Talk:Persecution of Christians in the New Testament/Archive 2

Lack of progress on article

I'm very uncomfortable with the state this article has finally rested in, particularly in its structural reliance upon NT sources and the Jones article. This article ostensibly appears to be a historical account of early Christian persecution by Hebrew people. However, instead the article reads quite clearly like a theological account and commentary. While I appreciate the inclusion of the Jones source, the included citations fail to address the immense NT reliance. For this article to merit NPoV status, factual data must be presented first, followed by NT accounts framed as "Depictions in the NT." However, due to a lack of contributions of non-NT sources. I would alternatively propose simply changing the frame of the article rather than continuing to grind the square peg into the round hole. I suggest we change the name of the article to "Depictions of Jews persecuting Christians in the New Testament" or "Depictions of Jews persecuting Christians in Christian texts" - CheshireKatz (talk) 01:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The persecution of early Christians by Jews isn't just documented by the Acts of the Apostles, but is also described in the subsequent writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. And the claim that the NT is completely historically inaccurate and describes events that did not occur at all in reality (the persecution of early Christians) is an extreme point of view that would need to be supported by a WP:RS. Amaliq (talk) 01:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Beware the Straw Man. I did not claim that the NT is completely historically inaccurate. I don't believe that to be true. I stated that it is PoV and an article that heavily relies upon it & other theological texts while purporting to provide a historical account is likewise PoV. However, an article detailing various Christian texts' accounts of early Christian persecution by Jews would be NPoV. - CheshireKatz (talk) 02:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean when you say that the New Testament is "PoV"; of course it is written from a particular point-of-view (or views), all historical sources are, but it is generally considered a reliable source by most historians and consistent with other histories of the period (e.g. Roman histories). If you believe that the NT is not a WP:RS, then you would need to explain why and prove it with your own WP:RS (otherwise it would be WP:OR). Amaliq (talk) 02:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Pardon, but if you're going to stand on principles of WP:RS, you cannot then support your assertion that the NT is a reliable source based upon an unsourced Claim of Consensus. Furthermore, take another read of WP:V: The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. I've no doubt that you will find Christian historians swearing up & down about the historical authenticity of the NT's depictions of Christian persecution by the mighty Jewish oppressors. Unfortunately, in the interest of preserving NPoV, a disinterested voice is necessary to provide these claims with a factual grounding. At present the only sources provided describing early Christian persecution by Jews are Christian texts. Hence my compromise, discuss the subject from the viewpoint of "as depicted in Christian texts" and there is no conflict. Perhaps the best treatment of the NT, as much as any religious text, is to hold its verifiability to the standard of self-published sources, in which case, it has absolutely no business being cited in this article in particular. - CheshireKatz (talk) 06:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you want evidence of a consensus here is a long list of many respected classical historians who accept that the New Testament is a reliable and accurate source. Again, to most people who know anything about history, the NT is consistent with other documents of the same period and the totality of evidence overwhelmingly suggest that the NT refers to actual historical events, not mythical ones.

And you completely misunderstand WP:RS if you think that Christian sources are unreliable concerning Christian history. Only religious extremists are disqualified as sources. Not to mention that it is quite a bigoted, anti-Christian argument. Amaliq (talk) 07:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

And again I say unto you, beware the Straw Man. I did not say Christian sources are blanketly unreliable concerning Christian history. They are however effectively self-published sources (more accurately primary source WP:PSTS), non-independent interested sources attesting to their own faith, and evaluated under WP:SELFPUB analysis. Saying "most people who know anything about history" and citing http://christiancadre.blogspot.com (clearly not a WP:RS) do nothing to ground your Claim of Consensus. I think you can do better than that. I'll not address your accusation of bigotry in the course of polite discourse and ask that you refrain from personal attacks. - CheshireKatz (talk) 16:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Separately a query about your account, reposted from Talk:Anti-Arabism:

I would also like to reiterate IronDuke's query about prior accounts. Amaliq, you are clearly well-informed of wikipedia's policies, despite your account merely being created 12/13/07. This is a common trait of Sockpuppetry & single-purpose accounts, which are always a relevant concern to edit war debates. Disclosing prior accounts, particularly any banned accounts, makes a significant contribution in preserving open honest discussion. If you are making a clean start under a new name, I would encourage you to email the arbitration committee ([email protected]) to identify the old and new accounts.

- CheshireKatz (talk) 16:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is not that the Bible is a self-published source (in fact, it has probably had more publishers than any other book in history), but that it is a Primary Source. WP policy is that secondary sources are preferable to use - see WP:PSTS. That says in part, "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation". Peter Ballard (talk) 11:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah thanks for the clarification. Of course, still the problem remains. - CheshireKatz (talk) 15:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

At an absolute minimum, shouldn't the article be renamed to remove the word "the"? I mean, that one word makes the Jewish people out as a monolithic group, which it wasn't then and isn't now. A2Kafir (talk) 04:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

This was discussed above and though I agree to a personal dislike of the phrasing, removing the article "the" doesn't actually make it sound any more accurately. I was contemplating proposing a change to "the Ancient Hebrews" or "Roman Jews" or most on point, "the Pharisees." The word Jews isn't really accurate in any case, it probably should be Pharisees. Check out where they discussed it under Name Change above and let me know what you think. - CheshireKatz (talk) 06:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Requested move (EDIT: withdrawn & resubmitted)

I've posted the move proposal on the front page and will wait some time for responses. The main thrust is that the article content is not historical in nature, but theological with historical criticism. The heavy reliance on the NT, a primary source (WP:PSTS), is problematic absent a framing of the article as a discussion of depictions in the NT. I recognize that this is linked from Persecution of Christians, however, in that article the main thrust is that there is little reliable information and that the primary sources overstate the persecution by the Pharisees. Wiki's Verfiability (WP:V) policy: "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." - CheshireKatz (talk) 15:59, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: Two concern about the proposed title change: (1) the Pharisees persecuted others besides Christians; (2) I am unsure if the persecution of Christians in Judea was exclusively by the Pharisees; (3) the title isn't intuitive.

That said, I'd support a change in name to something more precise and less offensive. Cheshire, you also mentioned "the Ancient Hebrews". How about Persecution of Christians by the Ancient Hebrews? Your thoughts? One further note. I agree that the article needs to rely more on, and be sourced from, references besides the NT. Secondary sources are good; tertiary may work just as well. Majoreditor (talk) 20:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking about the Ancient Hebrews as well. I went with Pharisees, because the schism of the time was between the Pharisees & the Nazarenes, and both would've been considered Ancient Hebrews. However, that could resolve your valid point about intuitiveness and make for a more neutral article, since the discussion could be framed as depictions of an internal conflict among the Ancient Hebrews. In regard to (2) though, all discussion in this article has been regarding the conflict between the Nazarenes & the Pharisees, so I don't think that's too much of an issue. - CheshireKatz (talk) 21:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I think removing the "the" is a good solution. "the ancient Hebrews" is more obscure - wasn't "Jews" exactly what the Jewish/Hebrew people were commonly called? Peter Ballard (talk) 02:51, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Peter, thanks for the input. I agree that the term "ancient Hebrews" is more obscure than "Jews" or "the Jews". However, there are potential issues with using the latter two terms. There's an unfortunate history of assigning collective and perpetual blame upon Jewish people for the persecution of early Christians. In light of the repulsive consequences I'd prefer to use a term which doesn't imply the repulsive concept of perpetual guilt. Hence, ""the ancient Hebrews".

Thoughts? Majoreditor (talk) 05:07, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there were unfortunate and tragic repurcussion throughout history, and that is the whole point of what makes it notable. The very fact that the NT describes persecution by Jews, and that so many people picked up on this later in history to justify persecution of Jews, makes it an important subject to have an article on. The article should discuss what is in the NT, how this was (if I recall correctly) twisted later to make it sound much worse than the NT ever said, and how many (though not all) modern scholars dispute much of it. Even if we believed every word of it was fiction (and I don't), it would still require an article to debunk it, because it's such a significant subject with such historical consequences. So if we remove "Jews" from title, we miss the whole point. Peter Ballard (talk) 06:10, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Peter Ballard, as stated above, the most historically accurate terms describing each group during this schism would be the Nazarenes and the Pharisees. The word "Jew" is derived from Middle-English of about 1000 AD. This term has a long history of pejorative use and is historically inaccurate. The Roman term describing both the Nazarenes & the Pharisees of this time, would've been Judaean ("of the tribe of Judah"). Judaeans, however, like Pharisees, is not a widely used term. In respect to this topic, Pharisees is more commonly heard than Judaeans and, as explained, is more accurate. The article already qualifies Christians as "Early Christians" (distinguishing them from modern Christians), while describing Jews in broad, modern (potentially pejorative) terminology. However, maybe Judaeans would be more intuitive, because, well, it kinda sounds like "Jews." :p - CheshireKatz (talk) 19:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I happen to think that "Jews" is a fine term to include in the title, as it is the most common and to-the-point terminology which could be used. I understand the cause for concern presented here, but it seems rather misplaced. This proposal seems like over-correctiveness that doesn't serve any useful purpose except in the cautionary imaginations of some. Titles don't have to be perfect, of course, and we shouldn't worry so much about the title as opposed to the article itself. As far as I can see, the current title is the most natural and sensible arrangement. As for CheshireKatz' note about the broad nature of the term "Jews" in comparison to "Early Christians": I think the latter statement is clarification enough for what Jews the article is referring to, unless we're going to start a new section on time-travelling. Those are my thoughts.--C.Logan (talk) 00:07, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

My concern (& the concern expressed by others) is that the term & the name of this article are misleading. Just because something is common and popularly perceived as "to-the-point" doesn't make it right or appropriate. Wikipedia aspires to a higher standard than that. - CheshireKatz (talk) 05:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm not entirely sure the title is misleading. The title certainly describes what it is clearly: an article pertaining to the persecution of the earliest Christians by the Jews. Please remember that we do not have to cater to the utmost political correctness. There was certainly opposition to early Christianity by many Jews, and the article title elucidates as much as possible without going into absurd detail.

