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The dating of the gospels is of primary concern to whether or not Jesus' statements about the destruction of Jerusalem are examples of vaticinium ex eventu. Dating all of the gospels after 70 AD is in no way a consensus position among New Testament scholars, nor is it the mainstream position, nor is it simply question-begging from "fundamentalist Christians." Wikipedia's article on the New Testament gospels, in fact, does reflect the mainstream opinion in that a pre-70 AD date for the Gospel of Mark is plausible. Moreover, in the article on "Vaticinium ex eventu", the citation provided in support of the phrase "the Gospels were all written after the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, in which the temple was destroyed", does not in fact does not say anything about dating the gospels. The citation simply states the mention of the destruction in the Gospel of Matthew may be an example of Vaticinium ex eventu. Using this citation to buttress the claim that Jesus' prediction of the destruction is necessarily vaticinium ex eventu is spurious.
Therefore, it is in the best interests of the Wikipedia community to alter this article to make it more accurately reflect scholarly opinion. Perhaps a brief discussion of Gospel dating would be helpful. This truly is an interesting topic because the Gospels themselves render Jesus' words different and Jesus' words as communicated in Luke almost certainly are vaticinium ex eventu. However, an unqualified dismissal of the predictions in Matthew and especially Mark based on a mischaracterization of scholarly opinion about the dating of the Gospels does a poor service to readers of the article. The article should be updated to reflect a more nuanced position on the question.
I'd like to offer several citations for pre-70 gospel dates. Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Mark. New Testament James Crossley (an atheist, not a fundamentalist Christian) dating Mark to late 30s, early 40s. Liberal theologian John Robinson's pre-70 AD dating. Encyclopedia.com article on Mark, also points to a pre-70 AD date. This dissertation from a doctoral student from the University of Birmingham contains a detailed discussion of the subject. Another discussion on dating (pg. 137)
P.S. We could add research and scholarship done by conservative scholars to this list, but I've avoided doing so to avoid arguing against distracting charges of appealing to "Christian fundamentalism."
Rusdo ( talk) 02:55, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
This isn’t simply the approach of “liberal” Bible professors. It’s the way historians always date sources. If you find a letter written on paper that is obviously 300 years old or so, and the author says something about the “United States” — then you know it was written after the Revolutionary War. So too if you find an ancient document that describes the destruction of Jerusalem, then you know it was written after 70 CE. It’s not rocket science! But it’s also not “liberal.” It’s simply how history is done. If someone wants to invent other rules, they’re the ones who are begging questions!
Dispute resolution won't do any good. The feedback you've gotten so far is the exact same kind of feedback that you would get in Wikipedia's dispute resolution systems. To simplify it somewhat, Wikipedia reflects the kind of scholarship that you find at leading secular universities, such as those mentioned at WP:CHOPSY: the kinds of things you would find taught at Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, the Sorbonne, and/or Yale. If a view is considered fringe in those kinds of circles, you can bet that it will be considered fringe at Wikipedia. Now, that may not seem fair, especially if you believe the CHOPSY outlook is wrong. But that is the way Wikipedia has been since its inception, and it would be very unlikely if you could talk the Wikipedia community out of the approach that they've used since the beginning. As William Dever put it in "What Remains of the House that Albright Built?', "the overwhelming scholarly consensus today is that Moses is a mythical figure." That's from William Dever, who is on the conservative side of much of the debate currently going on within mainstream biblical studies. The great majority of mainstream scholars have abandoned the idea of Moses as a historical figure. Alephb ( talk) 00:10, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
Those sources (1920, 1925) are too old, please WP:CITE WP:RS from past twenty years (original publication). Tgeorgescu ( talk) 17:31, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
The primary reason why Mack and Crossan—and a majority of historical-critical scholars—date Mark after A.D. 70 is that Mark has Jesus prophesy the destruction of the temple in Mark 13, what is known as the "little apocalypse" of Mark." Since it is assumed that neither Jesus nor Mark could have had knowledge of this event ahead of time, a post-70 date is required. The "prophecy," in other words, is a vaticinium ex eventu (prophecy after the event). Three general considerations, however, lead us to judge this argument inconclusive.
