Talk:Historical Jesus

Overly defensive tone comes off as unprofessional and non-encyclopedic

"Virtually all scholars believe that a historical Jesus existed and attempts to deny his historicity have been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory."

"Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed"

"but almost all modern scholars consider his baptism and crucifixion to be historical facts"

That's a small sampling of eyebrow-archingly defensive statements and random quotes from scholars restating some variation of, "we aren't exactly sure who he was, but in the balance i'd wager he existed". This article would be much more professional and scholarly if it removed these cringy lines.

Further, there is a glaring lack of analysis in this article about the fact that we have nothing even purporting to be a historical record of jesus, dated until at least 20 years after his death. Does this suggest perhaps that jesus was not, in his time, the notable figure that the bible depicts him as? To what degree does this fact call into question the reliability of ANY of the historical references to things that would have happened in jesus's life, considering that everyone is in agreement that there is zero historical record? I wouldn't know reading this article about "Historical Jesus". There is no analysis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.54.105.157 (talk) 22:34, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

"jesus was not, in his time, the notable figure that the bible depicts him as" The depiction is that of an itinerant preacher that spend 1 to 3 years leading a small group of followers. He is not depicted as a major religious figure, nor that unusual in the context of the era. The embellishments of his life in the Gospels were likely intended to impress their audience, but we have no idea if the historical Jesus made an impression on those who met him. Dimadick (talk) 20:04, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

I'd agree that the sampling here is too small. "Virtually all scholars" isn't accurate. There are plenty of scholars who doubt that he existed, but their arguments are more subtle. That is, instead of being able to point to (the slight) "positive" evidence, they cite the "negative" lack of evidence. However, because of the adage that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" (per Carl Sagan), scholars have a hard time "proving" their point, even if it's logical. But their views certainly exist and contradict the "virtually all scholars" statement. UpdateNerd (talk) 03:22, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Christ myth theory is a WP:FRINGE theory; the "plenty of scholars" are a miniscule fraction of the scholars in the field. The tone of the article is "defensive" because Wikipedia is 'open access', written also by people who are not hindered by scholarly knowledge and methodology, but prefer to present their personal opinions here. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:14, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I'd suggest replacing "virtually all" with "most" or even something like "a vast majority". "Virtually all scholars agree" = "Virtually no scholars disagree", which seems to be untrue. The third cited source supporting the statement, Robert M. Price (although a Christ myth theory advocate) only says that a majority of scholars believe he existed historically. The Christ myth theory is only "unproven" based on the impossibility of producing negative evidence; it's otherwise valid as a hypothesis. Saying that 99% of scholarship on the historical Jesus supports his existence is like saying 99% of ufologists believe in flying saucers. The wikivoice requires more balance, particularly where religious deities – who only appear in their respective religious literature – are concerned. UpdateNerd (talk) 07:15, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Any idea how many scholars on Biblical history/New Testament studies there are? The late James Dunn once remarked that he was unable to keep track of the deluge of publications in this field; if you've ever read a book by him, you would know what a treasure house of scholarly knowlegde Dunn was, so that gives a good indication. See also User:Joshua Jonathan/Quotes on the historicity of Jesus for additional quotes on the historicity of Jesus, and the fringe-nature of the CMT. To give only two quotes, from CM-theorists:

• Robert M. Price, The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-Four Formative Texts (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2006) p. 1179:

New Testament criticism treated the Christ Myth Theory with universal disdain

* G. A. Wells, The Historical Evidence for Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1988) p. 218:

[T]he view that there was no historical Jesus, that his earthly existence is a fiction of earliest Christianity—a fiction only later made concrete by setting his life in the first century—is today almost totally rejected.

NB: comparing scholarship on the historical Jesus with ufologists is a false equivalence; such comparisons are exemplary for the twisted logic of CMT-defenders. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:32, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Generally more sourcing needs to be done. The problem, again exemplified here, is that the majority of sources on the topic are only going to exist if they support it some way. You can't do scholarship on the non-existence of something. There are many credible historians who deal with the general setting of Christ's life (1 BC/AD in or around Palestine) without addressing his existence, because they simply don't want to weigh in on religious debate. The Gospels are by definition religious sources, and there's no other trace of Jesus except for 1) hypothetical documents such as the Q source on which the Gospels may be partly based and 2) much later historians who have no first-hand evidence.