Please remember that the title need only be general in scope; it should not try to explain the topic entirely. The article itself is where we should be concerned. Again, I don't see the title as "wrong" or "inappropriate" in any sense. This seems to be a case of over-correctiveness (perhaps unnecessary white-washing). The italics expressed in the article are also poorly executed emphasis, which I will remove (people can certainly read without editorial emphasis on important points; this is an encyclopedia).--C.Logan (talk) 09:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that that characterization conflates an internal schism within Judaism with acts of religious oppression by one organized faith against another. That characterization is a product of the NT, a primary source. Opposition does not equate persecution and such a representation (poorly sourced at that) is worth addressing. The objection has been raised for some time and reliable sources have not been provided. Wiki's policy on the essentialness of Verifiability, particularly in regard to controversial subject matter, is quite clear (WP:PROVEIT). This is not a debate of "political correctness," it's a debate about encyclopedic accuracy. I am here offering an alternative to removal of the content, by moving the article to a discussion of Christian Theology, where I think it would have considerable value. This proposal is perfectly transparent and I object to your accusation of whitewashing, which serves only to pollute the debate with an unfounded presumption of bad faith & ill will. - CheshireKatz (talk) 20:15, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

We have both "Persecution by" and "Persecution of" articles for Christianity and Islam. There is no reason why there should be both for Judaism. Persecution of other religious groups by Jews has been very small-beer in comparison to that inflicted by other faiths, but it has existed and discussion of it should not be censored. Paul B (talk) 10:02, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Paul B, No one is discussing censorship or removal of this page's contents at all. The information on this page is valuable to discussions of the NT & other Christian texts analysis in the contexts of theology & historicity. However, what you'll find in the other articles you reference that you do not find here are meticulous reliance on secondary sources for evidence supporting the claims of persecution. Thus, this article remains an analysis of Christian texts (primary sources) and not an analysis of historical events. Secondary sources were previously requested and after five months of stagnation, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that they are not coming anytime soon. Therefore, in the interest of preserving both the article's contents and Wiki's citation policies, some change must take place. The persecution of Christians article, which links here makes a point of saying, "Reliable evidence of events accompanying the schism between the Pharisees and the Nazarenes is not available." As such I think framing the article in the context of theological depictions is neither prejudiced nor misleading. - CheshireKatz (talk) 19:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

One last thing, I want to reiterate that if this article was comprised of factual accounts derived from secondary sources, there would be no cause for complaint. The problem is that this controversial article has stagnated in an unacceptable state and until someone does the necessary research to provide secondary sources it must be at the very least framed properly as a discussion of theology & historicity, so as not to be misunderstood. I look forward to the time when some ambitious individual actually does produce a well-researched & appropriately sourced article about the history this article seeks to discuss, however, this is not it. - CheshireKatz (talk) 19:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

My point was not that the article should remain as it is, but that it should change to mirror the others. It should not be exclusively about Jewish-Christian relations, but should, for example, include the persecution of the Samariatans, especially uder the Hasmoneans, and the forced conversions of Edomites by John Hyrcanus, along with later events. These should be discussed as historical events usually are - with due regard to the variety of views existing among scholars. Paul B (talk) 11:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, well that's a very good suggestion. I'd encourage you to collect some reliable sources and start one at Historical persecution by Jews. Of course, from there you could link here and hopefully by that time this dispute will be resolved. - CheshireKatz (talk) 20:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - Hi. I apologize, Chesire. But historical persecution of Christians by Jews is a real phenomenon; use on the NT is one thing, but the phenomenon exists (e.g., ancient prayer documents where official Jewish prayers pray for the God to destroy Christians). I don't have a persecution complex; I think it would be equally awful to try to rename something like "Persecution of Jews by Christians" to "Persecution of Jews by some people in the church" or something like that. But this is a real phenomenon, and I worry we're trying to whitewash history. The documents can be obtained, but renaming is easily not the answer. The Evil Spartan (talk) 09:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Evil Spartan, as far as I can tell, no one's denying that Jewish people at some point in history persecuted Christians. Furthermore, as I stated to Paul B, I feel that a reliably-sourced article detailing such persecution should exist. However, the content of this article does not cover any such well-sourced instances. The "documents" have been requested for some time and this article went unedited from July until my recent efforts to preserve the content as a valid theological debate. Again, I don't appreciate the accusation of whitewashing as it presumes ill will of which there is no evidence whatsoever and only taints the rational debate and serves to undermine the good faith of the proposal. - CheshireKatz (talk) 15:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Your comparison to "Persecution of Jews by Christians" is disanalogous, because the content of that article 1) is extremely well-sourced, 2) chronicles much more recent history, & 3) covers far more than the actions of a single ancient sect. This article's name qualifies the topic as Persecution of early Christians, rather than engaging the topic as a whole as you've suggested. By your reasoning the article should be moved to "Persecution of Christians by the Jews" and as I stated before, once well-sourced documents are presented such an article would have merit. In the meanwhile, this article's content must be addressed in respect to Wiki's Verifiability policy (WP:PROVEIT) and I believe my proposal provides an adequate solution. - CheshireKatz (talk) 15:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm frustrated by this opposition without contribution of constructive alternatives. I felt that the move proposal would offer an opportunity to preserve this article's content as an alternative to the much less appetizing process of merely removing this article's unsourced content. However, removal of the unsourced content is perhaps the only way to light a research fire under those that seek to see it preserved. As Mr. Ballard well articulates on his user page, "Too many dubious "facts" get put into Wikipedia.... If something looks dubious, it probably is. And in that case, the burden of proof is with the "fact". So if I see something which I know is dubious, I have no hesitation in deleting it." I've historically disliked such measures, but I'm beginning to see the value in them where those eager to voice opposition (proposing instead the inclusion of references) aren't willing to do the necessary research to preserve said "facts." Here's hoping it doesn't come to that. - CheshireKatz (talk) 17:09, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

If an article about an accepted historical event is not of high enough quality, then the logical response is to improve the article rather than to change the title of the article to reflect the poor state of the article.

Your proposed title -- Persecution by the Pharisees in early Christian Theology -- removes mention of those who were actually being persecuted (the early Christians) and limits the scope of the article to accounts of this in "Christian theology", which is odd because surely this event is a matter of Christian history. It has nothing to do with theology.

And, as other editors have pointed out, are we 100% sure it was ONLY the pharisees who were responsible for the persecution? Amaliq (talk) 07:53, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

"Accepted?" Citation needed. The Wiki's Verifiability policy (WP:PROVEIT) favors removal of uncited content over prolonged delay in the hope that someone will source it. As always, Claims of Consensus are inadequate. The content of the article does, however, sufficiently cover a valid theological debate, hence the proposal to move it to an article discussing that debate.

Accounts of an event would be a matter of history, but the content of this article is limited to citations of religious texts and criticisms of those religious texts. The biblical account of the world being created in seven days is likewise not a discussion of Christian history, but a discussion of Christian theology.

