![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 10 | ← | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 | Archive 16 |
Over the next few days I will be adding more specific information from critical scholars, specifically Fredriksen, Sanders, and Vermes. I am sure that whatever I add can be edited, but I ask people to wait until next week by which time I will have put out most of what I want to add. I am less familiar with Crossan and Meier, and if anyone has read them carefully and wants to add their views go ahead. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 17:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
In case you haven't heard, there is a drive to improve the Jesus article from GA to FA status. I am personally inviting editors to read over the Jesus article, and please contribute whatever they can. Some editors have mentioned on the talk page that the cultural and historical background in particular is lacking. I hope you can join us.-- Andrew c 04:21, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
There has been a long discussion of the Historical Jesus at Talk:Jesus/Historical Jesus. It's divided into three subpages: Jesus as moral teacher; Jesus as apocalyptic prophet or messiah; and Jesus as Pharisee or Essene. Grigory Deepdelver of Brockenboring Talk TCF 08:13, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
I just created the subpage and updated the links to my comments above. We also have about 25 sources on different models of the historical Jesus at Talk:Jesus/Historical Jesus/Sources. Some of these sources might be useful here. Grigory Deepdelver of Brockenboring Talk TCF 08:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I can understand why some people prefer BC/AD in this article. It is a plausible position, although I reject it - with resepct - for two reasons. First, the bulk of this article concerns Jewish material, and second, there is an informal consensus here and at the Jesus page, and other pages, that articles on Jewish topics should favor BCE and CE, and articles on Christian topics should favor BC/CE. I would have no objection to the section on Christianity in this article using both BC/BCE and AD/CE. However, the bulk of this article is not about Christianity or Jesus, it is about Jews and Judaism. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
As for removing the Jewish template, I consider this virtually an anti-Semitic act. I am not accusing CrazyInSane and Codex Sinaiticus of being "anti-Semitic" but you are being so unnecessarily contrarian it seems vindictive, and if you are actually decent people I beg you to pause and consider what you are doing. This article is very much about Jews and Judaism. That is a fact. To try to erase the connection with other articles on Jewish themes is nothing but an act of violence. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
The "cultural and historical background" of Jesus is his being Jewish, and Judaism. To deny that or minimize it is not only meanspirited to Jews, it is historically and culturally inaccurate and defeats the whole point of the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Leifern, with all due respect, Jesus' divinity is not what is at stake in Codex's statement. What is at stake is his fear of ideas that are new to him. All he is saying is, "This is not how I was brought up, it is new and I do not understand it ... therefore, I hate it iand it is bad." He is just a reactionary. It is kind of ironic though as you would think people drawn to an encyclopedia would go out of there way to learn new things. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:19, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Uh, okay, so I am wrong, but I am right. Okay by me. My main point was that you are a reactionary. I never said you were alone or even in a minority. I did not comment on whether no one or everyone shares your views, I only identified them as reactionary. Now, as to hounding you: my only concern is with your misrepresenting the history of this article, and disrupting a stable compromise, in pursuit of your reactionary point of view which, while it may be shared by many others, is not shared by most of the people who have worked on this article. Hounding you? Were I to hound you I would have gone to the various articles you have worked on and changed "AD" to "CE." I have never done that. There are other articles that use BC and AD and have a stable consensus and I respect that. Don't accuse me of hounding you, when it is you who came to an article I have been working on, one in which all contributors, since its first month as an article, have used BCE and CE, and then unilaterally and without discussion changed the date nomenclature. You did that, not I. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:39, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Codex Sinaiticus, a stable consensus emerged here two years ago. for two years, a stable consensus. Why do you want to break that? What purpose is served. Also, you justify your changes based on dating conventions. You have in no way justified your removal of the Jewish topic template. Nor have you responded to my explanation of the inclusion of this template.' This template too has been part of the article for a long time. How dare you (1) unilaterally delete it (2) ignore my explanation (3) refuse to provide your own? Slrubenstein | Talk 14:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Steve - removing {{ Jews}} is unreasonable, and feels anti-Jewish. As for BCE/BC - there is no rule which says that the first one should stay. Rather, there should be a good argument (and consensus) for changing it. BCE is more scholarly, it does not violate NPOV, and it is generally used for Jewish-related topics. Since this article is about the Cultural and Historical background of Jesus, it's about Judaism. Jesus was a Jew, born into Jewish society. Reagrdless of whether he was Messiah or God, he was still Jewish. Guettarda 15:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Strothra, I appreciate your making substantive comments in a constructive way. Please bear in mind that my initial comments came after the template was removed, restored, and removed again; my second comment came after three other people had added their views and Codex Sinaiticus once again deleted the demplate without responding to any of the now several comments. Be that as it may, I want to respond to your comment. There is no "Hebrew" template to my knowledge but the best historical information we have suggests that (1) Jesus considered himself to be a Jew and (2) what "Jew" meant during Jesus's life is not the same as what it means today. Of course, one could say that Christianity in the second century was very different from what it is today. The solution - one that de facto has been adopted by the Wikipedia community and I think with good reason, is not to have different tags for different moments in history (e.g. one tag for contemporary Judaism, one for Second Temple Judaism, one for First Temple Judaism, etc. ... or one for post Reformation Christianity, one for post Concils of Nicea Christianity, etc) but rather to have one tag, but to be as inclusive as possible within it. I think this article clearly belongs within an inclusive "Jews" tag. But I think this misses the real issue, which is whether or not these tags are exclusive identifiers. They are not. Please note that I have restored the "Jew" tag twice. I have never deleted the "Jesus" tag. I see no reason why we cannot have both tags. From my perspective, what is wrong with CrazyInSane and Codex Sinaiticus is not just that they remove the "Jew" tag without any discussion or explanation - it is the implication that only one tag is allowable. This is to my mind an aggressively uncompromising position. Be that as it may, the "Jew" tag is entirely justified and appropriate, because this article explicitly covers the views of historians who argue that Jesus' life must be understood in the context of his being Jewish, not just ethnically but religiously. You personally may reject this view, but our (we editors) views are not the issue here. There are well-regarded historians who take this view, and this article is dedicated to providing an account of it. So the "Jew" tag only mkaes sense. You may say that this is just one point of view and that other views should be represented. You would be correct. Those other views are in fact represented in other articles espectially Jesus and Christology. Moreover, you will discover that those articles do not have the "Jew" tag. Nor have I or anyone else tried to put it in. Only in this article - and now CrazyInSane and Codex Sinaiticus want ths "Jew" tag deleted from the one article that is about the Jewish Jesus. If this does not offend you, well, that is your business. But if you cannot see how this attempt to erase the one discussion of Jesus in his Jewish context from Wikipedia could be offensive to Jews and is a clear violation of our NPOV policy (in this case, it is the collection of Jesus related articles, representing various points of view, that together comply with NPOV), then what can I say? I urge you to reconsider. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
As for the dating system, please see my original comment at the top of this page. Count words and you will see that relatively few address Christianity; relatively few address Jesus, and they do so in terms of the context of Jewish history. By far the bulk of the article is about Jews and Judaism. Wikipedia allows the use of both BC and BCE. A couple of years ago there was an extensive debate and an unofficial compromise was worked out that BCE/CE would be favored in Jewish articles and CE/AD in Christian articles. More importantly, the contributors to this particular article, which I repeat is mostly about Jews and Judaism, worked out a very stable compromise in favor of BCE and CE two years ago. This stable compromise should be respected. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
By the way, Codex, just how much research and content have you contributed to this article? Do you really care about contributing to the article, or just making trouble in order to force your own POV on others, who instead spend there time, you know, reading history books and working on content? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