— Boyd 2010: 238
Anyway, from the Gospel of Mark written during that Jewish-Roman war it does not follow that the little apocalypse isn't vaticinium ex eventu. That would be simply WP:OR or WP:SYNTH, a red herring for our article.
So, even if it would be set in stone that it was written before 70 AD, it still does not WP:Verify your POV. Since both the defenders and the opponents of a post-70 AD dating agree that it is vaticinium ex eventu. I know it sounds paradoxical to newbies, but that is what WP:SCHOLARSHIP says.
And that is because Wikipedia is based upon
WP:Verifiable information from
reliable sources instead of editors applying logic and evidence
on their own, which is banned by
WP:OR.
Tgeorgescu (
talk)
21:02, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
erraticabout the fact that both the side of pre-70 AD (minority POV) as the side of post-70 AD (majority POV) endorse Mark 13 as v.e.e. You should get used to the fact that many scholarly claims are counter-intuitive and laypeople would consider those as not making sense. Again, that isn't my own problem, it is a problem of how you read Beavis's scholarship. It is her view, not mine. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 23:01, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
I think it is important to recall that Wikipedia follows the best sources and it seems to me that User:Tgeorgescu is providing sources that conform to that mandate. I do not see the sources that User:Rusdo is offering as being considered better in terms of citations or lacking criticism. I do see some criticism of the WP:MAINSTREAM sources, but they all come from scholarship that is based in religious belief rather than the consensus building that comes within the relevant epistemic community. Rightly or wrongly, Wikipedia pays the most attention to mainstream scholarship. If this is not to your liking, the thing to do is to change mainstream scholarship. It's not the place of Wikipedia to impose a new consensus about subjects like this. Nor is it Wikipedia's place to soften or censor points about dating the Gospels because it makes some believers uncomfortable. These are pretty well established principles of editing at this website. jps ( talk) 11:41, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
the verses from Mark/Luke aren't v.e.e.is sizeable minority, tiny minority, or WP:FRINGE. In the later two cases, Wikipedia defaults to not rendering it. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 18:22, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
If people were honest about their biases, we could perhaps move forward. It is undeniable that the religious proclivities of editors at Wikipedia often motivate their editorial advocacy. That's fine... it's true for all manner of religious proclivities. What we should not do is let that skew article content. I don't see anything controversial about that basic principle. jps ( talk) 11:36, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
dating all of the gospels after 70 AD is in no way a consensus position among New Testament scholars, that
Wikipedia's article on the New Testament gospels, in fact, does reflect the mainstream opinion in that a pre-70 AD date for the Gospel of Mark is plausible, and that though
the Gospel of Matthew [and Mark only] may be an example of Vaticinium ex eventu,
Jesus' words as communicated in Luke almost certainly are vaticinium ex eventu. It's again Tgeorgescu who simply dismissed these statements of fact by quoting Ehrman as if that scholar is some kind of oracle (and who in the quote is very much giving his own post-70 CE view, which appears to have a slight majority but is by no means the scholarly consensus), and who subsequently edited the page adding sources such as Boyd 1995, Liefeld & Pao 2005 and Hengel 1985 (all of whom date Mark before 70 CE) in a way that as I've pointed out earlier completely misrepresents them. So yeah, being entirely right but being rejected by multiple editors based only on unfounded suspicions brought Rusdo in a place where their replies were at times unconstructive, but I for one see where their frustration is coming from. Apaugasma ( talk| contribs) 16:36, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
The dating of the gospels is of primary concern to whether or not Jesus' statements about the destruction of Jerusalem are examples of vaticinium ex eventu.Keep this quote in mind.
but if Mark dates to before 70 AD (and he actually is, for other reasons, often dated to before 70 AD), it technically just isn't a v.e.e.,"Listen, I know we've been at war with the Romans for a while now, and I know we're losing, and I know our troops will fight to the death and salt the earth behind us, but there's no reason to suspect the Romans will destroy the city!"