A lack of sources discussing who was responsible for what persecution is exactly the problem with this article. What we have sources for are NT depictions of the Pharisees oppressing the Nazarenes. Thus, I see value in having an article on that subject, whereas this article is unsourced and undeveloped. Wiki's Verfiability (WP:V) policy: "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." - CheshireKatz (talk) 21:28, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I am sympathetic to your argument, but I believe the article should be fixed, not removed altogther. Do you see my point, Cheshire? Ideally, the best sources would be non-scriptural, but the historical parts of the NT (e.g., parts of Acts) provide the best picture out there; one might notice that similar articles on, say, the relationship between Judaism in the time of the Macabees would rely on similarly religious sources. Also, sources such as Josephus play a critical, non-sectarian look at the early church (who, I see incidentally, is already mentioned in this article). In fact, upon reviewing this article, I see that it is very well sourced (much better than I could have anticipated). Cheshire, could you comment on why you don't believe the article is well enough sourced? I see at least 20 non-scriptural sources. The Evil Spartan (talk) 21:56, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I would love to see this article fixed, I genuinely would. This whole proposal is based upon the fundamental premise that I want to see the good work collected here preserved. However, for months upon months this page went unedited and that is a problem. I can't address the citations used in discussions of Judaism in the time of the Macabees is taken, but based on your description, it doesn't appear to be a particularly contentious subject matter compared to how, when, where, and to what extent in history the Ancient Hebrews persecuted others. Though I do believe a move is necessary perhaps a stub page could be created at Historical persecution by Jews with a section carved out relating to this subject linking to the destination page. I don't see a problem with that and perhaps it would genuinely encourage someone to dig up sources and put together a substantial article. - CheshireKatz (talk) 03:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm still looking for more input on this proposal or updates to the article. Recommend any changes in phrasing, replacement content, etc.? - CheshireKatz (talk) 18:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Much of the content consists of direct quotes, generally to be discouraged in this format. Once you remove those, and swathes of unreliable sources, the remainder can be merged into history of Christianity without any problems.

May I remind you that Historical persecution by Jews was deleted per this AFD? JFW | T@lk 22:17, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I realize that Historical persecution by Jews was deleted and as I recall it was because its previous incarnation was full of unsourced hateful crap (to be blunt). However, that shouldn't impede someone willing to do the appropriate research from creating a sound article in compliance with the five pillars. - CheshireKatz (talk) 23:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose - Per Peter Ballard and C. Logan.

  I created this article. Perhaps a brief history of why I created it will illuminate this discussion. The original text for this article came from Persecution of the early Christians which I created from Persecution of Christians. The problem is that there was just way too much content to stuff into a section of Persecution of Christians so I started by creating Persecution of the early Christians but even that mixed Persecution of the early Christians by the Romans with [[Persecution of the early Christians by the Jews and it wasn't, IMO, reasonable to try and cover these two disparate topics in the same article. Trying to do so led to this abrupt shift from "persecution by the Jews" to "persecution by the Romans" and the only common thread was "persecution of the early Christians". I think there is some argument that the Jews incited the Romans to persecute the Christians but that is such a minor point that it does not justify keeping the two topics in the same article.

  Now, I think we all agree that Persecution of the early Christians by the Romans is both encyclopedic and factual. No one seems to have any problem with that.

  However, there is significant controversy about whether allegations of Persecution of the early Christians by the Jews are factual, over-stated or largely fabricated. Regardless of which of these characterizations is most accurate, the fact remains that the topic is very encyclopedic because the belief that early Christians were persecuted by the Jews is a key factor in the development of the religion and its attitudes towards the Jews. This, in turn, is argued to have been a contributor to the emergence of Christian anti-Semitism. Having this title stay here is important to provide a place for other articles such as Antisemitism to link to.

  If you wish to insert more counter-balancing material to the lead and to the body of the article based on citations to scholarly work, I am happy for you to do so. I do not wish to argue that the allegations in the NT and in the Patristic writings are incontrovertibly true. However, it is true that these allegations were made and that they were believed by Christians over two millenia and continue to be believed by many, if not most Christians.

  --Richard (talk) 09:13, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

• Herein lies the problem:

  "the topic is very encyclopedic because the belief that early Christians were persecuted by the Jews is a key factor in the development of the religion and its attitudes towards the Jews.

  That argument, which I agree with, vindicates the substance of the article, but NOT the title. The title of this article is currently "Persecution of early Christians by the Jews," not "Christian beliefs of their Historical Persecution by the Jews" and the difference between those statements is significant. One describes a historical record of acts of persecution (& their consequences), while the other describes a historical record of Christian beliefs (& their consequences). The problem with this article title is that it claims to describe the former, while actually discussing the latter. No amount of "balancing" will suffice, because the title presupposes that such acts of persecution are a matter of historical record and then presents, as its sole evidence, the NT (and other Christian) texts' accounts. - CheshireKatz (talk) 18:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, the title intends to describe the topic of discussion, without actually making any affirmations concerning the topic itself. For example, Armenian Genocide and Nanking Massacre do not make any consideration for the fact that many people deny that such acts ever occurred, and if they did, that such a title would be inappropriate (note the recent fuss by Turkey concerning America's semi-affirmation of the former event).

The title does not say "it was genocide", but it refers to the topic in the clearest way possible. It may seem one-sided, but I see it as neutral- anyone who takes the time to read the article will have no problem understand the straightforwardness and clarity of the title. I'm not comparing the acts of modern times to these early actions, but I'm comparing these articles to note that the mere subjectivity of an event's portrayal does not mean that we have to go overboard to satisfy everyone. This article is about the persecution of early Christians by the Jews, in both the historical and "theological" senses- the title makes no claim to the factuality of the event, but merely describes the subject of the article. Hopefully, I've not rambled too much here.--C.Logan (talk) 23:24, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

• Support as a better choice because it is more precise. The current title is confusing at best. That "these allegations were made and that they were believed by Christians over two millenia and continue to be believed by many, if not most Christians" is regrettable (because in the 21st century, we know what they entail) but it doesn't make the allegations factual, as the title implies. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 11:52, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose a switch to "Historical persecution by Jews" as the title isn't specific enough. It doesn't describe who was persecuted. However. I'm not necessarily opposed to a title such as "Historical persecution of Christians by Jews", "Historical persecution of early Christians by Jews". Majoreditor (talk) 17:43, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
• I think the status quo is currently neutral. "Persecution of early Christians by the Jews" is fine, as is "Jewish persecution of early Christians". As C. Logan has said, having both "ancient Hebrews" and "early Christians" is unnecessary. Having the word "history" is also a bit unnecessary (since "early Christians" was a long time ago anyways). I realize also that some users object to using "Jews". I have no problem with substituting "Jews" with "Hebrews".Bless sins (talk) 21:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - I'm not familiar with the minutiae of this discussion, nor is this topic exactly an area I know much about, but what's wrong with 'Pesecution of early Christians by the Pharisees'? Any title of 'Historical persecution by X' isn't advisable, and has been generally rejected by the community. ITAQALLAH 22:17, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
• Suggestion - if the status quo is kept, please say "Jews" instead of "the Jews" -- it's shorter and it sounds more professional. MilesAgain (talk) 10:51, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
• Suggestion - make the title broader. Something like Persecution of Early Christians so it covers all groups from say 32AD to 300AD. ^rossnixon 00:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

Since this conversation was getting a little scattered, I wanted to revise and sum up the current proposal and justifications offered for it.

Proposed: Move this article to Early Christian persecution in the New Testament

Issue: The current title is alleged to 1) be historically inaccurate, 2) carry POV implications, and 3) imply a historical occurrence, though the current article lacks sufficient secondary sources to support a historical account. Deletion is unfavorable due to the value of the article's content to discussions of Christian Theology & New Testament Historicity

1. Historical inaccuracy: The title names "the Jews" as persecutors of early Christians. This is an anachronistic use of the name "Jews," a term introduced in the Middle Ages with contemporary usage. The followers of the Torah living at the time of the early Christians were the Hebrews and those living in the region of Roman-occupied Judea were called Israelites (or Judeans), a group which included both the "Nazarenes" (early Christians) and the "Pharisees" (Israelite majority). In dealing with historical contexts, WP:NCON states: "Always ensure that names are used in an historically accurate context and check that the term is not used anachronistically." Therefore, whichever historical name is most appropriate to reference the persecutors described in the NT, it is definitely not "the Jews."
2. POV implications: The current title presupposes "the Jews" (a contemporary religious group) as being having been responsible in a historical account the persecution of early Christians. Though this subpage was created from Persecution of Christians per WP:SIZE, a WP:POV fork unintentionally resulted. A similar example would be if the Responsibility for the death of Jesus article were to produce a fork called The Jews' responsibility for the death of Jesus. Contributing to this POV is the use of the the phrase "the Jews," which has developed pejorative connotations (see Jew (word)#Changes in use). In regard to Descriptive names, WP:NCON states: "Choose a descriptive name for an article that does not carry POV implications. For instance, what do we call the controversy over Qur'an handling at Guantanamo Bay? The article is located at Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005. Note that the title makes no statement about who is the (more) guilty party: it does not "give away" that conclusion; in fact the article itself draws no conclusion." Since the current title does imply a particular POV, assign guilt, and "give away" a particular conclusion, this is not the appropriate title for this article.
3. Insufficient sources for a historical account: The current title implies that this article is a historical account of the persecution of early Christians by the Jews. However, the article lacks secondary sources supporting a historical account of early Christians persecution committed by the Jews. The sole sources provided supporting the accusations are primary sources (the NT & other religious Christian texts). The lack of secondary sources could result in this article's deletion. To avoid this an alternative has been proposed, moving the article's contents to an article related to Christian theology or the NT's historicity. Reliance on primary sources is permissible where an article is about the primary sources as opposed to the events they purport to chronicle.