I don't mean to equate the veracity of ufology with that of the historicity of Christ. I only cite that as an example, again, of how scholars who favor a certain outcome are always going to confirm their own bias, while the opposition has only rhetorical arguments to use. I.e. there's no specific lack of a source failing to document a UFO or the historical Christ that could disprove their existence. But there's lots of evidence to the contrary, however unreliable, inconsistent, and agenda-driven. UpdateNerd (talk) 09:20, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

The problem here, UpdateNerd, is that you propose to replace sourced content with your own opinion, and that runs contrary to most WP policies. The statement about 'virtually all scholars' is not something we at WP have come up with, but rather the assessment of leading experts in this field. As for the IP's initial claim that there is a "defensive" tone, it's not accurate (or at least not unique to this article). There are lots of articles countering popular conspiracy theories that use both similar language and stronger language to establish the academic consensus in contrast to the conspiracy theories. Jeppiz (talk) 13:42, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

"Virtually all scholars" is oversimplified wording, even if accurate in spirit. UpdateNerd (talk) 21:38, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

After attempting a bold edit at what I thought was a good compromise and seeing that it got reverted, I'm happy to leave it as is until I can spend time with the sources being cited to see if our language indeed reflects them. (I erred in pushing for this change without doing all the reading.) I think there are more pressing issues, like the bad grammar of the opening sentence, flow issues, and formatting. I'll try to re-implement the changes I thought were uncontroversial without rewording the specific phrasing we discussed here, and return to that when better prepared. UpdateNerd (talk) 06:39, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I do think this article needs to be changed. I don't feel like the claim that there is overwhelming consensus on the fact Jesus was baptized, for example, is rigorous. How could anyone prove this? If the overwhelming majority of people believe something that is wrong, does it make it right? There needs to be more explanation of the evidence that support the claims rather than the claims themselves. 2A02:3032:201:3ECC:7B7E:A63A:D429:AAD0 (talk) 00:11, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

See WP:TRUTH. Wikipedia takes the side of the mainstream academic consensus. It doesn't matter what you personally believe, it only matters what reliable secondary sources believe. Helioz9 (talk) 20:15, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Are secondary sources reliable when their main argument is citing each other? 93.148.99.117 (talk) 22:59, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Unfortunately, there are only so many primary sources on a 1st-century homeless preacher from Galilee, and there are a finite number of modalities regarding interpretations of said evidence. Remsense诉 01:42, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

this is not a mainstream consensus, why is wikipedia acting like it is? 2601:41:C201:9300:9D7B:C417:7C65:9A0E (talk) 22:06, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't want to be overly abrupt, but that is what every fringe-POV pusher says. Christ myth theory is thoroughly WP:FRINGE. We are not going to include WP:FALSEBALANCE, and as a matter of fact yes we are biased. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 22:19, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Bart Ehrman and Michael Grant, as cited and quoted in the lead section (Ehrman: "virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees"; Grant: "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus'"), among many others, say it is mainstream consensus. These are scholars qualified to tell us what mainstream consensus in the field is - we as editors don't need to make the judgement on the existence or lack of a consensus.

You're right it's the "number one discussion" in the talkpage history. It seems it's been discussed to death. And each time, there has been no case made to show that the historical existence of Jesus is *not* the scholarly consensus as Ehrman and Grant (and Gould, and Casey and....) say. Seltaeb Eht (talk) 16:27, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Merge proposal

The shorter Historicity of Jesus article is entirely superfluous. All it does is reframe content from this article into the context of asking whether Jesus existed, as opposed to providing support for his existence as is already done here. Skeptical counter-arguments can be found at Christ myth theory and there are plenty of similar pages (e.g. Sources for the historicity of Jesus and Historical reliability of the Gospels) which further discuss the topic, highlighting the redundant article as merely being a fork. UpdateNerd (talk) 05:57, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

There's definitely some overlap between all of those links. I think the split was well intentioned, with this page being more about the attempted reconstruction of what a 'historical Jesus' actually might have been like, and the methodological approach to arriving at that versus Historicity of Jesus, which is focused solely on whether or not Jesus' personhood is credible in the first place. However, given the page itself notes 'virtually all scholars accept Jesus' historicity', it is somewhat self-redundant, since that sums it up in one line. Christ myth theory then holds the fringe stuff. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:40, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. The "Historicity" article and this one on "Historical" have different scopes. The former is for the generally accepted views that Jesus existed - common points that scholars agree are historically there and how they are sure Jesus existed and ushers to Sources for the historicity of Jesus, etc, whereas the latter is on the numerous scholarly reconstructions of portraits of Jesus. One is "how we know Jesus existed" and the other is "how we know who Jesus was". I would not equate these two articles for that reason.