reactions from other editors to this, both in this article and in Gospel of Mark, was not just to assume bad faith, but to assume that just because someone with a religionist POV was saying something, the exact opposite (all gospels definitely date from after 70 AD, and they all definitely constitute v.e.e.) must be trueTha'ts complete bullshit wrt me. I did not assume bad faith, but based my judgement of the motivations on exactly what was written. I did not "assume" the opposite "must be true", but identified problems with their argumentation. Tgeorgescu also did not assume bad faith, but responded with a quote outlining the scholarly consensus. Tgeorgescu also did not "assume the opposite must be true", but gave policy-based objections to a suggestion which was explicitly intended to replace a scholarly consensus with a fringe view.
anti-religionist biasWhy am I not surprised to see this brought up? I swear to the god I stopped believing in decades ago; you people are all reading from the same script.
religious believers definitely don't like the dates, but that doesn't mean that their scholarship has been accepted by those outside of their religion, there's absolutely no question that this is anything other than a very explicit anti-religious bias. Why not, is that such a strange thing? We all make mistakes from time to time, but it would be good to recognize rather than to deny the origin of the mistake. Apaugasma ( talk| contribs) 03:57, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Tgeorgescu & MjolnirPants: the source (Soulen & Soulen 2001) saying that N.T. Wright doesn't regard Luke as v.e.e. was already present in the article, but apparently left unread.I saw elsewhere that Wright has disputed this. Wright is certainly a reputable scholar whose views carry weight, but I don't think that his views guide the mainstream consensus.
Moreover, adding a source like Liefeld & Pao 2005, which explicitly denies that Mark contains a v.e.e. based on its pre-70 AD datingI believe that Tgeorgeescu had changed his mind by that point. I haven't, for reasons I'll get into in a moment.
there's absolutely no question that this is anything other than a very explicit anti-religious bias.You are wrong. Full stop. This could very well be a bias in favor of certain editor's positions (Tgeorgescu, jps and I are frequently in lockstep agreement in other articles), a lack of familiarity with the sources, or any of a large number of other things. To say there's "absolutely no question" is utterly ridiculous.
Rusdo: it's not about the article anymore, it's about why it was wrong, and would still be wrong if not for my intervention. I guess Mjolnirpants was right when they said many, many comments above this one that This discussion should not be ongoing
, but then I felt I needed to respond to all what they were saying after that.
MjolnirPants: The mainstream view is absolutely that both Mark and Luke contain a v.e.e. The view that they do not is a minority view in the case of Mark, and a tiny minority view in the case of Luke. That's why
I changed tgeorgescu's formulation majority of Biblical scholars
to great majority of Biblical scholars
. I'm absolutely fine with the article as it is, last edited by me. What I was not fine with is
this revision, which wrongly stated that the Gospels were all written after the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70
, and that the dating of Mark does not change the fact that both sides to the dispute agree that the "little apocalypse" is vaticinium ex eventu
, which was a creative (not to say,
WP:SYNTH-ish) interpretation of Beavis 2007 that directly contradicted Liefeld & Pao 2005 as cited in the note before.
Now if rejecting mainstream science (just take a look at the sources quoted
here) on the purported basis that religious believers definitely don't like the dates, but that doesn't mean that their scholarship has been accepted by those outside of their religion
,
followed up by You don't think that earlier dates are ones being promoted by Christian apologists? If no, how can we get on the same page. There is obvious
motivated reasoning present in these arguments [...]
, isn't anti-religious bias to you, I'm not sure what you would consider as anti-religious bias. Of course it's also a bias in favor of other editors' (unargued and unsourced) positions, and of course it's also due to a lack of familiarity with the sources, but the rationale actually given is not 'my friends are usually right' or 'I haven't looked at the sources, but I just know you're wrong', it's 'religious people believe this, but religious people are pushing for all kinds of nonsense, so it must be wrong'. It's a perfectly valid
syllogism, but the second premise (all religous people push for nonsense) is wrong, and clearly biased against religious people. I hope you can appreciate my reasoning here, and if not, let's just agree to disagree.