Anticipated objections:

1. "The title no longer matches its sister article Persecution of early Christians by the Romans!"

   Very true, which is why I'll be headed over there next to move it to Early Christian persecution in the Roman Empire. I've examined both articles and the only reference to the NT in the Romans article are a couple sentences relating to Pontius Pilates crucifixion of Jesus, which I can easily incorporate here.

2. "But what about all those other "Persecution of X by Y" articles? Those have to be changed then to!"

   As far as I can see there's really only a couple, but yes they ought to be changed as well. I encourage you to be bold and issue move proposals wherever you see fit.

3. But everyone knows those heathen Jews persecuted those innocent early Christians! It's a fact!

   Quiet you.

So yeah hopefully this proposal is more clear and less controversial. - CheshireKatz (talk) 23:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The Evil Spartan has reverted the move on the following grounds: "improper title: consensus not achieved. This article is not about the New Testament, it is about historical fact." As stated above, the article lacks sufficient secondary sources to assert a historical fact. The content of the article amounts to claims in Christian texts and criticism of the texts historicity. That does not amount to discussion of a historical fact, that is a discussion of a depiction. As he is not addressing his opposition on this talk page, I must presume his dispute is that he believes the persecution to be widely accepted as a historical fact. However, as repeatedly stated, Wiki's Verfiability (WP:V) policy is clear: "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Reliable secondary sources regarding the historicity of the New Testament are cited, but none regarding the factuality of Christian persecution by the Israelites. As that is only one of the three grounds justifying the move, the move is still appropriate. However, I'll wait a little bit giving him & others another opportunity to voice their opposition before resuming the move. - CheshireKatz (talk) 18:38, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support move The article in its current form is about New Testament accounts and commentary on them, plain and simple. The article title should reflect this. While there is scholarly commentary discussing the historicity of the New Testament accounts, the subject clearly remains the New Testament accounts themselves. The accounts themselves are unquestionably notable so I see no basis for a delete. A rename is the appropriate approach here. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 18:53, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

He's correct. There is no consensus to rename the page. I'd suggest trying to achieve consensus prior to attempting any move. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 18:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

There was contention over my prior proposal, but silent acquiescence to my revised compromise proposal, which I felt was uncontroversial given the reasons I put forth in the revision. Just being bold (WP:BB), though I could certainly have jumped the gun. - CheshireKatz (talk) 19:02, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

No worries. Actually, I still think that we can reach consensus on a name that will be acceptable to most editors. Cheshire, I'll drop you a note on your talk page tomorrow. Thanks, Majoreditor (talk) 19:16, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

CheshireKatz, please don't take too much offense but making a title move on New Year's Day claiming "silent acquiesence" is either incredibly naive or incredibly bad faith. Assuming good faith, I will point out for your edification that New Year's Day is a holiday in most parts of the world. Many people are away from work and often on vacation. Many are either recovering from hangovers or spending time with their families. Any significant changes proposed over the Christmas/New Year's holiday should be given extra time for response, not less.

People like myself who have long watchlists won't see everything that happens if they are absent from Wikipedia for a day or two. That's why I missed this one the first time. I didn't log on New Year's Day due to a bout of the stomach flu which I am just recovering from now.

In the future, please have the courtesy to take longer before making such moves given that you know there are multiple, opposing opinions regarding the title. Please seek consensus rather than acting unilaterally.

Now, for my part, I don't like your title. It's not horrible but "Christian persecution" could mean "persecution by Christians" or "persecution of Christians". Also, true or not, the title makes no sense unless you mention the Jews. I would prefer looking for variants that address these issues.

Examples of titles that I could live with include

1. Accounts of persecution of Christians by the Jews in the New Testament
2. New Testament accounts of Jewish persecution of Christians
3. Allegations of persecution of Christians by the Jews in the New Testament"

Actually, I don't like any of the above. They're all too long and they all use the word "of" twice.

NOTE: I don't claim that I have any veto power or even any special privilege concerning the title of this article. I will abide by consensus.

However, since I not only created this article but also spent a lot of effort reorganizing the set of articles concerning persecution of Christians in this era, I would appreciate it if, as a courtesy, you would please keep me apprised of any significant proposals regarding the content, structure or title of these articles and provide me an opportunity to express my opinion. Then, if consensus runs against my opinion, I will abide by that consensus.

--Richard (talk) 21:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Consider the article on The Exodus. That's not clearly historical. Is there any evidence that it happened other than Old Testament accounts? Any desire to retitle the article to Accounts of an Exodus according to the Old Testament?

How about the article on the Babylonian exile? Why does that article treat it as historical? Is it? I've always assumed it was. However, the article provides no sources other than the Old Testament. Are there any non-Jewish sources that can be cited to verify the historicity of this event?

Is it your intent to retitle the titles of all articles regarding events of questionable historicity? Or are you just targeting this article because you think this article is particularly slanderous towards the Jews? Why are you wrapped up in fixing this problem via the title? Do you think the title asserts the historicity of the event? If this article needs to be rewritten or restructured to provide a better balance, then let's do it. I just don't think it's worth mangling the title in order to push your POV on this. Fight the NPOV war in the article instead. It's a far more important arena to push the point.

However, I will comment that we have already provided a significant presentation of the "ahistorical" view. Do we have any evidence that this is the predominant view among historians? I would like to see some citations that will assure us that this is a consensus view rather than a minority view. It's clearly a minority view among Christians. What is its status in the academic community. And, how do you know this?

At the risk of belaboring the obvious... if it's a minority view, then we are at risk of having given it undue weight. If it's a consensus or majority view, then well, where's the citation to a reliable source that supports the assertion that it is a majority view?

Remember that just because Freudmann, Setzer, Seaver and Hare said it's ahistorical doesn't mean this is the consensus view. We need some evidence that it is the consensus view. Ideally, we would find a quote that says "The consensus view has come to the opinion that the accounts of persecution by the Jews in the NT are not factual."

--Richard (talk) 23:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Richard

My issue with the phrase "in the New Testament"

Above all other things, I am most concerned with the phrase. I do not mind other changes, but I believe this article is meant to be about a historical occurence, with the best of sources from the time given. I am worried that the phrase "in the New Testament" seeks to deligitimize the occurrence. However, we have scholarly work outside the New Testament quoted here as well: we have Josephus, Justin Martyr, Eusebius from the time period, and several scholarly works from later time periods. This article is not meant to be a theological account; it is meant to be historical. With all due respect, I worry that moving the article would greatly cheapen the value of it and its encyclopedic worth. There may be another route, but I do not believe this is the one, at all. The Evil Spartan (talk) 23:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Evil Spartan, but I disagree with you. While many people consider these events to be historical, there are a number of scholars who believe that the events are ahistorical or, at least, overstated. It is not our job to determine who is correct but to present all sides giving due weight to each side.

Whether you believe the account to be historical or ahistorical, there can be no denying that the account is inextricably part of a theological conflict. It is, in essence, a battle for the hearts and minds of the Jewish nation (especially in the Jewish Diaspora). The Christians lost this battle and turned to the Gentiles, castigating the "Jews" for having rejected the "true Messiah".

--Richard (talk) 00:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think articles like The Exodus, Burning bush, Assumption of Mary, and Bodhi tree get the titles they do not as an endorsement of historicity but simply because the concepts involved, whether or not historical, are usually referred to by these names, and the names themselves are very well-known. This article, on the other hand, isn't on a concept whose name is so notable. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 01:13, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you're right that this concept is not as notable as the other examples that you mentioned. However, it is a very widely known and used concept in Christianity, both historically and even today. Without asserting its basis in historical fact, I think Wikipedia would be poorer for not having it as an article title (even if only as a redirect). It is the phrase that Christians would use to look it up. --Richard (talk) 01:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree that this article ought to remain as a redirect after the move (and did so during my initial move attempt). If someone were interested in getting more info about persecution of Christ's first followers by the established Judean majority, the phrasing "Persecution of early Christians by the Jews" is a reasonably intuitive construction. However, The Exodus, Burning bush, Assumption of Mary, and Bodhi tree are not merely intuitive constructions (consider, by comparison, The Really Really Long Walk from Egypt to Canaan or The Flaming Shrubbery). These four phrases established unique names affixed to the concepts they reference, regardless of those concepts historical accuracy. I would argue though that the phrase "Persecution of early Christians by the Jews" is disanalogous with those names. In addition, that phrasing has become a convention for various Wikipedia articles, composed of historical accounts from reliable, published secondary sources. Due to the challenges of determining the historicity of the depictions dealt with in this article, ought to be distinguished. - CheshireKatz (talk) 07:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Point-by-point response to Cheshire Katz

Hi CheshireKatz, I confess that my response on Talk:Persecution of early Christians by the Jews may have been a bit reactionary and overwrought. I have re-read your comments and, while I don't agree with them, I would like to discuss them further rather than reject them summarily.

