, that of scholars who accept the existence of Jesus but not his divinity and whose scholarship is based on an attention to historical and cutlrual context and a critical reading of primary sources in this context. The next section - the one that was within a day or two moved by Mpolo to form a new article, began with this:

This section provides a historical view of Jesus, based largely on textual evidence from the 1st and 2nd centuries.

There has been a good deal of recent research on Jesus by critical scholars: two synthetic accounts are The Historical Figure of Jesus by E.P. Sanders, a historian with a doctorate in theology, now Arts & Sciences Professor of Religion at Duke University, and the three volume A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus by John Meier, a Catholic priest, and Professor of Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of America. The following is a brief summary of the dominant position among critical scholars.

There is nothing in these paragraphs to suggest that no claims are being made as to whether Jesus existed or not. On the contrary, they make sense only if he existed (that is, if the scholars whose works are being drawn on here believe he existed; similarly, their scholarship is of value only if he existed).

Second, this is the very first sentence of the article, as it was created by Mpolo: "Jesus lived in the first century in Judea, and was, at least in part, shaped by the cultural and political forces active at that time." It is clear that the article assumes Jesus existed. Now, here is the opening paragraph after CheeseDreams was banned - note that it is very similar to thte current opening:

According to the Gospels, Jesus lived in Judea and the Galilee (modern day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan) around the first half of the first century CE. While large numbers of Christians of all denominations take the Gospels to be an reliable and (largely or wholly) accurate account of Jesus' life, other people will question whether Jesus ever existed (see Historicity of Jesus for an account of this debate). Some people, including critical Bible scholars and historians, however, accept that Jesus lived, but reject the Gospels as a literal account of his life. They rely on the Gospels as historical sources, but reject supernatural elements including miracles; and argue that the Gospels were written from the point of view of, and in order to support, an orthodox Christianity that was emerging between the second and fourth centuries CE. Moreover, they claim that an account of Jesus' life must make sense in terms of his historical and cultural context, rather than Christian orthodoxy.

This introduction makes clear - just as did the first sentence of the original article - that according to the scholars discussed in the article, Jesus existed (while, for NPOV purposes, acknowledges that some do not believe he existed) and that this article focuses on the views of scholars who claim Jesus existed.

Finally, Pendant, your position is absurd. If Jesus did not exist, then the cultural and historical context OF JESUS would make no sense. One could just go to the article on Jewish history. If Jesus never existed, then the cultural and historical context in which he lived can have absolutely no importance to people who believe he never existed. It won´t be of much importance to people who believe Jesus was divine, either, because for them the meaning of Jesus will have more to do with theology and ideology but nothing to do with the dialy life of the man himself (who, by this position, never existed and thus had no daily life). The cultural and historical background of Jesis is relevant to scholars who claim he existed but deny his divinity, and this article provides their interpretation of his life. For them to provide an interpretation of his life, they must believe his life existed. Your logic only provides the basis for deleting the article - the wors form of POV warrioring.Slrubenstein | Talk 15:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How about this

"This article began as a section entitled "The Historical Jesus of Nazareth" in the Jesus Article (around August 14, 2004)" --quote from Slrubenstein

I ask you, how can you say the article started as part of another article. Obviously it started as this article. This article is this article, it isn't Jesus, and any consensus reached at Jesus was only that we needed to break parts of that article out to other articles. Any consensus regarding Cultural and historical background of Jesus could only be reached here, not there. And it was, see links below.User:Pedant 13:18, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, you say I am factually incorrect. this is a link to the discussion where we reached consensus for the intro that the article doesn't address Jesus' Historicity and this is a link to a discussion and consensus for what the scope of the article is I will accept that our opinions and memory of the discussion are different, but I do not agree that I am factually incorrect.

That discussion you (Slrubenstein) refer to spawned several different articles, each of which discusses different aspects of Jesus, so citing that discussion in general is pretty worthless as far as what this article began as... the article began after that discussion, and all the articles in the Jesus and history series came out of that discussion.

Historicity of Jesus discusses whether he existed.

Historical Jesus assumes he existed.

Jesus as myth makes arguments supporting a mythical Jesus

etc... if Cultural and historical background of Jesus assumes he existed, then this article should be merged with Historical Jesus but it doesn't and isn't intended to assume he existed, rather it assumes that people wrote about him and discusses relevant historical events of the the period in which those authors placed him and the cultural influences affecting a person such as Jesus was described as being, in the time in which Jesus was described as living.

How do you propose to keep this article factual about the culture and history, if it assumes the existence of Jesus? Assuming that Jesus existed is POV Assuming he is divine is POV. The article can only accurately and neutrally discuss the culture and history without assuming his existence or divinity. This article talks about a time and a place and a group of coexisting cultures, not about a person, but about documents that talk about the person.

You had no objection to the following

"Many historians accept that Jesus existed, but argue that an account of Jesus' life must reject supernatural claims"

(quote from Slrubenstein)

Not all historians believe he exists and according to you:

"see Historicity of Jesus concerning debates specifically over the existence of Jesus"

(quote from Slrubenstein again)

whether Jesus existed or didn't exist goes in a different article:

"Christian POV that is already represented in the article on Jesus. "

(another quote from Slrubenstein)

Maybe you changed your mind since then.

