Talk:Sibylline oracles
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[edit] Which Justin?
This article reads: "The so-called Sibylline oracles were referred to by the early Church fathers: Justin,..."
The link to Justin is to a disambig page, however. Is the Justin who is being referred to here Saint Justin Martyr ?Kevyn 21:43, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- My laziness. Justin Martyr of course. I've disambiguated and added a good external link, etc. Should the viewpoint of the Church Fathers to these bogue oracles be expanded? Wetman 22:49, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
[edit] POV
In order to preserve the current genuinely Neutral rather than Christianist POV, I have added the following italicised disclaimer to the characterization of prophecy, as it affects texts:
- "Leaving aside any issues connected with prophecy in Holy Scripture, these oracles are like prophecies in general: they either purport to predict events which were already either history or legend at the time of the actual composition, which was given a spurious early dating, or else they are vague all-purpose predictions, especially of woe in the offing for various cities and countries such as Rome and Assyria."
- Christianist interpretations of phrases in the OT as "prophetic"— or similar issues— should not compromise this entry. --Wetman 12:00, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't claim to be an expert on this subject, but all this talk about 'pretend prophesies' strikes me as major POV. What do you guys think?
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- You're right. I've deleted 'pretended'.
- Rather than see eliminated the very word that is the crux of the most basic critical understanding of these texts in their historical context, I have substituted for "pretended" an explanatory phrase— 'utterances claimed as prophecies'— which is the meaning of pretended. Now the sentence is comprehensible even to the simplest understanding. --Wetman 18:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