1. Historical inaccuracy: What makes you think that using the word "Jews" is anachronistic? What is your evidence that "Hebrews" is a better term to use? My sense is that "Hebrews" refers to a much earlier time such as before the creation of Israel and Judah. After the ten tribes of Israel get carried away, who's left and what are they called? Are they Hebrews or Jews? After the return from Babylon, they seem to be referred to as Jews. By the time of Christ, Judeans is a term of political geography (i.e. people who lived in the Roman Province of Judaea). Who lived in the Hebrew Diaspora? Hebrews, I guess. And it was the Hebrews who mounted the Great Hebrew Revolt, right?

   As for Pharisees, my understanding is that they were just one sect among the Jews. There were Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and the Christians. Note that the Nazarenes are not equivalent to the Christians. I am not asserting that this is an exhaustive list of Jewish sects of the era although I think I've covered the major ones. I'm just commenting that it is incorrect to suggest that the Jews of that era were divided into Pharisees and Nazarenes.

   What is important to mention is that there is a theory that Christian anti-Jewish polemic arose from a competition to succeed the Sadducees after the fall of the Temple in AD70. Without a temple, there is little need for a temple cult and this fact is used to explain their demise. The Pharisees are seen as the precursors of the rabbinical tradition and the Christians are considered the precursors of modern Christians (unless you wish to entertain some fringe theories that Christianity was reinvented in subsequent centuries).

   What we're not clear on is who the NT authors claimed had persecuted them. Was it the Pharisaic sect in the Jewish synagogues? or was it the Jews as a whole? I don't know Greek but my understanding is that sometimes they say "Pharisees" and other times, they say "Jews". Perhaps this distinction needs to be expanded upon in the article.

   Regardless, the story told in the NT is an attempt on the part of the Christians to proselytize their own kind (one Jewish sect attempting to espouse their views to other Jews) and failing. Following this rejection, the sect turns to the Gentiles and meets with greater success. This story is the context in which these claims of persecution are made and the claims were arguably made to delegitimize the Jews in the eyes of the Gentiles (many of whom respected the Jews).

2. POV implications: As explained above, there's lots of POV to go around. It's been there for 2000 years. You won't wave it away with a title change. The key here is to realize that we are documenting a theological conflict which has allegations which are possibly fictional or at least overstated. It is NOT our job to determine who is right in this conflict. It is our job to provide an NPOV presentation of all sides of the conflict giving due weight to all significant POVs and theories.
3. Insufficient sources for a historical account: - We've been around this block before. If this article asserts that these events happened, then it should be fixed. We can assert that the NT accounts record these events but, given the challenges to their historicity and the lack of corroborating outside sources, we should not assert unconditionally that the events actually happened. That doesn't mean the title has to be changed.

--Richard (talk) 23:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Richard, as always, thanks for the insightful comments. Cheshire has also raised some good points. To the credit of you both, you guys are using the talk page to present cogent rationales and hash out differences.

We can all benefit by exploring options. To that end Cheshire and I may try to bounce some thoughts around and see if we can come up with suggestions to present to the broader audience. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 02:32, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Richard, you've given me a lot to chew on and I want to address it all, but I'm gonna have to do it in some segments. I'll start from the bottom and work my way up.

Insufficient sources: Check out my response to you in Evil Spartan's opposition to the phrase "In the New Testament." A naming convention of creating articles with the name "Persecution of X by Y" has been established. I oppose this convention, because of its inherent POV implications, but that's a larger issue I'll get to later. At present, however, the articles that follow this convention are primarily historical accounts of persecution based upon reliable, published secondary sources. This article is the exception and the convention should not be applied. This article is about the historicity of NT depictions. I noticed you pointed out the The Exodus article not being named The Exodus in the Torah. As I stated above, The Exodus is a unique name affixed to particular depictions in the Torah, not inherently to any particular event. I would take issue if the article was called the Jewish Migration from Egypt to Canaan, because that would suggest a factual account. As for the Babylonian captivity, I feel largely the same way that it is a unique name with a particular referent, although I'm annoyed there aren't more sources in that article considering the significant archaeological and anthropological evidence that's been uncovered supporting aspects of the Torah's depiction (while disputing others). I've marked the page and I'll be heading over there soon enough. The other reason that I think changing the article name to "in the New Testament" on the basis of insufficient sources is that with the exception of an excess of quoted material and a lack of variety in sources, we actually have a pretty solid article here in regard to what's discussed. The NT is a primary source worth analyzing so I think articles discussing the events depicted in it are valuable and therefore would be happy to see an article entitled Early Christian persecution in the NT. If such an article had been created from scratch, it would have been established from the onset that this is an article about NT historicity and the theological effects of the depiction. Alternatively, if instead of being a subpage of Persecution of Christians, a subpage of Early Christians in the NT had been created from a section called Early Christian Persecution in the NT, primary source analysis context would have been established, resolving the lack of secondary source criticism. Since the article could have existed in either form ("...by the Jews" & "...in the New Testament"), based upon WP:NCON, it seems like the descriptive name that is less controversial would be preferred. Also check out WP:Words to avoid#Article title. They provide the following example: "an article title 'The conspiracy to kill JFK' strongly suggests that there was such a conspiracy or even that there was only one." In this instance, Persecution of early Christians by the Jews strongly suggests that there was such persecution and the Jews were responsible for it. By contrast, Early Christian Persecution in the NT carries no such POV implications, yet encapsulates the same material. That's as far as I'll get for now, more on POV implications and the history of the word "Jew" in my next segment. (Sneak Preview: Istanbul's not Constantinople and old New York was once New Amsterdam. Why'd they change it? I can't say. People just liked it better that way. *shrug* :p) - CheshireKatz (talk) 08:27, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: "Jews" vs. "Hebrews" - I just remembered that the NT book is called Epistle to the Hebrews which argues that at least some early Christians called the Jews of the time "Hebrews". On the other hand, our article on Hebrews says that the Hebrews were "the ancestors, or simply an alias, of the Israelites". Moreover, "The relationship between Hebrews and Israelites is controversial, but it is believed that at least some of the Hebrews eventually became Jewish." BTW, where are the citations for all this? So, in conclusion, using "Hebrews" in the title is more likely to be wrong than using "Jews". However, don't get caught up on this point, read on.

I'd like to see your next two installments so please post them here if you have the time to write them. However, I've been giving all this further thought and I'm not really obstinate or intransigent. See my compromise proposals below. --Richard (talk) 09:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Quick note: I do want to continue discussion of the article's choice of terms to refer to the residents of Judea discussed in various portions of the New Testament (Jews vs. Hebrews vs. Judeans vs. Pharisees), however, in light of your much appreciated compromise proposal, I'm tempted to revisit the discussion after this request discussion is resolved. There's quite a lot of debate on which term is appropriate since they frequently signify different things (eg. Hebrews = Religious Identifier vs. Judean = Ethnic Identifier), though they refer to overlapping groups of people. But as I said, I'd prefer to wait until a couple days after the move and then readdress this open question. - CheshireKatz (talk) 19:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposed compromise

While I still think "Jews" is the most appropriate generic term to describe who was charged with carrying out the alleged persecution in the NT, I've come to feel that it is not critical to use the word in the title. Thus...

How about moving this article to Persecution of Christians in the New Testament? Yeh, I know this isn't far from the original move proposal but, as I commented before, "Christian persecution" is ambiguous. If I write "Roman persecution", what do you think of? "Persecution by the Romans", right? Since there are articles describing both "Persecution of Christians" and "Persecution by Christians", I think it's important to be clear which we are referring to.

Here's yet another proposal... how about Rejection of early Christians by the Jewish establishment? I agree with you that "persecution" is a POV word. If a bunch of Messianic Jews come into a synagogue and start calling everyone sinners for not accepting Jesus as Messiah, what is the natural reaction? Maybe to engage them in dialogue but certainly not to tolerate rude and disruptive behavior. Are we sure that the early Christians weren't rude and disruptive (as religious fanatics are wont to be)? And are we sure that they weren't ejected from synagogues for what we here at Wikipedia consider disruptive and uncivil conduct? So, let's not call it persecution. Let's call it "rejection". Note: I suspect that even "rejection" is only supported by the NT but, at least, it's a less POV word than "persecution". I believe that there are theories that Christians co-existed peacefully with other Jewish sects until a bifurcation occurred. The date and circumstances of this bifurcation are the subject of scholarly debate. In brief, it didn't necessarily happen the way it is depicted in the NT. See this URL for an example of what I'm talking about.

Another point in favor of saying "Jewish establishment": since almost all the earliest Christians were Jews, it's not reasonable to say that the "early Christians" were rejected by the "Jews". Instead, we should say that the Jewish establishment rejected the Jewish sect which were later called "Christians" if indeed such rejection occurred as the NT claims it did.