You are more than welcome, I appreciate your inviting me to spell it out. Codex says my remark above is a fallacious argument. I will leave that for others to decide. What is certainly fallacious is his claims about the history of this article. So let me correct Codex's misrepresentations of the history of the article. I wrote part of it as part of the Jesus article in 2004. I used neither AD or CE and just provided the years (as I would say that this is 2006, not AD 2006 or 2006 CE, in ordinary conversation). Other contributors to the Jesus article added information and used AD. In other words, AD was not the original convention because there was no original convention; different contributers followed their own taste and there was no consensus (nor was there any initial conflict over this). By August 2004 the Jesus article was way too long for most servers. It was decided to spin off articles, and this article was spun off at 13:54, August 18, 2004. If you look at that version, you will see that sometimes AD is used, other times no notation is used (this is a rough guide to identifying what parts I wrote and what parts others contributed). Shortly thereafter, Cheese Dreams began editing the article. In addition to adding AD everywhere, she also added a lot of false content. The result was a protracted set of edit wars, primarily over content and not dating convention, until Cheese Dreams was banned from Wikipedia. During this banning process, I and a few other people went about reconstructing the article. It was at that time that it was agreed to use BCE and CE This is stated clearly in the added tag placed there on 03:47, November 20, 2004, Note: It was not I who placed this tag, it was User:FT2. Although many people have worked on this article, I think it is fair to say that after me FT2 contributed (by sheer volume) the most content to this article. I do not know FT2's religion. I do know that User:Wesley is a Christian; he made two edits on November 20 2004 and he kept the BCE/CE tag and kept to the agreed-upon convention. User:Mpolo also made a number of edits and maintained the consensus about the dating convention. Even CheeseDreams, before she was banned, abided by the consensus concerning dating. User: Amgine also made a number of edits, and maintained the consensus. I believe it was User:John Kenney who removed the tag concerning dating - but he continued to use BCE/CE in his edits; his removal of the tag I think signaled that a firm consensus had been established. This was in November 2004, the same month the article was created as a stand-alone article, and 18 months ago. User:Ben Standeven went on to make many edits and kept to the consensus. Yes, I am sorry I said two years ago, I was just subtracting 4 from 6 - but if the consensus emerged only 18 months ago it is because the article did not exist beofre November 2004. So I, FT2, Wesley, Amgine, John Kenney, Ben Standeven, as well as Jayjg, Rdsmith4, Curps, and Everyking, who worked on the article through February 2005, also continued to use BCE/CE exclusively. On February 9 User:Neutrality unilaterally changed CE to AD, violating the concensus; User:Violetriga reverted Neutrality and other subsequent contributoers, like User:Blainster and yes, even User:Jesus is the Christ, maintained the consensus. So I would say that (1) there was no uniform standard when the article was first created and (2) a consensus to use BCE and CE exclusively was established the month that the article was created, and was maintained and enforced thereafter. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
John, I am not saying there is a rule about Jewish articles using BCE/CE. Please reread what I wrote, I never said that. I said that this is an unofficial compromise reached by a number of people involved in a heated debate. It certainly is not binding, although I think there is sense to it. As to Codex's question above, I personally would not object. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
BTW!!! If you want you can consider BCE to be "Before Christ 's Era, and CE to be Christ 's Era! It is all in how you look at it!-- Drboisclair 19:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Please note that as of 14:34, 29 May 2006 Codex Sinaiticus has reverted three times. If he reverts again within a 24 hour period he will have violated the 3RR rule. The purpose of this rule is to allow heads to cool and allow for discussion. I hope that my last comments, in response to Strothra, reveal my good-faith effort to follow Strothra's advice that I cool down. The above section now expresses a range of views by several people. I hope we can have more cool-headed and good-faith discussion before any more reverts. I certainly will not revert again (at least not for the next day!) Slrubenstein | Talk 15:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, Slrubenstein | Talk 16:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Funny. You make a unilateral and unjustified change without any explanation (and, when pushed, give an explanation that misrepresents the facts vis. that the article has used BCE/CE since its first month of inception, and that all contributors of content to the article accepted this i.e. there was consensus) and seem utterly uninterested in any discussion. Then, I encourage discussion (among other things, inviting notable Christian editors to chime in, as well as people who have disagreed with me). You certainly could have encouraged even more discussion. Don't accuse me of "stacking" the debate. I made it a debate whereas you are uninterested in debate and care only for unilateral POV pushing action. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Another problem with the "BC/AD" thing is that "Anno Domini" is Latin, and "Before Christ" is English. In order to be consistent you would have to have the time before with the same letters as the time after in order to be consistent: "Ante Domini"--> "Before the Lord" and "Anno Domini" --> "In the year of our/the Lord". Of course, you could have it AC/AD to be consistent. Why not let it be BCE/CE. We can either take it as Common Era or Christ's Era.-- Drboisclair 19:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Professor Steven asked me to chime in. I havent read all the discussion, but it looks like as Steven puts it:
I disagree with this in several ways, mainly with regard to the ultimately trivial issue of which date system to use. This should be clearly outlined at the WP:MOS, and standardized to one system. Yes, the usage of BC/AD represents a Christian influence --one moreso than the other apparently. It would require work for me to learn the subtle distinctions enough to care either way, so both parties' particularities seem ridiculous to me. This is not a new Wikipedia debate, and localizing it to this article, and further to the very issue of Jesus and his Jewish ethnicity and culture doesnt help matters. We lack a truly universally agreeable system, and given convergent trends are no doubt bound to develop some widely acceptable secular system (I would almost rather use Star Trek dates myself).
Steven, I understand the importance of Judaism and ancient Jewish culture and politics in understanding Jesus. In that sense, I understand how one might have a Jewish-centric view which sees "the whole point of the article" as being an exploration of Jesus as a Jew. But Jesus was also a part of the culture of the Roman Empire, Arameans, Assyrians, Mediterraneans, etc. Though Jesus never renounced his Jewish origin, Christians and Jews both understand that Jesus was rejected by most of the Jews of his time. Does this change anything with regard to which 'camp' Jesus belongs? Its a ridiculous question. The only problem here lies with the insane notion that a pan-theistic philosopher (the favorite of Western civilization) hailing from the then-crossroads of civilization might belong to any one culture --even the culture of "Christianity" which claims him. So, given any binary choice of black or white, I will only enlighten people to the concept of color depth. Again the most universal is the only acceptable choice, and the Common Era system is it.- Ste| vertigo 21:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with BCE/CE. It *is* in mainstream academic use with many authors, it is recognised, and part of the reason for that is that the debate over whether BC/AD is felt to be chistian-centric has been thrashed out in academia and judaica already off the internet, and it's clear a significant proportion of people at least feel BCE/CE is more desirable. As a reference text, I'd suggest we follow that too. FT2 ( Talk) 10:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Common Era notation, referred to here as "BCE/CE" despite its "personage-centered" basis - call it "centrage", its still more universally acceptable (secular, nonbiased, NPOV) than BC/AD. Im sorry if some of you feel like NPOV is some sort of opinionated imposition. It is not - its the basic philosophy which guides the way we write about all articles. Its not 'who died and made you Mr. NPOV' - a more proper statement shoudl be 'if nobody stands up for NPOV, then evil wins.' - Ste| vertigo 16:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
West London Dweller, with all due respect if you want to move for a new policy, by all means do so but not here. The style guide currently allows both AC/BC and CE/BCE. The very first version of this article had inconsistent dating. Within a couple of weeks a consensus among contributers emerged to use CE/BCE. This is permissible within our policies, moreover, once a stable consensus emerges - and to repeat, it emerged within the first few weeks of this article's existence - it should be respected, that is what it says in our guidelines. So there is no debate right here, right now. You are raising a larger issue and if it merits discussion it merits discussion at a different venue. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
As it happens, I had already decided to move discussion on the relative merits of BC/AD and BCE/CE elsewhere, so your advice is redundant. I still find it strange that scholars, having made the decision to move from using BC/AD, moved to a still Christo-centric system that still suffers from a lack of year '0', and has negative dates - all major flaws. I suppose one should never underestimate the power of human foolishness. Pax Vobiscum. WLD 14:27, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 10 | ← | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 | Archive 16 |