The "Historicity" article as stand alone like it is now ushers a more accessible, focused and less cluttered resource for readers who want to just read about how scholars independently come to view Jesus as existing without the mythicist clutter. Merging it in the "Historical" article would make it look as if there is a need to establish historicity - which there isn't for historical figures. They are related, but quite different.

Perhaps the scope on the "Historicity" article can be refined more. Or if there is a merge proposal, the "Historicity" and "Sources for the Historicity of Jesus" would be better candidates, but I would still argue that separation is more reasonable since even those two have separate scopes.Ramos1990 (talk) 07:49, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

I think they could theoretically be housed at the same location, but I agree that effecting a merger could readily simply create more mess and confusion. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:44, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

This conversation has at least clarified what the difference between the articles is meant to be. I’ll withdraw the proposal & add an 'about' hatnote clarifying the difference. UpdateNerd (talk) 19:41, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Unsupported

Large number of unsupported claims by religious followers with clear bias to claim their faith is accurate. Appeals to single authorities and lack of citation needs to be changed. 2607:FB91:D44:C01B:A2:70FF:FEA5:94D8 (talk) 20:34, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree, but as they say in the classics, good luck with that. HiLo48 (talk) 02:17, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this. Moderators on this page do not seem to be doing their job. I tried to change the language on some of the extreme statements and it was rolled back every time 2601:41:C201:9300:9D7B:C417:7C65:9A0E (talk) 21:45, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

As I said, you need to support statements with WP:RS. Wikipedia simply reflects the academic consensus in a field. More info available at WP:FRINGE, WP:FALSEBALANCE, and WP:YWAB. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 21:48, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Hey @User:2601:41:C201:9300:9D7B:C417:7C65:9A0E, there's been extensive discussion on this talk page regarding similar edits to yours - I'd suggest you review them (that's not to tamp down on further discussion). As a start, do you think the statements you edited out aren't properly supported by the cited sources? Do you think those sources are unreliable?

I haven't significantly edited this page and only recently became personally interested in this subject and familiarized myself with the literature, but while the statements on the page may seem sensational or one-sided, they do reflect the actual academic consensus on the subject. Christ Myth Theory is considered fringe and has few defenders. Seltaeb Eht (talk) 21:55, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

The sources referred to in the article rely on circular logic and are also inaccurately summarized, not matching the actual text within the sources. This has been discussed thoroughly on the talk page - it is the number one topic 2601:41:C201:9300:9D7B:C417:7C65:9A0E (talk) 22:15, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

"Consensual knowldege" heading

This may be just me. I know "pertaining to consensus" is a definition of consensual, but the usual connotation is "pertaining to consent", and it jumped out as a little strange while browsing the article. Is there perhaps a better wording for this heading? Maybe "Agreed-upon", but that's a little wordy. If it's just a me problem I'm not too hung up on it. Seltaeb Eht (talk) 21:40, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

How about "accordant"? Remsense诉 17:29, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

criterion of embarrassment

"Based on the criterion of embarrassment, scholars argue that the early Christian Church would not have invented the painful death of their leader.[15]" The point of the worst death was to have the best martyr. i.e.: "Our guy suffered as much or more than anyone ever and still forgives all of you due to his maximum greatness (provided you believe), therefore he is the best." Why wouldn't they invent it? If they said he died of old age or by falling off a donkey, how would that make him a martyr with ultimate bragging rights? D3drturner (talk) 23:35, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

The sentence you left out immediately preceding is important. In the most cynical view, the point would not be how much he suffered, but how degraded he was. If they wanted to invent a grody but "cool" death like you imply, they should've said the Romans fed him to lions. It takes active acclimation for us to understand how humiliating crucifixion was in the Roman world, see what happened to Spartacus's friends. Remsense诉 00:29, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

The point was not to invent a "cool death", but rather a maximum martyr. Crucifixion was the death of the lowest of the low, who were the people that the early Christian Church were targeting the hardest. Under those circumstances, Crucifixion was virtually the perfect option. Wdford (talk) 09:47, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

By "cool", I meant "compelling". I think your point is too projective, there's not any evidence that there was this sort of deconstructive narrativizing or that it would be received this way from early converts. The resurrection theology as a direct attempt to interpret historical events within the existing Jesus community makes fewer such assumptions. Remsense诉 12:19, 3 March 2024 (UTC)