Another possibility is Christian-Jewish relations in the New Testament. However, that starts to expand the scope of the article significantly and I'm contemplating the creation of a separate article on this topic. See my comment on Talk:Christianity and Judaism for some insight as to what I have in mind.

There might even be a case made for an article titled Christianity's break with Judaism. I need to research this more, though.

In summary, given the much wider scope implied by Christian-Jewish relations in the New Testament or Christianity's break with Judaism, I think we're better off keeping the scope of this article what it is and thus I prefer Rejection of early Christians by the Jewish establishment or Persecution of Christians in the New Testament.

--Richard (talk) 09:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I quickly ran this by some people in my office this morning and the "consensus" was that Persecution of Christians in the NT is a much better title to early Christian persecution in the NT and between your arguments and theirs, I'm convinced. I agree Christian Jewish relations expands the article scope dramatically and therefore is problematic. When I was first trying to come up with an alternative to my first move proposal, it was something along the lines of "Rejection of early Christians by the Jewish establishment." The problem I faced with that though was due to the fact that the ambiguity of the word "early" doesn't avoid us having to distinguish/reconcile the rejection of the different divisions/splits including, among the Jewish Christians, the Cerinthians, Ebionites, Elcesaites, Nasoraeans, and the Nazarenes, let alone the various sects practicing forms of Judaism. By framing the discussion around the NT, we can draw clearer lines as to the abuse suffered by the Christians, which gave rise to the anti-Jewish polemic and is the focus of this article's content at present. - CheshireKatz (talk) 15:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm very excited about this recent achievement of a compromise with Richard, this article's creator. Since his compromise seems uncontroversially a better wording, I'm going to simply adopt his wording. Thank you also to everyone else who has thus far contributed commentary to this most recent requested move. Is there any further opposition out there? - CheshireKatz (talk) 19:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a workable title. Majoreditor (talk) 05:59, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

So it's now the evening of the 5th here in NYC and a week has passed since the revised move was proposed. Presuming this article will continue dealing exclusively with ancient allegations (up to the fall of the Roman Empire), thus satisfying Bikinibomb's valid concerns about future expansion of Persecution of Christians, I believe consensus has been achieved and the article can be moved. - CheshireKatz (talk) 00:25, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

More anachronism

If "Jewish" is an anachronism (and I agree that it is, see for example S.J.D. Cohen, "The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties" [Berkeley: U of Cal Press, 1999]), so too is "Christian." It is debatable whether an entity called "Christianity" existed at the time of the writing of the New Testament - and, indeed, the words "Christian" or "Christianity" never appear there. fishhead64 (talk) 05:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Er ... Acts 11:25 says "It was in Antioch that the disciples were called Christians for the first time" (New American Bible). See this link for other New Testament translations (KJV, NAS, ASV, ERV, Yong's ,etc.) -- they all say pretty much the same thing, using the term "Christians". Majoreditor (talk) 06:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Majoreditor. Presuming the NT was copyedited by fellow Christians throughout history (which, considering the consistent Christian identification among the revisions, seems reasonable to me), the self-identification as Christians in the apostolic texts suffices to give rise to the same questions of historical context as the names they use to describe the other various residents of Judea, particularly those they were in conflict/competition with (see Richard's commentary on this subject above in his response to me). Also, while not a dispositive argument, when it comes to historically imprecise names, I'm more concerned for those controversially accused of persecution than those uncontroversially alleged as victims. - CheshireKatz (talk) 07:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Relations between early Christianity and Judaism

OK, I did it. I cobbled together a new article by copying text from a number of different Wikipedia articles. It's called Relations between early Christianity and Judaism. Please check it out and leave any comments you have for improvement at Talk:Relations between Christianity and Judaism in the New Testament.

--Richard (talk) 08:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Correction: I think Richard meant leave comments for improvement at Talk:Relations between early Christianity and Judaism. - CheshireKatz (talk) 19:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, I'm really confused why do we have this new article? Is it meant to replace this one and be a subpage of Persecution of Christians? Or is it a split from Jewish Christians or maybe an expansion of an entirely separate article? I feel like we've just reopened many of the same arguments voiced here on a brand new page. While I appreciate the synthesis work you've done in arranging that information, I feel like it's not really covering anything new and just opening a new forum for the same POV conflicts and original research by synthesis. I confess that "Relations between early Christianity and Judaism" evades some of my naming criticisms, but it once again heavily relies on biblical sources in discussing historical events and has the added impact of encouraging a battleground for Jewish-Christian edit wars. Oughtn't we do something to improve the issues of this article before creating new copies of its content elsewhere? Help me out here, Richard. - CheshireKatz (talk) 17:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems to be a lot of info pulled in from existing articles, not much new that can't be merged in with Jewish Christians which is what I first suggested Richard do when he asked about it. I'll give it a few days to see if it is cleaned up and made more specific, if not I'm probably going to merge anything new with Jewish Christians or appropriate, then AfD it. -Bikinibomb (talk) 19:34, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

IMO, not every article has to consist of only "new" text. Sometimes, an article can provide value by summarizing the pieces of a topic so as to provide the reader with a grand overview of the overall topic with pointers to subsidiary articles for further detail.

The rationale for this new article is that the issues that the subsidiary articles discuss provide only a narrow peephole into the larger discussion which is "what was the relationship between Christians and other Jews in the first few centuries of the Common Era? When did Christianity and Judaism part company and why?". This discussion could fit in Jewish Christians but it's a strange place for people to look for it and the discussion is bigger than "Jewish Christians". It's also about Gentile Christians. It could be in History of Christianity but that's way too big an article to discuss it except very lightly. It could be put into Early Christianity but that article spends so much time on beliefs, practices and orthodoxy that there's little room for discussion of the relationship with Judaism.

Let's face it, there was no article that told the whole story of Christianity starting as a Jewish sect, moving out into the Jewish Diaspora, competing with the Pharisees for adherents, losing that competition and finally breaking with Judaism, sowing the seeds for later antisemitism. If you look at all the articles that I link to as subsidiary articles (via the {{main}} template), you will see that they only tell bits and pieces of the overall story. This article provides a grand overview while leaving the details to be discussed in the subsidiary articles.

Or, at least, that is the intent.

Regarding the heavy reliance on Biblical sources, that's probably an artifact of copying text from other articles. If you look at the article, I have made an initial attempt to cite scholarly sources which are secondary rather than primary (see quote from Anders Petersen for example).

Another example that I am working on is this URL.

As for "inviting Jewish-Christian edit wars", my thinking is that the misbehavior of others should not deter us from doing the right thing if it helps build the encyclopedia.

--Richard (talk) 22:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

You have some good points. I think maybe the hierarchy and titles should go something like this:

• History of Christianity
  • Early Christianity (your article including very brief summaries of all the early period articles)
    • Early Christian beliefs, Persecution of Christians in the NT, etc.

So your article should be Early Christianity as a springboard for the rest underneath the main article of Christian history, then Early Christianity should be changed to beliefs, etc. See what I'm getting at? -Bikinibomb (talk) 22:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

But, I think a good list of all pertinent articles should be made to decide what goes where before anything major is done, it is all seeming pretty messy the more I look at it. Like, there is also Origins of Christianity which may be more of the title of what you are looking to do. So if you gather them all together to have a look, maybe some should be renamed or reorganized into more focused articles on the actual topics specified. -Bikinibomb (talk) 23:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Aaack! I thought I looked for Origins of Christianity last night and failed to find it. Obviously, it was too late at night and I was in too much of a hurry. I will likely be merging Relations between early Christianity and Judaism into Origins of Christianity in the next couple of days. The amount of overlap is quite significant and the only reason to have Relations between early Christianity and Judaism would be if Origins of Christianity started getting too big. --Richard (talk) 01:58, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, I was avoiding this until the move, but check out Schisms among the Jews as another place to distribute the content. The Nazarenes section is limited due to the large amount of stuff covered in Origins of Christianity et al., but it could be improved to inform a curious reader and then offer them the opportunity to continue following the history of that sect into the origins article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CheshireKatz (talk • contribs) 05:39, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Please checkout my overhaul of Origins of Christianity. As always, your suggestions for improvement are solicited and welcomed.

Upon reflection, I think I disagree with Bikinibomb. I would suggest that we leave Early Christianity as is and either link to Origins of Christianity or move Origins of Christianity to History of early Christianity.