Over the next few days I will be adding more specific information from critical scholars, specifically Fredriksen, Sanders, and Vermes. I am sure that whatever I add can be edited, but I ask people to wait until next week by which time I will have put out most of what I want to add. I am less familiar with Crossan and Meier, and if anyone has read them carefully and wants to add their views go ahead. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 17:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
In case you haven't heard, there is a drive to improve the Jesus article from GA to FA status. I am personally inviting editors to read over the Jesus article, and please contribute whatever they can. Some editors have mentioned on the talk page that the cultural and historical background in particular is lacking. I hope you can join us.-- Andrew c 04:21, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
There has been a long discussion of the Historical Jesus at Talk:Jesus/Historical Jesus. It's divided into three subpages: Jesus as moral teacher; Jesus as apocalyptic prophet or messiah; and Jesus as Pharisee or Essene. Grigory Deepdelver of Brockenboring Talk TCF 08:13, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
I just created the subpage and updated the links to my comments above. We also have about 25 sources on different models of the historical Jesus at Talk:Jesus/Historical Jesus/Sources. Some of these sources might be useful here. Grigory Deepdelver of Brockenboring Talk TCF 08:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I can understand why some people prefer BC/AD in this article. It is a plausible position, although I reject it - with resepct - for two reasons. First, the bulk of this article concerns Jewish material, and second, there is an informal consensus here and at the Jesus page, and other pages, that articles on Jewish topics should favor BCE and CE, and articles on Christian topics should favor BC/CE. I would have no objection to the section on Christianity in this article using both BC/BCE and AD/CE. However, the bulk of this article is not about Christianity or Jesus, it is about Jews and Judaism. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
As for removing the Jewish template, I consider this virtually an anti-Semitic act. I am not accusing CrazyInSane and Codex Sinaiticus of being "anti-Semitic" but you are being so unnecessarily contrarian it seems vindictive, and if you are actually decent people I beg you to pause and consider what you are doing. This article is very much about Jews and Judaism. That is a fact. To try to erase the connection with other articles on Jewish themes is nothing but an act of violence. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
The "cultural and historical background" of Jesus is his being Jewish, and Judaism. To deny that or minimize it is not only meanspirited to Jews, it is historically and culturally inaccurate and defeats the whole point of the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Leifern, with all due respect, Jesus' divinity is not what is at stake in Codex's statement. What is at stake is his fear of ideas that are new to him. All he is saying is, "This is not how I was brought up, it is new and I do not understand it ... therefore, I hate it iand it is bad." He is just a reactionary. It is kind of ironic though as you would think people drawn to an encyclopedia would go out of there way to learn new things. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:19, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Uh, okay, so I am wrong, but I am right. Okay by me. My main point was that you are a reactionary. I never said you were alone or even in a minority. I did not comment on whether no one or everyone shares your views, I only identified them as reactionary. Now, as to hounding you: my only concern is with your misrepresenting the history of this article, and disrupting a stable compromise, in pursuit of your reactionary point of view which, while it may be shared by many others, is not shared by most of the people who have worked on this article. Hounding you? Were I to hound you I would have gone to the various articles you have worked on and changed "AD" to "CE." I have never done that. There are other articles that use BC and AD and have a stable consensus and I respect that. Don't accuse me of hounding you, when it is you who came to an article I have been working on, one in which all contributors, since its first month as an article, have used BCE and CE, and then unilaterally and without discussion changed the date nomenclature. You did that, not I. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:39, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Codex Sinaiticus, a stable consensus emerged here two years ago. for two years, a stable consensus. Why do you want to break that? What purpose is served. Also, you justify your changes based on dating conventions. You have in no way justified your removal of the Jewish topic template. Nor have you responded to my explanation of the inclusion of this template.' This template too has been part of the article for a long time. How dare you (1) unilaterally delete it (2) ignore my explanation (3) refuse to provide your own? Slrubenstein | Talk 14:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Steve - removing {{ Jews}} is unreasonable, and feels anti-Jewish. As for BCE/BC - there is no rule which says that the first one should stay. Rather, there should be a good argument (and consensus) for changing it. BCE is more scholarly, it does not violate NPOV, and it is generally used for Jewish-related topics. Since this article is about the Cultural and Historical background of Jesus, it's about Judaism. Jesus was a Jew, born into Jewish society. Reagrdless of whether he was Messiah or God, he was still Jewish. Guettarda 15:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Strothra, I appreciate your making substantive comments in a constructive way. Please bear in mind that my initial comments came after the template was removed, restored, and removed again; my second comment came after three other people had added their views and Codex Sinaiticus once again deleted the demplate without responding to any of the now several comments. Be that as it may, I want to respond to your comment. There is no "Hebrew" template to my knowledge but the best historical information we have suggests that (1) Jesus considered himself to be a Jew and (2) what "Jew" meant during Jesus's life is not the same as what it means today. Of course, one could say that Christianity in the second century was very different from what it is today. The solution - one that de facto has been adopted by the Wikipedia community and I think with good reason, is not to have different tags for different moments in history (e.g. one tag for contemporary Judaism, one for Second Temple Judaism, one for First Temple Judaism, etc. ... or one for post Reformation Christianity, one for post Concils of Nicea Christianity, etc) but rather to have one tag, but to be as inclusive as possible within it. I think this article clearly belongs within an inclusive "Jews" tag. But I think this misses the real issue, which is whether or not these tags are exclusive identifiers. They are not. Please note that I have restored the "Jew" tag twice. I have never deleted the "Jesus" tag. I see no reason why we cannot have both tags. From my perspective, what is wrong with CrazyInSane and Codex Sinaiticus is not just that they remove the "Jew" tag without any discussion or explanation - it is the implication that only one tag is allowable. This is to my mind an aggressively uncompromising position. Be that as it may, the "Jew" tag is entirely justified and appropriate, because this article explicitly covers the views of historians who argue that Jesus' life must be understood in the context of his being Jewish, not just ethnically but religiously. You personally may reject this view, but our (we editors) views are not the issue here. There are well-regarded historians who take this view, and this article is dedicated to providing an account of it. So the "Jew" tag only mkaes sense. You may say that this is just one point of view and that other views should be represented. You would be correct. Those other views are in fact represented in other articles espectially Jesus and Christology. Moreover, you will discover that those articles do not have the "Jew" tag. Nor have I or anyone else tried to put it in. Only in this article - and now CrazyInSane and Codex Sinaiticus want ths "Jew" tag deleted from the one article that is about the Jewish Jesus. If this does not offend you, well, that is your business. But if you cannot see how this attempt to erase the one discussion of Jesus in his Jewish context from Wikipedia could be offensive to Jews and is a clear violation of our NPOV policy (in this case, it is the collection of Jesus related articles, representing various points of view, that together comply with NPOV), then what can I say? I urge you to reconsider. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
As for the dating system, please see my original comment at the top of this page. Count words and you will see that relatively few address Christianity; relatively few address Jesus, and they do so in terms of the context of Jewish history. By far the bulk of the article is about Jews and Judaism. Wikipedia allows the use of both BC and BCE. A couple of years ago there was an extensive debate and an unofficial compromise was worked out that BCE/CE would be favored in Jewish articles and CE/AD in Christian articles. More importantly, the contributors to this particular article, which I repeat is mostly about Jews and Judaism, worked out a very stable compromise in favor of BCE and CE two years ago. This stable compromise should be respected. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
By the way, Codex, just how much research and content have you contributed to this article? Do you really care about contributing to the article, or just making trouble in order to force your own POV on others, who instead spend there time, you know, reading history books and working on content? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
