Talk:Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ/Archive7

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archaeological evidence

The "archeo" section is not reflective of what is going on in modern Archaeology. The citations we are giving are from a website, that is not very well referenced, while at the same time. I have seen in the Hebrew, just as in English, the easy shift from "city" to "town" and "village". that is not at all compelling evidence that Nazareth was a large city. Also, saying the evidence for the historical settings of Palestine "is so weak no one talks about it', is an extremely fringe view. We have maps, we have political references, we have Jewish Synagog references, and we have actual synagogs that have been uncovered. This section really need either to be better sourced, or cut. Cause as it stands, it is far more about the desire for the whole thing to be fake, than any real proof that it is. --GodotTue pour toujours, et tu veux vivre aussi. 16:29, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I submit that you don't know what you're talking about in modern archaeology. You claimed there was no accepted evidence the Exodus was fictional, I pointed out the references were in the linked article, you deleted the link. You said "Syro-Palestinian archaeology" was spurious, I linked the Wikipedia article, you deleted the link. You appear concerned with presenting yourself as a current expert when you don't appear to be - David Gerard (talk) 09:13, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

FIGHT! (grabs popcorn) Scream!! (talk) 09:46, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Nah, David is far to knowledgeable for me to think i'd "fight" with him. I"m just extremely skeptical of the language we were using. The Egypt was pulled cause it didn't fit as written. --GodotTue pour toujours, et tu veux vivre aussi. 16:11, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I am far from being an expert, but I side with David regarding the fiction of Exodus and Syro-Palestianian archaeology as an accepted discipline, which is out growing biblical archaeology. Feredir28 (talk) 15:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I"m not saying Syro-Palestininan is not what is being studied. I'm saying that the idea that "nothing in the bible is real" which is the tenor of what we were saying, is not true. I removed the exodus quote cause it had nothing to do (as written) with David's rewrites, and came totally out of the blue. And again "no evidence" does not mean something didn't happen, it means there is no evidence, which is why i'm a bit surprised at the wording of some of the pieces in that section. --GodotTue pour toujours, et tu veux vivre aussi. 16:07, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I added a "see also" to put the Exodus link back in. Is that better? Again, my issue was and is less about it "not being real" than about the way it was stated. --GodotTue pour toujours, et tu veux vivre aussi. 16:15, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

One other comment, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_archaeology, does not suggest that the bible or facts about the bible are in any way shape or form, seen as not-worthy of study. In fact, they suggest that it's not because "nothing was found to back up the bible' (which is what we said in our article) that caused a name change, but the fact that the history of the bible is such a small part of hte vast variety of cultures in Palestine, that you do serious injustice to the school of archeology of the area by limiting it. I guess this is why I'm so perplexed. I've not seen scholars say "nothing of the bible is real", nor "we've not found anything about jews in Egypt (Semitic people were workers and slaves in Egypt - doesn't mean they were jews), though we know the jewish people did not begin with the exodus. This is where I'm so bothered by the language. it really seems we want to be saying that "no evidence" is the same as "didn't exist', and that "some evidence" is "none". (I'll shut up now). --GodotTue pour toujours, et tu veux vivre aussi. 16:19, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Gold?

Given the immense amount of work put in and the vast improvements achieved are we now pushing for gold? As far as I am concerned this has come a long way towards becoming one of our flagship articles. Bad Faith (talk) 13:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that's the goal, yeah. Ty^talk 13:53, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I love when we are able to really focus on one article as a "group", it makes the work more interesting. It's much much better, but we need lots more clean up, citations, etc but yeah, i think this has the potential to be flagship article quality. The info is important, the editors are knowledgeable and care about what they are writing on, and it's opinionated without being extreme itself. But we still need more citations, we need some non-religion people to read it through and say "this section is confusing", "the wording here doesn't really make it clear what you are talking about". Any specific things you notice that you think need improvement?--GodotTue pour toujours, et tu veux vivre aussi. 14:10, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

It really doesn't help ...