--Richard (talk) 08:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Move

Keep it simple, Persecution of Jews by Christians, Persecution of Christians by Jews. Someone may add a source about Jews spitting at Christians in Israel or something and then it will need to be changed anyway because it is dated. -Bikinibomb (talk) 19:57, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention denial of Messianic Jews the Right to Return by the State of Israel, that's a big modern issue too. -Bikinibomb (talk) 20:02, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

For example: ARAD, Israel - The state of Israel promises religious freedom to all faiths. However, in some Israeli towns, Jews who believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah face persecution. Persecution by Gur. So yeah, it makes no sense to limit it to one time period since as the article develops more sources like this will be added. -Bikinibomb (talk) 20:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Bikinibomb, welcome to the discussion. You may have noticed in reading the full discussion of the prior move request and this most recent one that there are a lot of different discussions going around. Are you voicing opposition to the current proposal to move this article to Persecution of Christians in the New Testament? If so, I would appreciate you framing your comments in respect to the conflicts with Wiki policy discussed and incorporating your comments into the most recent section on the subject. We recently achieved what appeared to be consensus on the requested move, but if you observe a conflict with policy that we've overlooked or have other points to contribute, I'd like them addressed in the context of the larger discussion. - CheshireKatz (talk) 20:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess the question really is, do we want two articles, one just for persecution alleged in the NT, another for all other alleged persecutions? If so I'd rather not mix it up in that discussion since that scope seems limited to NT. But if you want one article for all reports throughout history, then I don't think there's a lot to discuss, the simplest title works best for that. -Bikinibomb (talk) 20:54, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

And, if you want two articles, then Persecution of Christians in the New Testament for just that aspect would be fine. But I'm not necessarily voting for that since it's not yet been decided if there should be two articles or just one. -Bikinibomb (talk) 20:58, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, this article arose out of the framework Richard established in Persecution of Christians. The first and, to a lesser extent, second sections of that article largely deal with allegations arising from the NT, which, due to their unique nature, lack reliable, published secondary sources. Due to the sui generis nature of those historically significant allegations (in both origin & impact) and the controversy over the anachronistic use of the phrase "the Jews" to identify the alleged persecutors in the title, consensus appears to have been achieved on Richard's proposal of Persecution of Christians in the New Testament. Later allegations of Jews persecuting Christians ought to be included in a later section of the chronologically-organized Persecution of Christians (if not their own article). However, those allegations do not share the same issues of historicity, naming in the historical context, or even refer to the same groups as the NT accusations and thus I feel two articles are not only recommended, but necessary. If those allegations became so numerous as to justify a new article, Persecution of Christians by the Jews might need to be recreated at that time, containing an initial section called Persecution of Christians in the NT with a link to this article (hopefully moved to the new title at that point). - CheshireKatz (talk) 00:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

This article goes beyond the NT and into Bar Kokhba and such so now it's a bit of a WP:COATRACK since the title isn't all that accurate anymore. If there is really desire to keep this moved to the present title, then Bar Kokhba etc. should be moved into a new article for everything outside of the NT, and only events in the NT should be discussed here. That's the kind of problem I was talking about avoiding when I said to keep it simple. -Bikinibomb (talk) 00:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeh, I was wondering about the NT/beyond NT issue myself.

Well, the current problem explains part of why I liked the original title in the first place. However, if we are to go forward rather than backward, we need to start looking at splitting this article into two articles. Question is: what would we call the new article that discusses Bar Kokhba? Is the primary issue still persecution? Or would we be moving towards Christianity's break with Judaism of which the persecution discussion is only a part?

--Richard (talk) 02:02, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, yes, but that's precisely why I prefaced the move with the further intent to change the Romans article name to "in the Roman Empire." I'm going to move the Bar Kokhba stuff, Roman persecution encouragement, etc. over to that article and the Pontius Pilate crucifixion material from there back over to here. I found the inclusion of Bar Kokhba here troubling due to his rejection by mainstream Judaism, but moving it to in the Roman Empire avoids that debate entirely. - CheshireKatz (talk) 05:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

With this article the way it is, I'm not all that ok with a fork to split up sections of Jewish behavior and attitudes in history, I think for NPOV you have to at least outline the whole story right here if you retain all these arguments attempting to refute one particular period.

Especially since other periods say hang on, maybe even if they weren't all actively persecuting or slaying the heathen like they were under Moses and Joshua, a lot of them may have been laying the groundwork for it. Like now, most Jews say Gentiles should ditch Christianity and follow Noahide, while Noahides and Chabadniks whisper of decapitation for those who don't. So there are united Jewish fronts, even loose and possibly unintentional ones against Christians and Messianics, that at least breed an atmosphere for persecution, if not actively carry it out, just as with any other group of human beings.

But even though I think a lot of the arguments are creating an illusion that Jews as a class could never ever be against a common religious enemy in that way, especially that zinger at the end that basically says you are responsible for antisemitism for even suggesting such a lie, the best evidence I've seen yet that Jewish Christians were persecuted, but not by a united front, comes from Jewish sages themselves: in Jesus' time, Jews simply had a baseless hatred for each other, and that's why the Temple fell. -Bikinibomb (talk) 07:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but huh? Refuting what? Whose antisemitic and whose lying? And what's a zinger? Pardon my confusion, but the tone's just a bit intense and conjures visions of tigers.... - CheshireKatz (talk) 07:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

zinger: A sudden shock, revelation, or turn of events.[1]

Maybe the article structure could relate to WP:TIGERS if you start an article with trying to determine NT validity then end with a conclusion about the 4th century, it indicates a strong view that maybe you want to refute the NT. But I figured it was unintentional and just needed cleanup of the intro purpose of the article, the title, and a continuation to present day allegations of persecution to fix NPOV. So like I said content needs to be limited only to the NT if it stays as is, or be changed to a more general article about all occurrences of persecution. Is that making sense now or not? -Bikinibomb (talk) 11:48, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh but I completely agree that this article ought to be just about the NT and analysis of it. Like I said, the historical accounts in the end of the article are due to be relocated to Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. - CheshireKatz (talk) 15:10, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is any such article, it's called Persecution of early Christians by the Romans so it's not about persecution by Jews, but persecution by Romans. So I guess there just needs to be a main article regarding Jewish persecution of Christians to cover 1st-21st centuries, with a blurb about the NT issue linked to this main article here, otherwise it's a POV fork. -Bikinibomb (talk) 18:58, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Bikinibomb, I think I see where some of the misunderstanding is coming from. Reread the revised proposal's "anticipated objections," my response to Richard a few paragraphs above, and the talk page of Persecution of early Christians by the Romans. I should have been more clear, because I forgot that you joined the discussion midstream. This move proposal was consistently discussed in conjunction with the move proposal for the sister article. This page's move proposal was posted first, because changing this article title was inherently more controversial. Sorry for the confusion. - CheshireKatz (talk) 21:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Allegations by early Christians of persecution by "the Jews" and the implications for the origins of antisemitism

Bikinibomb, the sections above has multiple people talking about multiple issues in multiple articles and so this new section is an attempt to separate this specific topic from the others.

My interest is describing a school of Christian/secular historians who argue that the anti-Jewish polemic in the NT was not simply misused by later antisemites but that, in fact, antisemitism has its roots in that anti-Jewish polemic. This argument suggests that the claims of persecution by Jews were overstated precisely to make the Jews look bad (even evil) and the Christians look to be on the side of good against evil. Scholars in this school argue that these allegations of persecution may have been added in the succeeding centuries to justify a changing and deteriorating relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Thus, this school is, in fact, attempting to refute significant portions of the NT. Some people such as Norman Beck have even gone so far as to propose removing sections of the NT which are deemed to be antisemitic. See Antisemitism in the New Testament.

Now, in the interest of NPOV, it must be made clear that a Wikipedia article cannot be seen to be "attempting to refute the New Testament". What we must do is to seek to present the ideas of this school of New Testament historians along with any opposing and balancing points of view. In particular, we must understand whether this school of thought is a majority consensus view or a minority view and give it due weight accordingly. It may not be reasonable to answer this question with a simple categorization as "Majority" or "Minority" view. The Christian view is overwhelmingly that the NT is historical wrt the events described after the death of Jesus. I'm fairly confident that this is true among Christians, even Christian theologians. Thus, among Christian theologians, this is probably a minority view. Are there secular and Jewish perspectives on this question? If so, what are they?

--Richard (talk) 23:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with Richard. I'd only add another layer of analysis that he's alluded to previous, which involves scholastic discussion of NT copyeditors trading the Jews for the Romans as the NT's main persecutors to make Christianity more appetizing to the Romans it sought to convert. This article offers a fantastic opportunity for all kinds of discussion about the allegations of persecution arising from this unique source. I'm still not sure I fully grasp what Bikinibomb's objections are, but considering the good faith enthusiasm being brought to this page, I'm optimistic that his worries will be assuaged as the article develops. "Heave, everyone, heave! Well done, everyone, you're doing very well! You'll love it when you see it. I've seen some of the drawings already, it's very special." - CheshireKatz (talk) 00:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Are there secular and Jewish perspectives on this question? If so, what are they? I'd probably ask, how did Jews usually deal with perceived false prophets until that time? Did they just ignore them, persecute them, etc? Although a lot has happened since then to condemn Christians, has the view of Jesus as a false prophet and failed Messiah changed much among most Jews? And, are Christians persecuted by any Jews now, if so, were conditions harsher or more relaxed in the first century?