You are more than welcome, I appreciate your inviting me to spell it out. Codex says my remark above is a fallacious argument. I will leave that for others to decide. What is certainly fallacious is his claims about the history of this article. So let me correct Codex's misrepresentations of the history of the article. I wrote part of it as part of the Jesus article in 2004. I used neither AD or CE and just provided the years (as I would say that this is 2006, not AD 2006 or 2006 CE, in ordinary conversation). Other contributors to the Jesus article added information and used AD. In other words, AD was not the original convention because there was no original convention; different contributers followed their own taste and there was no consensus (nor was there any initial conflict over this). By August 2004 the Jesus article was way too long for most servers. It was decided to spin off articles, and this article was spun off at 13:54, August 18, 2004. If you look at that version, you will see that sometimes AD is used, other times no notation is used (this is a rough guide to identifying what parts I wrote and what parts others contributed). Shortly thereafter, Cheese Dreams began editing the article. In addition to adding AD everywhere, she also added a lot of false content. The result was a protracted set of edit wars, primarily over content and not dating convention, until Cheese Dreams was banned from Wikipedia. During this banning process, I and a few other people went about reconstructing the article. It was at that time that it was agreed to use BCE and CE This is stated clearly in the added tag placed there on 03:47, November 20, 2004, Note: It was not I who placed this tag, it was User:FT2. Although many people have worked on this article, I think it is fair to say that after me FT2 contributed (by sheer volume) the most content to this article. I do not know FT2's religion. I do know that User:Wesley is a Christian; he made two edits on November 20 2004 and he kept the BCE/CE tag and kept to the agreed-upon convention. User:Mpolo also made a number of edits and maintained the consensus about the dating convention. Even CheeseDreams, before she was banned, abided by the consensus concerning dating. User: Amgine also made a number of edits, and maintained the consensus. I believe it was User:John Kenney who removed the tag concerning dating - but he continued to use BCE/CE in his edits; his removal of the tag I think signaled that a firm consensus had been established. This was in November 2004, the same month the article was created as a stand-alone article, and 18 months ago. User:Ben Standeven went on to make many edits and kept to the consensus. Yes, I am sorry I said two years ago, I was just subtracting 4 from 6 - but if the consensus emerged only 18 months ago it is because the article did not exist beofre November 2004. So I, FT2, Wesley, Amgine, John Kenney, Ben Standeven, as well as Jayjg, Rdsmith4, Curps, and Everyking, who worked on the article through February 2005, also continued to use BCE/CE exclusively. On February 9 User:Neutrality unilaterally changed CE to AD, violating the concensus; User:Violetriga reverted Neutrality and other subsequent contributoers, like User:Blainster and yes, even User:Jesus is the Christ, maintained the consensus. So I would say that (1) there was no uniform standard when the article was first created and (2) a consensus to use BCE and CE exclusively was established the month that the article was created, and was maintained and enforced thereafter. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
John, I am not saying there is a rule about Jewish articles using BCE/CE. Please reread what I wrote, I never said that. I said that this is an unofficial compromise reached by a number of people involved in a heated debate. It certainly is not binding, although I think there is sense to it. As to Codex's question above, I personally would not object. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
BTW!!! If you want you can consider BCE to be "Before Christ 's Era, and CE to be Christ 's Era! It is all in how you look at it!-- Drboisclair 19:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Please note that as of 14:34, 29 May 2006 Codex Sinaiticus has reverted three times. If he reverts again within a 24 hour period he will have violated the 3RR rule. The purpose of this rule is to allow heads to cool and allow for discussion. I hope that my last comments, in response to Strothra, reveal my good-faith effort to follow Strothra's advice that I cool down. The above section now expresses a range of views by several people. I hope we can have more cool-headed and good-faith discussion before any more reverts. I certainly will not revert again (at least not for the next day!) Slrubenstein | Talk 15:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, Slrubenstein | Talk 16:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Funny. You make a unilateral and unjustified change without any explanation (and, when pushed, give an explanation that misrepresents the facts vis. that the article has used BCE/CE since its first month of inception, and that all contributors of content to the article accepted this i.e. there was consensus) and seem utterly uninterested in any discussion. Then, I encourage discussion (among other things, inviting notable Christian editors to chime in, as well as people who have disagreed with me). You certainly could have encouraged even more discussion. Don't accuse me of "stacking" the debate. I made it a debate whereas you are uninterested in debate and care only for unilateral POV pushing action. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Another problem with the "BC/AD" thing is that "Anno Domini" is Latin, and "Before Christ" is English. In order to be consistent you would have to have the time before with the same letters as the time after in order to be consistent: "Ante Domini"--> "Before the Lord" and "Anno Domini" --> "In the year of our/the Lord". Of course, you could have it AC/AD to be consistent. Why not let it be BCE/CE. We can either take it as Common Era or Christ's Era.-- Drboisclair 19:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Professor Steven asked me to chime in. I havent read all the discussion, but it looks like as Steven puts it:
I disagree with this in several ways, mainly with regard to the ultimately trivial issue of which date system to use. This should be clearly outlined at the WP:MOS, and standardized to one system. Yes, the usage of BC/AD represents a Christian influence --one moreso than the other apparently. It would require work for me to learn the subtle distinctions enough to care either way, so both parties' particularities seem ridiculous to me. This is not a new Wikipedia debate, and localizing it to this article, and further to the very issue of Jesus and his Jewish ethnicity and culture doesnt help matters. We lack a truly universally agreeable system, and given convergent trends are no doubt bound to develop some widely acceptable secular system (I would almost rather use Star Trek dates myself).
Steven, I understand the importance of Judaism and ancient Jewish culture and politics in understanding Jesus. In that sense, I understand how one might have a Jewish-centric view which sees "the whole point of the article" as being an exploration of Jesus as a Jew. But Jesus was also a part of the culture of the Roman Empire, Arameans, Assyrians, Mediterraneans, etc. Though Jesus never renounced his Jewish origin, Christians and Jews both understand that Jesus was rejected by most of the Jews of his time. Does this change anything with regard to which 'camp' Jesus belongs? Its a ridiculous question. The only problem here lies with the insane notion that a pan-theistic philosopher (the favorite of Western civilization) hailing from the then-crossroads of civilization might belong to any one culture --even the culture of "Christianity" which claims him. So, given any binary choice of black or white, I will only enlighten people to the concept of color depth. Again the most universal is the only acceptable choice, and the Common Era system is it.- Ste| vertigo 21:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with BCE/CE. It *is* in mainstream academic use with many authors, it is recognised, and part of the reason for that is that the debate over whether BC/AD is felt to be chistian-centric has been thrashed out in academia and judaica already off the internet, and it's clear a significant proportion of people at least feel BCE/CE is more desirable. As a reference text, I'd suggest we follow that too. FT2 ( Talk) 10:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Common Era notation, referred to here as "BCE/CE" despite its "personage-centered" basis - call it "centrage", its still more universally acceptable (secular, nonbiased, NPOV) than BC/AD. Im sorry if some of you feel like NPOV is some sort of opinionated imposition. It is not - its the basic philosophy which guides the way we write about all articles. Its not 'who died and made you Mr. NPOV' - a more proper statement shoudl be 'if nobody stands up for NPOV, then evil wins.' - Ste| vertigo 16:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
West London Dweller, with all due respect if you want to move for a new policy, by all means do so but not here. The style guide currently allows both AC/BC and CE/BCE. The very first version of this article had inconsistent dating. Within a couple of weeks a consensus among contributers emerged to use CE/BCE. This is permissible within our policies, moreover, once a stable consensus emerges - and to repeat, it emerged within the first few weeks of this article's existence - it should be respected, that is what it says in our guidelines. So there is no debate right here, right now. You are raising a larger issue and if it merits discussion it merits discussion at a different venue. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
As it happens, I had already decided to move discussion on the relative merits of BC/AD and BCE/CE elsewhere, so your advice is redundant. I still find it strange that scholars, having made the decision to move from using BC/AD, moved to a still Christo-centric system that still suffers from a lack of year '0', and has negative dates - all major flaws. I suppose one should never underestimate the power of human foolishness. Pax Vobiscum. WLD 14:27, 1 June 2006 (UTC)