Apaugasma (
talk|
contribs)
18:41, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
As an outside observer, it seems like @ Tgeorgescu: is simply refusing to WP:Listen. The user is saying that there are mainstream sources that do suggest that Mark was written before AD 70, and Tgeorgescu simply puts hands in his ears and keeps shouting "it's not mainstream consensus". Very puerile and childish behavior from someone who spends 45% of his Wikipedia career on ANI threads -- JimboBuckets99 ( talk) 22:55, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
(As Perkins makes clear, a pre-70 date is very much a minority), see [2]. I don't put all my money on it either being fringe or mainstream minority view. The pre-70 camp could argue that the end of that war became predictable, or that it is a later edit to the gospel, or some other reason, anyway, they agree it is v.e.e. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 01:11, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
The New Testament gospels have an interesting example of Vaticinium ex eventu. The first gospel written, according to scholars, was the Gospel of Mark. Scholars date the Gospel of Mark from the late 60s C.E. to the early 70s C.E. [1] with most scholars preferring the later date [2]. Mark gives Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Second Temple the following way: "But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains." (Mark 13:14 NRSV) The Gospel of Luke, written after Mark, changes the phrasing: "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains." (Luke 21:20-21)
However, this is disputed. Atheist New Testament scholar James Crossley [3], liberal theologian John Robinson [4], and biblical scholar Craig Evans all date at least one of the gospels pre-70 AD.
Tgeorgescu, could you provide a diff that shows where Rusdo implied in any way that either the verses from Luke or Mark would not be v.e.e.? I've been looking a bit into this, and it appears to me like you may be chasing a ghost. It seems that their concern is rather that there is a minority scholarly view which dates Mark to slightly before 70 CE, and that they would like WP to reflect this important nuance. Apaugasma ( talk| contribs) 03:11, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
In Mark 13, Jesus similarly imparts revelations to his successors—and to the audience of Mark's time—about how the future will unfold after he has departed.
Since the discourse begins with a prophecy that the temple will be destroyed (13:2), and a war in Judea is foretold in 13:14—20, most scholars interpret it as referring to the events surrounding the destruction of the temple in AD 70, although there is vigorous debate as to whether the apocalypse was composed during the first Jewish war (AD 66—70), or shortly afterward. Either way, it belongs to a time when Jerusalem was either about to be desolated or had already been razed. On either interpretation, Jesus's prophecies concerning the horrors to befall Jerusalem constitute a vaticinium ex eventu—a prophecy after the event—directed to the Markan community, which is concerned by alarming events taking place in Judea and is vulnerable to being "led astray" (13:6). The intent of the discourse IS not so much to convey esoteric information as to reassure the audience of Mark's time that, although events seem to be spinning out of control, God is still in charge of history (cf. Lane 1974, 446; Moloney 2002, 250-51).
against the view that Mark 13 is a vaticinium ex eventu and thus against an A.D. post-70 dating. That quite clearly establishes that those who hold the pre-70 CE dating do not view Mark 13 as a v.e.e. And this is precisely what we find in Liefeld & Pao 2005, who date Mark in the early 60s CE, and discuss the v.e.e. only as something that could have been added by Luke. Furthermore, while Hengel 1985 does affirm that most commentators view Mark 13 as a v.e.e., he also points to a scholar who explicitly argues that this is improbable, and another source which discusses the controversy. Finally, Soulen & Soulen 2001 actually records that even the interpretation of Luke as a v.e.e. has been challenged. I do not know enough of this subject so as to confirm that these sources are representative of the scholarly debate (some, like Boyd, seem unreliable), but I do know that the current article text does not at all represent these sources. In fact, Rusdo's proposal does so much better, although it definitely needs rephrasing.