.. when Jesus' fans come out with such utter bilge. Take this shite from Keith Ward (HT PZ):

Scientific facts are, of course, relevant to many religious claims. But not all facts are scientific facts – the claim that I was in Oxford last night, unseen by anyone, will occur in no scientific paper, but it is a hard fact. So it is with the miracles of Jesus, with the creation of the cosmos and with its end.

Apparently history is bunk, not checkable and not science, particularly if it relates to religion. Fucksake. - David Gerard (talk) 19:12, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The Henry Ford approach? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:23, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

They sort of have to claim that. even with the back bending we do here to say "find a dude lived", that doesn't help them at all. they need The Christ, not Jesus. they need resurrection. but the more historians find and dig and translate; the more they work with older and older texts, the more it's quite apparent no human rose from teh dead or did any non-magical trick "miracles". Or soemthing, somewhere would at least hint at it. So their only answer is "religion can never be proven". cause we are inches away from disproving it. --GodotGet over it!. 19:31, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

By the way, Keith Ward is this guy, not just any random bozo but someone who has forty years' experience at this stuff and is one of the best theology can offer - David Gerard (talk) 21:20, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

But after a certain point, can you really expect to say for sure whether or not someone existed 2000 years ago? Jesus was not Caesar. He did not have an empire and historians cataloguing his empty move. Jesus was a lower class man that walked around preaching. Granted Ward's view on history in general is questionable, but at least in this case we can't say that there is proof against the existence of Christ (assuming you aren't an epistemological chauvinist).--. 21:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

paraphrase: The bible has errors, but in it's fundimental teachings it is as God wanted it". what a "get out of jail free" card. --GodotGet over it!. 21:44, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm just ranting about the shite the supposed best of sophisticated theology can put forward. It's the sort of thing that suggests a painful lack of any better evidence. The people who've read the terrible arguments put forward by theists are a major audience for this article, after all, and are why it bothers dealing with the bloody awful supporting evidence apologists put forward - David Gerard (talk) 21:46, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

God, that's awful. Wēāŝēīōīď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 21:52, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The comments handing him his arse are good. Particularly the one who just linked a textbook on historiography. Pity he'll never, ever lower himself to read them - David Gerard (talk) 22:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Can you find a way to tuck this stuff into the article? especially near the beginning?GodotGet over it!. 22:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, I made a point of noting that the awful arguments at the end are actually real ... but the apologist-favoured list of non-Biblical evidence is pretty obviously terrible too. Are there famous specialists saying "the terrible evidence presented suggests that good evidence is painfully lacking" who can be referenced? Otherwise it just comes across as editorial - David Gerard (talk) 23:52, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I think both Crossan and Funk have made such comments in their interviews. but i can't think of them actually writing that in their books. I'm still questing the stupid "there are 5000 pieces of evidence" quote i see all over facebook. GodotGet over it!. 23:55, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia notes 5500 pre-printing-press fragments containing New Testament text of any sort. (No cite there, but that's a remarkably close number to "over 5000" so I'm going to claim that's what they mean, and if someone giving the "over 5000" number doesn't like it they can make a falsifiable claim.) - David Gerard (talk) 22:51, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Cite found, added! - David Gerard (talk) 13:42, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Pedantry corner

As the sole evidence is historical rather than physical, shouldn't the article be called "Historical Evidence of Jesus Christ"? It's also slightly less wordy, which is nice. Yea or nay? Rennie McGreet (talk) 11:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I like the existing title. It places the right emphasis on "historical existence". ωεαşεζøίɗ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 07:00, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

So I alerted Richard Carrier to this article's existence

In a comment on his blog. Hopefully he won't cough up his own skull in disgust. He's got a book on the subject coming out in a few months, which should be good (and not just for us to crib furiously from) - David Gerard (talk) 12:03, 18 January 2012 (UTC)