This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Pre-existence of Christ article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
I think the changes made by Radagast in the last 24 hours were a clear improvement to the article and do not support the sudden revert by In ictu oculi. As for the image of the Bible I inserted, and the reference to John 1:1-18 being called jpgs, graffiti and vandalism all I have to say is: "Excuse me Mr In ictu oculi, since when do myself (or Radagast) need permission from you to add images to a page?" Do you Mr oculi have an ownershiop certificate for this page, signed by a justice of the peace? If so, please post it herein, else respect the rights of other editors. I had also found the image inserted by Radagast informative since it was a clear illustration of the concept. And the reference to John 1.1 was removed by oculi from the See also section - that is relevant. That sudden revert by In ictu oculi was clearly unjustified. However, this storm in a teacup should not be allowed to turn into a major incident, so I will not revert oculi now, but wait for further response from Radagast who did most of the work, which was an improvement. After he responds, I support a revert of the oculi changes. History2007 ( talk) 05:33, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Pre-existence_of_Christ&action=historysubmit&diff=364241597&oldid=364095251]. You'll see that a substantial part of Radagast's 27 edits remains. Instead I went through all of Radagast3's 27 edits and tried to pull the article back to the kind of article that a neutral viewer (i.e. an atheist or agnostic) would expect to read. Some of these are objective, as best I can judge and they've been retained:
....but equally a good number of them aren't fine. Notably when Radagast3 has let his personal views spread into the introductory paragraph. Radagast3's chosen view is given 1. first place, and 2. double the size of the other views, it doesn't have to spread into the introductory paragraph too. In ictu oculi ( talk) 08:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
If anyone can't see why that isn't objective, then I can't show them. And as for full citation needed page numbers, by all means let those who wish to pursue them supply them. Ciao In ictu oculi ( talk) 12:16, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
History 2007, your "see also" link to John 1:1 is preserved, even though it duplicates John 1:1 in the text. As to the jpgs. I actually didn't realise the jpg of the first chapter of the Vulgate was yours,
This got swept away along with Radagast's jpg of a diagram by user Alistair Haines.
But again, why do we have to have either picture here? Wouldn't John 1:1.jpg be better on [[John 1:1] and GodtheSon.jpg better on the Doctrine of the Trinity? Why not a jpg of Phil 2:7, or a pic of Friedrich Schleiermacher, or a diagram of Isaac Newton's view? Or why not just leave the article as text? In ictu oculi ( talk) 08:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Having a suitable picture is better than not having one. Personally I think the diagram is useful, although the statement in the caption that "God the Son" ceases to be used after the Incarnation does not seem right to me. I also like the Bosch here, which I added yesterday to God the Son. The few medieval images showing all the Trinity sending the angel of the Annunciation were specifically designed to emphasize this point & would be the most relevant if we have one of them. Please hide your editorial comment at the top. Johnbod ( talk) 08:29, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I am not an expert on the end of time, but the diagram shows an end. Is that relevant? Comments will be appreciated. History2007 ( talk) 11:03, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Hello Radagast3. I changed the quotes you gave for Lardner and Biddle for the following reason: the point being made in that part of the article is that Lardner and Biddle, people we know to be unitarians, believed (in contrast to unitarians like Priestly) that Jesus was miraculously conceived in the womb of a virgin -- so I have tried to select quotes that verify this point more accurately. I hope you understand. Thanks. Woofboy ( talk) 09:19, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
I've restored Oneness Pentecostals to their own section. Some members of the movement have identified with Modalistic Monarchianism, which might logically be grouped with Unitarianism, while others claim to accept the pre-existence of Christ, at least in some sense. The answer to "Do they accept the doctrine" seems to be "It's complex", suggesting that it would be POV to place them either in the "for" or the "against" groups. -- Radagast 3 ( talk) 03:18, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
It's neutral as it is: "The pre-existence (or preexistence) of Christ refers to the doctrine of the ontological or personal existence of Christ before his conception. One of the relevant Bible passages is John 1:1-18 where, in the Trinitarian view, Christ is identified with a pre-existent divine being called the Logos or Word, but where other non-Trinitarian views question the aspect of personal pre-existence or question the aspect of divinity, or both." Can you please stop inserting your opinions. This is not Radagastapedia In ictu oculi ( talk) 07:07, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
This should be included here; according at least to Orthodox theology, Daniel's vision refers to God the Son, not God the Father as the West mostly thinks. Johnbod ( talk) 19:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Off and on I hear from various theologians about old testament passages that mention Christ. I believe that a list of such passages is crucially necessary for this article.