References
The pronunciation given here is a bit off. For one, it appears to be an attempt at Classical Latin rather than Ecclesiastical Latin judging by the vowel length. The correct classical Latin pronunciation would be Latin: [wäːt̪ɪˈkɪnɪ.ʊ̃ˑ ɛks eːˈwɛn̪t̪uː], whereas the Ecclesiastical pronunciation is [vat̪iˈtʃiːnium eks eˈveːntu]. Since I cannot edit to fix this, I would be glad if someone can go ahead and do so. Av = λv ( talk) 00:51, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
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The dating of the gospels is of primary concern to whether or not Jesus' statements about the destruction of Jerusalem are examples of vaticinium ex eventu. Dating all of the gospels after 70 AD is in no way a consensus position among New Testament scholars, nor is it the mainstream position, nor is it simply question-begging from "fundamentalist Christians." Wikipedia's article on the New Testament gospels, in fact, does reflect the mainstream opinion in that a pre-70 AD date for the Gospel of Mark is plausible. Moreover, in the article on "Vaticinium ex eventu", the citation provided in support of the phrase "the Gospels were all written after the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, in which the temple was destroyed", does not in fact does not say anything about dating the gospels. The citation simply states the mention of the destruction in the Gospel of Matthew may be an example of Vaticinium ex eventu. Using this citation to buttress the claim that Jesus' prediction of the destruction is necessarily vaticinium ex eventu is spurious.
Therefore, it is in the best interests of the Wikipedia community to alter this article to make it more accurately reflect scholarly opinion. Perhaps a brief discussion of Gospel dating would be helpful. This truly is an interesting topic because the Gospels themselves render Jesus' words different and Jesus' words as communicated in Luke almost certainly are vaticinium ex eventu. However, an unqualified dismissal of the predictions in Matthew and especially Mark based on a mischaracterization of scholarly opinion about the dating of the Gospels does a poor service to readers of the article. The article should be updated to reflect a more nuanced position on the question.
I'd like to offer several citations for pre-70 gospel dates. Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Mark. New Testament James Crossley (an atheist, not a fundamentalist Christian) dating Mark to late 30s, early 40s. Liberal theologian John Robinson's pre-70 AD dating. Encyclopedia.com article on Mark, also points to a pre-70 AD date. This dissertation from a doctoral student from the University of Birmingham contains a detailed discussion of the subject. Another discussion on dating (pg. 137)
P.S. We could add research and scholarship done by conservative scholars to this list, but I've avoided doing so to avoid arguing against distracting charges of appealing to "Christian fundamentalism."
Rusdo ( talk) 02:55, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
This isn’t simply the approach of “liberal” Bible professors. It’s the way historians always date sources. If you find a letter written on paper that is obviously 300 years old or so, and the author says something about the “United States” — then you know it was written after the Revolutionary War. So too if you find an ancient document that describes the destruction of Jerusalem, then you know it was written after 70 CE. It’s not rocket science! But it’s also not “liberal.” It’s simply how history is done. If someone wants to invent other rules, they’re the ones who are begging questions!
Dispute resolution won't do any good. The feedback you've gotten so far is the exact same kind of feedback that you would get in Wikipedia's dispute resolution systems. To simplify it somewhat, Wikipedia reflects the kind of scholarship that you find at leading secular universities, such as those mentioned at WP:CHOPSY: the kinds of things you would find taught at Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, the Sorbonne, and/or Yale. If a view is considered fringe in those kinds of circles, you can bet that it will be considered fringe at Wikipedia. Now, that may not seem fair, especially if you believe the CHOPSY outlook is wrong. But that is the way Wikipedia has been since its inception, and it would be very unlikely if you could talk the Wikipedia community out of the approach that they've used since the beginning. As William Dever put it in "What Remains of the House that Albright Built?', "the overwhelming scholarly consensus today is that Moses is a mythical figure." That's from William Dever, who is on the conservative side of much of the debate currently going on within mainstream biblical studies. The great majority of mainstream scholars have abandoned the idea of Moses as a historical figure. Alephb ( talk) 00:10, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
Those sources (1920, 1925) are too old, please WP:CITE WP:RS from past twenty years (original publication). Tgeorgescu ( talk) 17:31, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
The primary reason why Mack and Crossan—and a majority of historical-critical scholars—date Mark after A.D. 70 is that Mark has Jesus prophesy the destruction of the temple in Mark 13, what is known as the "little apocalypse" of Mark." Since it is assumed that neither Jesus nor Mark could have had knowledge of this event ahead of time, a post-70 date is required. The "prophecy," in other words, is a vaticinium ex eventu (prophecy after the event). Three general considerations, however, lead us to judge this argument inconclusive.