These questions to round out POV are what give rise to going beyond the NT and looking at the history of persecution by Jews as a whole, since if there is anything inherent in teachings of Judaism that calls for punishment of false prophets and their supporters, and if it has happened before the first century and happens again now based on those teachings, that needs to be discussed too. If some Orthodox and Hasidim teach now that false prophets need to be punished and eradicated, that Jesus was a wizard and such, then it's important to say so if those Jewish views now are claimed to be the first century views that resulted in the rejection of Jesus by most Jews in the first place.

That's what I mean by not forking all that out and intentionally creating a blind spot in which ideas about replacing Romans with Jews and such is made easier. Conjecture and theories need to be balanced with hard facts on the matter. -Bikinibomb (talk) 01:55, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Bikinibomb, it seems like you interpret NPOV to be achieved by perceiving articles as scorecards for each sides. However, two POV articles don't make an NPOV one. Should we really have, for example, Persecution of Christians by Nazis and Persecution of Nazis by Christians? Or Persecution of Christians by Communists and Persecution of Communists by Christians? There's plenty of room in Persecution of Christians to bring up the issues you discussed and like any good encyclopedia reserve our article space for scholastic discussion already engaged by professionals, rather than try to compile original comprehensive analysis of each POV. That's not really NPOV though, that's just balance. As pointed out in WP:TIGERS, we have articles discussing strong points of views, perhaps even admiring them, but that isn't to suggest that to compensate for an article discussing the ferocity & cunning of the tiger, we need an article discussing the ferocity & cunning of the platypus. However, this should not discourage you from organizing sources to form a section in Persecution of Christians, called 20th Century Persecution of Christians in Israel, for example. Just be wary of WP:OR, WP:N, & m:MPOV as you do so. - CheshireKatz (talk) 13:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

No, such an article wouldn't be a scorecard, that's just your perception. There should actually be just a Persecution by Jews article outlining the entire history, and a sub NT article since Jews are a people that have been historically motivated by religious beliefs that have been around for thousands of years, and resulting actions haven't always been soft and sweet. So if you ignore past and present actions based on those religious teachings and resulting attitudes and focus on only one vague period of time with conjecture of falsifying documents and such, you intentionally create a blind spot and a POV fork. Which unfortunately is seeming more likely with your tiger/platypus analogies which suggest that Jews have never dealt harshly with those perceived to be a threat to their national interests. -Bikinibomb (talk) 01:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

we used to have such an article, see here and here. After many months, it transpired that there simply wasn't any material to be listed under "persecution by Jews", so it was deleted. You can't just create "persecution by $GROUP" articles just because you feel like it, you'll have to present evidence that such persecution is at least alleged in notable sources. This is a debate we had two years back. Unless there is significant new evidence, I see no reason for having it again. dab (𒁳) 17:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Well I could create I like pickles if I want but that's not the point. There are commentaries regarding alleged religious persecutions from Moses and Joshua against Canaanites all the way to the NT, and articles about Palestinians and Messianics, plus additional seen in this article, so I'm not worried about material. The only question is how to organize it. By the looks of the AfD some knucklehead probably created a one-sided rant against Jews and that's why that one got deleted. -Bikinibomb (talk) 17:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm confused... There are clearly allegations in notable sources of persecution of early Christians by "Jews". (NB: I said "allegations", not "proof") As for "contemporary persecution", the word "Jews" simply cannot apply here as it could only apply to individuals and not to any larger organization or institution since no such animal exists. So... what point are you trying to make here, Dbachmann? --Richard (talk) 18:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

the point I am making is wrt Bikinibomb's statement that there "should actually be just a Persecution by Jews article". I was pointing out that we had such an article, it was controversially edited for several months, every aspect of it was discussed, and it was finally deleted. I just note that there was a second debate, just a few months ago. We don't want to rehash this debate every couple of months: what would be the point? --dab (𒁳) 18:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

There are two notable issues: how Jews treat people when they take over territories, and how Jews treat those deemed to be pagans or false prophets. Both stem from teachings inherent in Judaism regarding those matters. So either that material was scantily presented with OR and without NPOV, or if it was and if it was of significant quantity and quality, a consensus of editors simply deemed it to be antisemitic and censored it. So one way or the other, it was wasn't handled properly, thus the AfD in question is not a consideration for any future work on those issues. -Bikinibomb (talk) 18:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

actually it is, per Wikipedia deletion procedures. Otherwise, there would be no point in having deletion debates at all. Since you are trying to re-create a deleted article, the proper procedure would be to submit the case to WP:DRV. dab (𒁳) 18:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

At this point there no decision as to where to include material. If you are saying an editor has to ask permission to include certain sourced and notable material anywhere then I simply reject that notion. I get the feeling there may be a team of editors ready to pounce on anything that does not aim to entirely refute charges of persecution so this may be a simple case of censorship, there's not a way for me to know since articles have not been preserved, except through some comments that material was well-sourced enough. If that is the case it essentially invalidates any previous deletions as if they never happened. Time will tell. -Bikinibomb (talk) 18:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Ultimately this discussion seems to lack ripeness to form an opinion on. Bikinibomb, if you sincerely feel that a persecution by Jews article is necessary, then I suggest you develop one, neutral and well-sourced, on your userpage. Once it meets Wikipedia's standards and overcomes the arguments in the previous AfD debates, create the article and await the judgment of the Wikipedia community. However, until such content is compiled and editted, we're only dealing in hypotheticals. - CheshireKatz (talk) 20:25, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

it may nevertheless be a good idea to undelete the talkpages of the deleted articles, so that we can point to the fact that this debate is indeed a rehash of one re-iterated several times already. The articles were not deleted because they were anti-Semitic. They were deleted because after all the anti-Semitic material had been edited out, there wasn't any content left that actually conformed with the title. dab (𒁳) 12:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really thinking of a laundry list of dirt, but an examination of teachings in Judaism and what effects they've had on people of other religions through history. Whatever's out there for either side, I report it. If it's been said that more than one execution every seventy years makes a bloody court, I report it. But if there are rabbis now that teach Jesus was a dangerous wizard and Gentiles need to be whipped for promoting him, I say that too. I'm not into whitewashing. So if the last AfDs weren't just censorship of slapping an antisemite tag on any negative sources at all, then the articles were just deleted because they were bad articles. Not because there is something inherently wrong with the topic. -Bikinibomb (talk) 12:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

this isn't about censorship, it is about due weight and original synthesis. You may want to work on Judaism and Christianity. If your intention is "Whatever's out there for either side, I report it", you should perhaps collect your material first and decide on titles involving "persecution" after you've collected it. dab (𒁳) 14:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not real convinced it isn't, considering what happens with Messianic Judaism other issues. There are definite patterns of censorship and POV pushing, as there are with Islam articles in desiring to remove criticism, images of Mohammed, etc. Just yesterday this article was criticized by an editor as suffering from OR when sources look ok to me. So time will tell. -Bikinibomb (talk) 15:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Dab, I get what you're saying, but the talk pages can be exhumed if/when someone recreates the page. All Bikinibomb is contending is that such an article could hypothetically exist conforming to Wiki policy. You're perfectly entitled to be skeptical, but right now this fight is getting quite silly. Wait until Bikinibomb posts something and then reject it based upon its form or substance (or lack there of). You wouldn't believe some of the articles that get posted and reposted time and again, but inevitably end up deleted for undue weight or original synthesis. Bikinibomb, I would remind you that Wikipedia editors are not reporters or expert scholars or otherwise engaged in original research and that we all must work extra hard to beware of the Megalomaniacal Point of View. Everyone ought to regularly self-check for symptoms, because it can help these discussions considerably. If you continue to have strong views about Judaism that you'd like to see published, I would encourage you to research them in or submit them to peer-reviewed theological journals, because short of carrying their authority, posting them here will undoubtedly be met with considerable friction and probably won't be worth the time it would take to ensure they aren't deleted. Wikipedia is no place for tigers to be roaming about. Quoted for everyone's benefit:

Wikipedia's articles are no place for strong views. Or rather, we feel about strong views the way that a natural history museum feels about tigers. We admire them and want our visitors to see how fierce and clever they are, so we stuff them and mount them for close inspection. We put up all sorts of carefully worded signs to get people to appreciate them as much as we do. But however much we adore tigers, a live tiger loose in the museum is seen as an urgent problem.

Happy editing! - CheshireKatz (talk) 15:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

If you are asking if I would take a primary source like Elijah's slaying of the prophets of Baal and say myself that it is an heroic Jewish account of persecution of those of other religions, the answer is no. But if such a proposal is presented by a notable source that says that the teaching may have influenced treatment of Jesus as a perceived false prophet and treatment of his supporters, then possibly. There's no question that there is enough material. The question in my mind is, why do some editors seem to be working so hard to say that there isn't, and that certain aspects of their religion aren't really notable and have no place on Wikipedia. So I'll leave it at that. -Bikinibomb (talk) 15:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)