16 Old testament verses, each interpreted by a series of New testament verses to demonstrate the pre-existence of Christ. Nate5713 ( talk) 19:18, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
-- Please help to improve the wording of this section to meet Wikipedia's standards. However, I would not appreciate anyone remove items from this list. --
If anyone wants to use the talk page as a sandbox then by all means, but to not be original research every one of the Bible quotes above would need a page reference from a reputable print commentary or source. Some of the above list have been used for just what the section head says. But most are what most historical and modern sources would simply count as prophecies. If you have references please provide. In ictu oculi ( talk) 04:18, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
Here is my list again. With references.
In addition to the ones above, we might also consider Gen. 1:26, 3:22, and 11:7.
And let me just add that I think that Christ's appearance in the Old Testament is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS ARTICLE. Nate5713 ( talk) 02:23, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Why am I so obligated to only cite people in the modern day? does the opinions of the people actually there not matter? or are the theologians nowadays any smarter than those in the Bible? can people in more recent years, given a fancy diploma (a recent invention), instantly and miraculously determine what people saw who lived thousands of years before they were born? Why would I cite mortals in a fallen would when I can cite God himself? "Jesus identified chapter 110 (of Psalms) as a Christophany" REF Saint Matthew the Tax collector, The Gospel according to Matthew c.30 A.D., 22:41-46 /REF. How's that? 'Tis a stupid question to ask "who?" when I and others say, "some say...". Obviously WE do. I say that that a person who compiles an encyclopedia based on eye-witness accounts (and not just re-interpretations in the last 50 years) is far smarter in the long run than those who rely only on people who know nothing on what they're talking about. Am I undermining Wikipedia's policy? No, I am just re-explaining it to you. You told me I could not quote my local pastor; now you say I can, clearly you need someone to better interpret the policy for you. There is nothing in the policy that demands quotes from modern commentaries only. All it says is, "reliable, verifiable sources". I've asked various people on Wikipedia what a "reliable, verifiable source" strictly means. As a strict policy, all they're answers differed. Clearly a "reliable, verifiable source" can be anything from actually reading the Turin Papyrus yourself to quoting a website made yesterday. As long, of course, as those references in the modern times can be supported by consecutively older references. And not the other way around. "when I got to the webpage "Wil Pounds is the Field Director for the Honduras Baptist Dental Mission" I stopped." That is not one of my references. I only give relevant, verifiable sources. Period. -- Nate2357 ( talk) 21:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
The timeline showing Christ's pre-existence as God the Son shows it only as after creation but before incarnation. The diagram needs to make clear that Logos/God the Son existed even prior to creation, but (as it already shows) that He was just not referred to as Son of God until after incarnation.
Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.57.78.243 ( talk) 22:59, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
The timeline diagram (second image down) seems to incorrectly imply that the Son was created, existed only between Creation and the Incarnation, and that He could change. Of course, this is not true. The diagram should be edited to remove this confusion, and to show Jesus as eternal, unchanging, and uncreated. 24.191.87.42 ( talk) 01:22, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Not moved. However, I must say that the opponents of the proposal, although unanimous, didn't present much better argumentation than WP:IDONTLIKEIT and WP:BECAUSEISAYSO. I would join Amakuru's appeal to document the asserted convention and bring some consistency to the topic. No such user ( talk) 12:37, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Pre-existence of Christ →
Pre-existence of Jesus – per
WP:CONSISTENCY of other Jesus articles, i.e.,
Nativity of Jesus,
Ministry of Jesus,
Passion of Jesus,
Crucifixion of Jesus,
Resurrection of Jesus.
Ḉɱ̍
2nd anniv. 17:11, 17 August 2016 (UTC) --Relisting.
Omni Flames (
talk)
07:13, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Jesus is the name Christ had on earth? I know plenty of people nowadays continue to pray to "Jesus" even though he is self-evidently not on earth any more. Thanks — Amakuru ( talk) 10:30, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
There are some good questions asked by User:Amakuru and seconded by User:No such user.
I was preparing an answer but the RM was closed resulting in an edit conflict. Perhaps it's just as well, it's a bit of a wall of text.
There are several books with titles such as Jesus or Christ?. I'm afraid I don't have any of them with me at this moment, but what follows is from such books.