— Boyd 2010: 238
Anyway, from the Gospel of Mark written during that Jewish-Roman war it does not follow that the little apocalypse isn't vaticinium ex eventu. That would be simply WP:OR or WP:SYNTH, a red herring for our article.
So, even if it would be set in stone that it was written before 70 AD, it still does not WP:Verify your POV. Since both the defenders and the opponents of a post-70 AD dating agree that it is vaticinium ex eventu. I know it sounds paradoxical to newbies, but that is what WP:SCHOLARSHIP says.
And that is because Wikipedia is based upon
WP:Verifiable information from
reliable sources instead of editors applying logic and evidence
on their own, which is banned by
WP:OR.
Tgeorgescu (
talk)
21:02, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
erraticabout the fact that both the side of pre-70 AD (minority POV) as the side of post-70 AD (majority POV) endorse Mark 13 as v.e.e. You should get used to the fact that many scholarly claims are counter-intuitive and laypeople would consider those as not making sense. Again, that isn't my own problem, it is a problem of how you read Beavis's scholarship. It is her view, not mine. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 23:01, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
I think it is important to recall that Wikipedia follows the best sources and it seems to me that User:Tgeorgescu is providing sources that conform to that mandate. I do not see the sources that User:Rusdo is offering as being considered better in terms of citations or lacking criticism. I do see some criticism of the WP:MAINSTREAM sources, but they all come from scholarship that is based in religious belief rather than the consensus building that comes within the relevant epistemic community. Rightly or wrongly, Wikipedia pays the most attention to mainstream scholarship. If this is not to your liking, the thing to do is to change mainstream scholarship. It's not the place of Wikipedia to impose a new consensus about subjects like this. Nor is it Wikipedia's place to soften or censor points about dating the Gospels because it makes some believers uncomfortable. These are pretty well established principles of editing at this website. jps ( talk) 11:41, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
the verses from Mark/Luke aren't v.e.e.is sizeable minority, tiny minority, or WP:FRINGE. In the later two cases, Wikipedia defaults to not rendering it. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 18:22, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
If people were honest about their biases, we could perhaps move forward. It is undeniable that the religious proclivities of editors at Wikipedia often motivate their editorial advocacy. That's fine... it's true for all manner of religious proclivities. What we should not do is let that skew article content. I don't see anything controversial about that basic principle. jps ( talk) 11:36, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
dating all of the gospels after 70 AD is in no way a consensus position among New Testament scholars, that
Wikipedia's article on the New Testament gospels, in fact, does reflect the mainstream opinion in that a pre-70 AD date for the Gospel of Mark is plausible, and that though
the Gospel of Matthew [and Mark only] may be an example of Vaticinium ex eventu,
Jesus' words as communicated in Luke almost certainly are vaticinium ex eventu. It's again Tgeorgescu who simply dismissed these statements of fact by quoting Ehrman as if that scholar is some kind of oracle (and who in the quote is very much giving his own post-70 CE view, which appears to have a slight majority but is by no means the scholarly consensus), and who subsequently edited the page adding sources such as Boyd 1995, Liefeld & Pao 2005 and Hengel 1985 (all of whom date Mark before 70 CE) in a way that as I've pointed out earlier completely misrepresents them. So yeah, being entirely right but being rejected by multiple editors based only on unfounded suspicions brought Rusdo in a place where their replies were at times unconstructive, but I for one see where their frustration is coming from. Apaugasma ( talk| contribs) 16:36, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
The dating of the gospels is of primary concern to whether or not Jesus' statements about the destruction of Jerusalem are examples of vaticinium ex eventu.Keep this quote in mind.
