JoeWallack

Gotta get down to it,
(Christian) Soldiers are cutting us down.
Should of been done long ago.
What if you knew her (Constitution)
as she lay dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

JW:
As near as I can tell I Am the foremost (with apologies to Stephen Carlson) authority the world has ever known regarding the Birth Dating error. This is the dominant contradiction between the Infancy Narratives. Related Skeptical resources are:

The Date of the Nativity in Luke (5th ed., 2006)

Carrier's Luke vs. Matthew on the Year of Christ's Birth Now Up At ErrancyWiki

The current relevant Incarnation at Wiki is Nativity of Jesus:

JW:
The key to the Birth Dating error is that "Matthew" dates Jesus' birth c. 4 BCE and "Luke" dates Jesus' birth c. 6 CE. Wiki clearly indicates this so no major changes are needed.

Minor suggestions:

1) The date of death of Herod the Great should be a range. Giving a single year overstates the accuracy available based on the ancient historians.

2) Regarding the wording "implies a birth no later than 6-4 BC". "no later than" is polemical wording and is unnecessary. Just say ""implies a birth of 6-4 BC".

3) Regarding the census it's probably better to give a range for the start and state that the census started in this range and that "Luke's" Jesus was born near the start of the census.

4) The dating of the census is supported by other historians besides Josephus.

5) There should be a reference to Dr. Carrier's article since it is the outstanding article on the subject.

6) The supporting Wiki references to Herod the Great and the census of Quirinius, where Wiki intends the details to be presented, probably needs a lot of work.



Joseph

Chili

Well I would not brag about that Joe because clearly the Jesus of Matthew is not the same Jesus as the one in Luke who goes to heaven instead of hell (which is what it means to go back to Galilea and there will die nonetheless even after 40 years of purging).

The difference in birth date confirms that the Jesus in Matthew was 'from his mothers womb untimely ripped' such as about 10 years before "[God's] own time" as per Songs 2:7 and again in 3:5.

May I suggest you 'try to make hay with what you've got instead of telling us us that the weather is wrong?'

spin

And it would be better not to obfuscate or remove evidence.


spin

spin

I've now somewhat restored Lysanias after the Pierce vandalism.

Let's watch to see if he will attack the entry again, by using apologetical sources such as F.F. Bruce, "New Testament Documents". The amazing thing is that he will probably not be able to see that this text is apologetic and that all Bruce is doing is trying to bolster the apparently erroneous reference in Luke to Lysanias in 29 CE.


spin

judge

The problem is you haven't shown the reference to actually be erroneous. You are nowhere near doing so.
You wish it were and so call it "apparently erroneous".
I was in favor of keeping your critique (without knowing it overstepped WIKI policy). I doubt it would convince anyone that the reference actually was erroneous, but at least it showed an alternate view.

Roger Pearse

I didn't actually use any new references; I merely moved the existing references in the article into <ref> tags. Since they are all references to published sources, that's enough. Whether one likes F.F.Bruce or not, he was a published academic writing on his field of expertise. If there is evidence of other views, similarly referenced, let's have them.

I note that my changes were reverted without comment or discussion, which is frustrating. If Spin would care to shed his anonymity and discuss why he thinks they were "vandalism", that would be more useful, and, if we can reach a consensus, then fine. In the mean time I have reverted them since they seemed to breach the POV policy.

The change from "Lysanias in Josephus" to "Lysanias in history/historical sources" while leaving "Lysanias in Luke" seems to be only to express the opinion that the bible is not history. This is precisely what we mean by a POV edit. The former is merely a fact, of no possible controversial value either way; the latter involves an opinion on which people may differ. That's why it mustn't be there, true or false. I.e. the Lysanias article is not the place to start a discussion as to whether the bible contains valid history or not, because that question has nothing to do with Lysanias.

I have suggested that Spin should post his essay somewhere and link to it from the Wikipedia article. It is, as is clear, original research. I did not move it to the talk page because I disagreed with it, but because of that factor.

Now I'm not going to sit on this article and resist these sorts of POV edits, as I have other things to do. One reason why I don't trust Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it, without regard for reason or objectivity, and this really does happen on subjects of controversy.

I would propose that the Lysanias article needs to contain only the following:

1. Lists of the data about Lysanias in Luke and Josephus and in the archaeology.

2. Lists of opinions by professionals about them, with references.

3. Lists of links to online material which is relevant.

Anything else would seem to be POV.

So that's the direction in which I have tried to move the article. Doubtless it could be done better, and changes that advance the article in the direction of clarity and objectivity would be welcome.

But let's discuss each change, and see how we get on.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spin

Please stop the pretense of trying to be even handed. Your vandalism would be shameful if it weren't for your apologetic zeal. History is based on evidence. Opinions from your favourite apologetic source aren't historical evidence. They don't look at the evidence in any scholarly sense. The writer is oblivious of evidence which shows that his presuppositions are baseless.

Your aim is to reduce the historical figure to the same level as the figure mentioned in Luke and thus help obfuscate what can be known of the past.

I cited one piece of evidence, a coin which shows that Augustus and Livia were referred to in 10 BCE as Sebastwi. You cannot handle it and tendentiously remove it. So cut the pretense. You know that you are a vandal. You are attempting to hide evidence.

There is more evidence, if you look at the large section you removed under the serpent strategy of calling it "new research".

You know nothing about the subject, preventing historically based evidence from being put before the reading public and interfere apparently only because of religious motivation.

ETA:

Opinions of over a half a century ago that don't take into consideration the currently available evidence are useless.

When I attempted to use archaeological data, you removed it as being "new research". How hypocritical can one get?

Opinions by professionals are always useful, if they are professionals in the field. Bruce was not a historian.

When you revert the entry you obliterate the links provided to online material. But not all material is available online. One sometimes needs sources that aren't online, so one cites them, and people have to do what scholars have always done: go and look them up.

Your pretensions to reason are serpent subterfuge.


spin

Roger Pearse

Friend, we can all write whatever we like in Wikipedia. But it will all get reverted sooner or later, unless it follows the Wikipedia policies. Is that your wish?

I'm sorry that you feel so strongly about my comments. You don't explain why, other than throwing accusations of bias at me. I don't see how my list of what should be contained in the article is biased. It's just data and references.

You see, I was unable to find anything concrete in your comments. If you want to discuss specific modifications, please do! The point of Wikipedia is consensus, after all.

You mentioned that a coin called Augustus and Livia 'sebastoi'. Yes; but I was unclear how that is relevant to the article **about Lysanias**. I removed it because I didn't see the relevance. I think that perhaps you're still trying to make an argument *yourself*, you see, rather than telling the world what those qualified say about the subject? Wikipedia is not the place for your opinions, or indeed mine.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spin

If you want to subvert Wiki for your apologetic purposes and wrap it in an air of innocence you can convince yourself to vandalize material with a moral rectitude.

If someone does the work on the subject, when another who is merely prepared to repeat errors of others changes the work for obviously tendentious purposes, you can understand that such changes will not be taken lightly. Your apologetic bias is your blindspot and you project it onto others.

I have.

And hypocritically left unsourced tendentious information about Tiberius and Livia. You are not consistent and you misrepresent your actions. The mention of a coin referring to Augustus and Livia, shows that the assumption of dating to post 14 CE is false.

As you are unqualified to talk, you will merely waste people's time. If you don't know the material, don't touch it.


spin

Roger Pearse

If you don't feel able to discuss the subject, you certainly don't have to!

All the best,

Roger Pearse