The phrase Jesus Christ only came into use after the (reported at least, depending obviously on your beliefs on the subject) Resurrection... Jesus was never called that in his lifetime. And this was on Jesus' own instructions, for example after the Confession of Peter.
The Gospels and to some extent the Epistles describe events before the Resurrection, but were written afterwards. The pre-existence claim comes from several sources, as described in the article, and sourced there. I suspect that some of the sources are misquoted however. When in John 17 Jesus refers to the glory which I had with thee before the world was and thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world (speaking to God the Father on each occasion), does he mean himself as Jesus, or himself as the Logos, which according to John 1 was there in the beginning and became flesh, and dwelt among us?
The conventional reading is that before the Incarnation this Logos was already part of the Trinity, but not yet Jesus, and became Jesus at the Incarnation. So it makes no sense to talk of the Pre-existence of Jesus. But we have seen that some (who in my opinion should know better) do exactly that, and my opinion counts for nothing.
We need sources... but what will they tell us? Some do talk of the Pre-existence of Jesus. Most avoid this phrase, for the reasons I have given, but a very significant minority do use it. They do not include any major translation of the Bible AFAIK... some translate John 1 as before all else was Christ was (or similar), but none as before all else was, Jesus was.
I think we should follow this convention for two reasons. Firstly as I have said, Christ is by far the majority usage (see Google). Second and perhaps more important, using Jesus here is POV. There is no dispute among authorities that it's valid to call the Logos Christ in this context, but there is much controversy over whether Jesus can be used. Even if it were the majority view that it could (and it isn't, most say it can't) then we'd still want to avoid the POV term if possible, to respect the minority view. Fortunately, we don't have that tricky decision to make, the non-POV alternative is also the majority view.
Any clearer? Sorry I have not given sources, but I've tried to show why they won't help much. I will have a go when I get back to unpacking my library! Andrewa ( talk) 13:07, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Ephesians 1: 3-4 is cited as a Pre-existence of Christ passage. Another one is Colossians 1: 15-17. - L. Thomas W. ( talk) 12:25, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
removing a large chunk of material that is lightly referenced, but I suspect not OR as claimed. Johnbod ( talk) 16:07, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Pre-existence of Christ article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
I think the changes made by Radagast in the last 24 hours were a clear improvement to the article and do not support the sudden revert by In ictu oculi. As for the image of the Bible I inserted, and the reference to John 1:1-18 being called jpgs, graffiti and vandalism all I have to say is: "Excuse me Mr In ictu oculi, since when do myself (or Radagast) need permission from you to add images to a page?" Do you Mr oculi have an ownershiop certificate for this page, signed by a justice of the peace? If so, please post it herein, else respect the rights of other editors. I had also found the image inserted by Radagast informative since it was a clear illustration of the concept. And the reference to John 1.1 was removed by oculi from the See also section - that is relevant. That sudden revert by In ictu oculi was clearly unjustified. However, this storm in a teacup should not be allowed to turn into a major incident, so I will not revert oculi now, but wait for further response from Radagast who did most of the work, which was an improvement. After he responds, I support a revert of the oculi changes. History2007 ( talk) 05:33, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Pre-existence_of_Christ&action=historysubmit&diff=364241597&oldid=364095251]. You'll see that a substantial part of Radagast's 27 edits remains. Instead I went through all of Radagast3's 27 edits and tried to pull the article back to the kind of article that a neutral viewer (i.e. an atheist or agnostic) would expect to read. Some of these are objective, as best I can judge and they've been retained:
....but equally a good number of them aren't fine. Notably when Radagast3 has let his personal views spread into the introductory paragraph. Radagast3's chosen view is given 1. first place, and 2. double the size of the other views, it doesn't have to spread into the introductory paragraph too. In ictu oculi ( talk) 08:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
If anyone can't see why that isn't objective, then I can't show them. And as for full citation needed page numbers, by all means let those who wish to pursue them supply them. Ciao In ictu oculi ( talk) 12:16, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
History 2007, your "see also" link to John 1:1 is preserved, even though it duplicates John 1:1 in the text. As to the jpgs. I actually didn't realise the jpg of the first chapter of the Vulgate was yours,
This got swept away along with Radagast's jpg of a diagram by user Alistair Haines.
