spin

I've been doing a little Wiki work recently. There is a lot of apologetic material studded through Wiki, which needs to be rendered more neutral and therefore useful to more readers. The last page I've worked on is a topic discussed on this thread concerning Lysanias. If anyone has time I wouldn't mind a critique. To explain first though. The page was already substantial, but dealt with trying to defend the existence of the figure called Lysanias mentioned in Lk 3:1. I've left nearly all of it intact other than proofreading it and organizing the translation, but I've written a (short) biography of the historical Lysanias and added a critique of the apologetic attempt. I wouldn't mind if someone checked the entry for bias and obscurity.

I've also done work on a page regarding The Three Marys and added a table to the Nativity of Jesus page comparing the Matt and Luke versions. These are my humble attempts at infidelizing some of the christianized Wiki pages. I wonder if anyone else has interest in editing some Wiki pages touching on biblical issues in order to remove some of the apologetic bias in them -- while not setting out to inject polemic into the pages.


spin

Vampyroteuthis

Thank you, Spin!

spin

The pages regarding Daniel look like they need a lot of work. There are so many and some of them are just awful.

It might be useful to post apologetically loaded Wiki pages that could be worked on here.

mountainman

What is this term infidelizing and what does it mean? I have faith in Emperor Julian's historical assessment of the new testament.
"The fabrication of the christians is a fiction of men".
Am I therefore an infidel?



Best wishes,


Pete

vid

Good job spin. Let's just hope this survives apologetic edits

1. I think article doesn't mention accounts in apocrypha (besides mentioning them generally in preface, and protoevangelium of james). I admit not having read them, but aren't there any accounts in non-canonic christian texts?

2. Date of birth could take more clarification, IMO, I will expand on that:

Can you source this? I tried hard to find exact reference, or exact passage, but couldn't find it anywhere. At least not in Schaff's collection of extant fragments of this work: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf06.v.v.html

From my knowledge, both dates 6th january and 25th december come from belief that savior was concieved and died at the same date - passover. April 6th is according to many sources attested in ancient literature as date of passion (I couldn't find the exact ancient reference yet, though), and also it fits passover date for year 30, and fits ancient tradition of Epiphany at +9 months.

March 28th is argued to be date of creation of world, and thus also date when christ was concieved in De Pascha Computus (~250, druggy numerologic hippie sunworship arguments "based on private revelation"). March 28th as spring equinox also fits date of passover for year 31 and could have been used to place birth about 25th december which is very nice fit with both roman feast-time and worshipping jesus as sun. It also makes good match with other roman Sol deities that could have been conflated. So I think this was a best choose for Empire Christianity.

Also, multiple traditional dates 25th of (egyptian) months are attested in Clement of Alexandria, for both birth and death, IMO too many to be just unrelated chance. I think that formulation in article ("moved in to replace Saturnalia") too much suggest making up new date, instead of simply choosing the best fitting of multiple existing traditions.

Other tradition is 2nd april (fits passover at year 33), present in single manuscript of Hippolitus and on his ancient statue.

(Dates of passover taken from here: http://doig.net/NTCIV.htm)

I think that we can safely conclude that ALL major traditions come from three sources:
- calculation of passover date during years 30-33
- sun-worship symbolics
- belief that christ was concieved and crucified at same day of year

I don't agree with claims of "making up" dates, when there exists preceding tradition for same date.

I can provide exact references for particular claims if needed (or you can look up most of them in List of early christians commenting on Jesus birth date thread).

elevator

Good job spin. Considering the frequency with which Wikipedia articles are referenced today, it is certainly important that articles (at least those for which widely different interpretations exist) are presented in a sceptical, neutral and unbiased way.

squiz

The Nativity of Jesus has been vandalised and the reverted a number of times since then. You might want to keep an eye on your changes.

Lógos Sokratikós

I wouldn't be surprised if a number of peer-reviewed wikis start sprouting around. Much needed.

spin

The reading of Julius Africanus is obscure and it doesn't say when the birth was. It does seem to indicate in its very contorted way that the conception happened in conjunction with the arrival of "Lady Pege, spring-bearer", ie the spring equinox, March (20th or) 21st, on the understanding that this English translation means the season with the word "spring" (but Pege means "spring/fountain"). Assuming a normal gestation period, we get a birth around Dec 21. This is not in the fragments of his Chronologia but in "Narrative of Events that happened in Persia on the Birth of Christ"...

I could imagine, if this is correct, one could present the relevant text of Julius Africanus on the Wiki page to show what he says. It's hard to see them removing primary evidence for secondary. But then, I'm assuming reasonable people.

Is there anything else you'd want to change about the page dating the birth?


spin

spin

I think Wiki is lifting its own standards with stricter source requirements, but there's a lot of stuff up so it will take a lot of effort to get everything to an acceptable state. Ya gotta be in it to change it.


spin