I don't get how you can continue to say that Jesus had to exist in order to talk about him or the culture and background he would have lived in if he had existed. We had a firm consensus that we were making the assumption that Jesus existed, but that the article was about the context, and not about whether he existed. I just don't get "Jesus had to exist in order to talk about him" from the following exchange, from Talk:Cultural and historical background of Jesus back in 2004... I don't know when YOU made your comment as you didn't timestamp it. User:Pedant 11:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Pedant, you just do not get it. It is not that the "article" assumes that Jesus existed, it is that the article "acknowledges" that a number of historians believe Jesus existed, and goes on from there. In fact there has been considerable discussion of merging this article with the historical Jesus, and it is not a closed discussion. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

---

[edit] Intro/opening

The main record of the life of Jesus are the Gospels, in the Christian New Testament. These sources place Jesus in what became Roman Palestine (modern Israel and Palestine) during the early 1st century. The article Historicity of Jesus covers debates regarding the existence of Jesus, but if so then it is agreed by most Christians and academics who hold this view that it is necessary to understand the cultural and historical background in which Jesus is thought to have lived.

No objections to the first two sentences. The function of the third sentence is to provide a link to a related article; I suggest that this sentence be abbreviated, made a patranthetical, and placed at the end of the paragraph e.g. (see Historicity of Jesus concerning debates specifically over the existence of Jesus). The "but if so" clause is clumsy. I would rewrite it for grace, but also to provide more information: "Many historians accept that Jesus existed, but argue that an account of Jesus' life must reject supernatural claims; take into account biases in the New Testament; and interpret Jesus' life in terms of its cultural and historical context." This sentence is clearer, provides more information, and I think better introduces the article Slrubenstein

I agree with the clumsiness of the third sentence construction. I may be concerned with the word "Many", the use of semicolons in a list <grin>, but I agree the sentence is clearer and more dense with information. - Amgine 22:40, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

---

2004? The above comment seems out of place, chronologically speaking.

I just created several additional archives. There was a LOT of discussion in June. Arch O. La ^{Grigory Deepdelver} 07:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposals

I propose taking information from Cultural and historical background of Jesus and Historical Jesus and creating two seperate article: one focusing on history, and the other focusing on culture. I'd also propose less POV titles. For example Cultural background of 1st century Judea and History of Israel, 600 BCE - 150 CE. Reasoning: this article is really long, and this article doesn't really describe the cultural background, and parts of historical Jesus don't really describe the historical Jesus. I would love imput on this, and perhaps better title suggestions. If people agree with this proposal and we get some support, I'd propose creating two sandboxes in my userspace to start this process and I'd urge anyone interested to help contribute.--Andrew c 16:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

See Talk:Historical Jesus for my response. Arch O. La ^{Grigory Deepdelver} 17:45, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I am in principal opposed to separating culture and history. They cannot be divorced one from the other. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Well maybe we need to just split this article up into "Early Second Temple" and "Late Second Temple" because 71kb is way large. The issue was that there were questions like "what languages were spoken in 1st century Judea, what were people's socio-economic status like, literacy, family life, social roles, religion, etc" all addressed in the Historical Jesus article that I wanted to split off into a "Cultural background" article, and then there is the history presented in this article that seems to fit into its own history section. Maybe we could combine the two ideas in one article, but like I said, I feel that we'd need to find another place (perhaps chronologically) to split that article just due to size.--Andrew c 21:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I would separate Persian, Hellenistic, Hasmonean, and Roman into separate articles. The most relevant article for Jesus's ancient context is the Roman Period. --Haldrik 04:29, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Andrew's 2nd proposal. I'm not sure if we have enough data for four articles as Haldrik suggests, but I may be wrong. Arch O. La ^{Grigory Deepdelver} 04:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I like this second proposal more too. I would put it differently: pre and post Hasmonian. here is my logic: the first article should introduce all the basic institutions that are eventually at play in Jesus´s life: the Temple, the Law, Pharisees and Saducees, Prophets, Priests, and Kings. The history of how these institutions developed provides crucial but admittedly general context for Jesus. The Hasmonian period on involves the politicization of Pharisees and Saducees, the confrontation with Hellenism and then Rome, which provides the immediate context for Jesus. Put another way, instead of early and late second temple, how about pre-Hellenic and post-Hellenic? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:15, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, that would be a cultural way to do it. I think that would work as well. Arch O. La ^{Grigory Deepdelver} 06:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Does "pre-Hellenic" mean the same thing as "pre-Hasmonaean"? It seems to me that this is somewhat problematic due to the lack of clear historical materials on the early second temple period. After Ezra, Nehemiah and the minor prophets close down in the 5th century BC, there's about two centuries where the sources are quite meager. The "Early Second Temple" (however it is actually defined article would appear to cover a long period about which we have very little direct information, while the "Late Second Temple" article has rather an embarrassment of riches. Not sure how to deal with this. john k 22:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Pre-Hellenic does mean pre-Hasmonian. It is true that primary source material is limited, but there has been lots of archeology and there are many good scholarly secondary sources on pre-Hellenic first and second temple Jewish (er, as it were) history that could be drawn on. True, the Bible itself is the primary source. But every volume of the Anchor Bible has loads and loads and loads of critical historiography and historical analysis, for one thing. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

In Israeli archeology, the periods are (usually) as follows: Biblical Period, Persian Period, Hellenistic Period, Hasmonean Period, Roman Period, Byzantine Period. Thus "pre-Hellenic" (pre-Hellenistic) equals the Persian Period, whereas "pre-Hasmonean" equals the Hellenistic Period. --Haldrik 03:50, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I stand corrected. In any event, I mean pre-Hasmonean. This would include both Hellenic, Persian, Babylonian, and Biblical (kingdom) periods. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:59, 11 September 2006 (UTC)