But again, why do we have to have either picture here? Wouldn't John 1:1.jpg be better on [[John 1:1] and GodtheSon.jpg better on the Doctrine of the Trinity? Why not a jpg of Phil 2:7, or a pic of Friedrich Schleiermacher, or a diagram of Isaac Newton's view? Or why not just leave the article as text? In ictu oculi ( talk) 08:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Having a suitable picture is better than not having one. Personally I think the diagram is useful, although the statement in the caption that "God the Son" ceases to be used after the Incarnation does not seem right to me. I also like the Bosch here, which I added yesterday to God the Son. The few medieval images showing all the Trinity sending the angel of the Annunciation were specifically designed to emphasize this point & would be the most relevant if we have one of them. Please hide your editorial comment at the top. Johnbod ( talk) 08:29, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I am not an expert on the end of time, but the diagram shows an end. Is that relevant? Comments will be appreciated. History2007 ( talk) 11:03, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Hello Radagast3. I changed the quotes you gave for Lardner and Biddle for the following reason: the point being made in that part of the article is that Lardner and Biddle, people we know to be unitarians, believed (in contrast to unitarians like Priestly) that Jesus was miraculously conceived in the womb of a virgin -- so I have tried to select quotes that verify this point more accurately. I hope you understand. Thanks. Woofboy ( talk) 09:19, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
I've restored Oneness Pentecostals to their own section. Some members of the movement have identified with Modalistic Monarchianism, which might logically be grouped with Unitarianism, while others claim to accept the pre-existence of Christ, at least in some sense. The answer to "Do they accept the doctrine" seems to be "It's complex", suggesting that it would be POV to place them either in the "for" or the "against" groups. -- Radagast 3 ( talk) 03:18, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
It's neutral as it is: "The pre-existence (or preexistence) of Christ refers to the doctrine of the ontological or personal existence of Christ before his conception. One of the relevant Bible passages is John 1:1-18 where, in the Trinitarian view, Christ is identified with a pre-existent divine being called the Logos or Word, but where other non-Trinitarian views question the aspect of personal pre-existence or question the aspect of divinity, or both." Can you please stop inserting your opinions. This is not Radagastapedia In ictu oculi ( talk) 07:07, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
This should be included here; according at least to Orthodox theology, Daniel's vision refers to God the Son, not God the Father as the West mostly thinks. Johnbod ( talk) 19:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Off and on I hear from various theologians about old testament passages that mention Christ. I believe that a list of such passages is crucially necessary for this article.
16 Old testament verses, each interpreted by a series of New testament verses to demonstrate the pre-existence of Christ. Nate5713 ( talk) 19:18, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
-- Please help to improve the wording of this section to meet Wikipedia's standards. However, I would not appreciate anyone remove items from this list. --
If anyone wants to use the talk page as a sandbox then by all means, but to not be original research every one of the Bible quotes above would need a page reference from a reputable print commentary or source. Some of the above list have been used for just what the section head says. But most are what most historical and modern sources would simply count as prophecies. If you have references please provide. In ictu oculi ( talk) 04:18, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
Here is my list again. With references.
In addition to the ones above, we might also consider Gen. 1:26, 3:22, and 11:7.
And let me just add that I think that Christ's appearance in the Old Testament is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS ARTICLE. Nate5713 ( talk) 02:23, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Why am I so obligated to only cite people in the modern day? does the opinions of the people actually there not matter? or are the theologians nowadays any smarter than those in the Bible? can people in more recent years, given a fancy diploma (a recent invention), instantly and miraculously determine what people saw who lived thousands of years before they were born? Why would I cite mortals in a fallen would when I can cite God himself? "Jesus identified chapter 110 (of Psalms) as a Christophany" REF Saint Matthew the Tax collector, The Gospel according to Matthew c.30 A.D., 22:41-46 /REF. How's that? 'Tis a stupid question to ask "who?" when I and others say, "some say...". Obviously WE do. I say that that a person who compiles an encyclopedia based on eye-witness accounts (and not just re-interpretations in the last 50 years) is far smarter in the long run than those who rely only on people who know nothing on what they're talking about. Am I undermining Wikipedia's policy? No, I am just re-explaining it to you. You told me I could not quote my local pastor; now you say I can, clearly you need someone to better interpret the policy for you. There is nothing in the policy that demands quotes from modern commentaries only. All it says is, "reliable, verifiable sources". I've asked various people on Wikipedia what a "reliable, verifiable source" strictly means. As a strict policy, all they're answers differed. Clearly a "reliable, verifiable source" can be anything from actually reading the Turin Papyrus yourself to quoting a website made yesterday. As long, of course, as those references in the modern times can be supported by consecutively older references. And not the other way around. "when I got to the webpage "Wil Pounds is the Field Director for the Honduras Baptist Dental Mission" I stopped." That is not one of my references. I only give relevant, verifiable sources. Period. -- Nate2357 ( talk) 21:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
The timeline showing Christ's pre-existence as God the Son shows it only as after creation but before incarnation. The diagram needs to make clear that Logos/God the Son existed even prior to creation, but (as it already shows) that He was just not referred to as Son of God until after incarnation.
Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.57.78.243 ( talk) 22:59, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
The timeline diagram (second image down) seems to incorrectly imply that the Son was created, existed only between Creation and the Incarnation, and that He could change. Of course, this is not true. The diagram should be edited to remove this confusion, and to show Jesus as eternal, unchanging, and uncreated. 24.191.87.42 ( talk) 01:22, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Not moved. However, I must say that the opponents of the proposal, although unanimous, didn't present much better argumentation than WP:IDONTLIKEIT and WP:BECAUSEISAYSO. I would join Amakuru's appeal to document the asserted convention and bring some consistency to the topic. No such user ( talk) 12:37, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Pre-existence of Christ →
Pre-existence of Jesus – per
WP:CONSISTENCY of other Jesus articles, i.e.,
Nativity of Jesus,
Ministry of Jesus,
Passion of Jesus,
Crucifixion of Jesus,
Resurrection of Jesus.
Ḉɱ̍
2nd anniv. 17:11, 17 August 2016 (UTC) --Relisting.
Omni Flames (
talk)
07:13, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Jesus is the name Christ had on earth? I know plenty of people nowadays continue to pray to "Jesus" even though he is self-evidently not on earth any more. Thanks — Amakuru ( talk) 10:30, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
There are some good questions asked by User:Amakuru and seconded by User:No such user.
I was preparing an answer but the RM was closed resulting in an edit conflict. Perhaps it's just as well, it's a bit of a wall of text.
There are several books with titles such as Jesus or Christ?. I'm afraid I don't have any of them with me at this moment, but what follows is from such books.
The phrase Jesus Christ only came into use after the (reported at least, depending obviously on your beliefs on the subject) Resurrection... Jesus was never called that in his lifetime. And this was on Jesus' own instructions, for example after the Confession of Peter.
The Gospels and to some extent the Epistles describe events before the Resurrection, but were written afterwards. The pre-existence claim comes from several sources, as described in the article, and sourced there. I suspect that some of the sources are misquoted however. When in John 17 Jesus refers to the glory which I had with thee before the world was and thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world (speaking to God the Father on each occasion), does he mean himself as Jesus, or himself as the Logos, which according to John 1 was there in the beginning and became flesh, and dwelt among us?
The conventional reading is that before the Incarnation this Logos was already part of the Trinity, but not yet Jesus, and became Jesus at the Incarnation. So it makes no sense to talk of the Pre-existence of Jesus. But we have seen that some (who in my opinion should know better) do exactly that, and my opinion counts for nothing.
We need sources... but what will they tell us? Some do talk of the Pre-existence of Jesus. Most avoid this phrase, for the reasons I have given, but a very significant minority do use it. They do not include any major translation of the Bible AFAIK... some translate John 1 as before all else was Christ was (or similar), but none as before all else was, Jesus was.
I think we should follow this convention for two reasons. Firstly as I have said, Christ is by far the majority usage (see Google). Second and perhaps more important, using Jesus here is POV. There is no dispute among authorities that it's valid to call the Logos Christ in this context, but there is much controversy over whether Jesus can be used. Even if it were the majority view that it could (and it isn't, most say it can't) then we'd still want to avoid the POV term if possible, to respect the minority view. Fortunately, we don't have that tricky decision to make, the non-POV alternative is also the majority view.
Any clearer? Sorry I have not given sources, but I've tried to show why they won't help much. I will have a go when I get back to unpacking my library! Andrewa ( talk) 13:07, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Ephesians 1: 3-4 is cited as a Pre-existence of Christ passage. Another one is Colossians 1: 15-17. - L. Thomas W. ( talk) 12:25, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
removing a large chunk of material that is lightly referenced, but I suspect not OR as claimed. Johnbod ( talk) 16:07, 5 March 2019 (UTC)