but if Mark dates to before 70 AD (and he actually is, for other reasons, often dated to before 70 AD), it technically just isn't a v.e.e.,"Listen, I know we've been at war with the Romans for a while now, and I know we're losing, and I know our troops will fight to the death and salt the earth behind us, but there's no reason to suspect the Romans will destroy the city!"
reactions from other editors to this, both in this article and in Gospel of Mark, was not just to assume bad faith, but to assume that just because someone with a religionist POV was saying something, the exact opposite (all gospels definitely date from after 70 AD, and they all definitely constitute v.e.e.) must be trueTha'ts complete bullshit wrt me. I did not assume bad faith, but based my judgement of the motivations on exactly what was written. I did not "assume" the opposite "must be true", but identified problems with their argumentation. Tgeorgescu also did not assume bad faith, but responded with a quote outlining the scholarly consensus. Tgeorgescu also did not "assume the opposite must be true", but gave policy-based objections to a suggestion which was explicitly intended to replace a scholarly consensus with a fringe view.
anti-religionist biasWhy am I not surprised to see this brought up? I swear to the god I stopped believing in decades ago; you people are all reading from the same script.
religious believers definitely don't like the dates, but that doesn't mean that their scholarship has been accepted by those outside of their religion, there's absolutely no question that this is anything other than a very explicit anti-religious bias. Why not, is that such a strange thing? We all make mistakes from time to time, but it would be good to recognize rather than to deny the origin of the mistake. Apaugasma ( talk| contribs) 03:57, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Tgeorgescu & MjolnirPants: the source (Soulen & Soulen 2001) saying that N.T. Wright doesn't regard Luke as v.e.e. was already present in the article, but apparently left unread.I saw elsewhere that Wright has disputed this. Wright is certainly a reputable scholar whose views carry weight, but I don't think that his views guide the mainstream consensus.
Moreover, adding a source like Liefeld & Pao 2005, which explicitly denies that Mark contains a v.e.e. based on its pre-70 AD datingI believe that Tgeorgeescu had changed his mind by that point. I haven't, for reasons I'll get into in a moment.
there's absolutely no question that this is anything other than a very explicit anti-religious bias.You are wrong. Full stop. This could very well be a bias in favor of certain editor's positions (Tgeorgescu, jps and I are frequently in lockstep agreement in other articles), a lack of familiarity with the sources, or any of a large number of other things. To say there's "absolutely no question" is utterly ridiculous.
Rusdo: it's not about the article anymore, it's about why it was wrong, and would still be wrong if not for my intervention. I guess Mjolnirpants was right when they said many, many comments above this one that This discussion should not be ongoing
, but then I felt I needed to respond to all what they were saying after that.
MjolnirPants: The mainstream view is absolutely that both Mark and Luke contain a v.e.e. The view that they do not is a minority view in the case of Mark, and a tiny minority view in the case of Luke. That's why
I changed tgeorgescu's formulation majority of Biblical scholars
to great majority of Biblical scholars
. I'm absolutely fine with the article as it is, last edited by me. What I was not fine with is
this revision, which wrongly stated that the Gospels were all written after the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70
, and that the dating of Mark does not change the fact that both sides to the dispute agree that the "little apocalypse" is vaticinium ex eventu
, which was a creative (not to say,
WP:SYNTH-ish) interpretation of Beavis 2007 that directly contradicted Liefeld & Pao 2005 as cited in the note before.
Now if rejecting mainstream science (just take a look at the sources quoted
here) on the purported basis that religious believers definitely don't like the dates, but that doesn't mean that their scholarship has been accepted by those outside of their religion
,
followed up by You don't think that earlier dates are ones being promoted by Christian apologists? If no, how can we get on the same page. There is obvious
motivated reasoning present in these arguments [...]
, isn't anti-religious bias to you, I'm not sure what you would consider as anti-religious bias. Of course it's also a bias in favor of other editors' (unargued and unsourced) positions, and of course it's also due to a lack of familiarity with the sources, but the rationale actually given is not 'my friends are usually right' or 'I haven't looked at the sources, but I just know you're wrong', it's 'religious people believe this, but religious people are pushing for all kinds of nonsense, so it must be wrong'. It's a perfectly valid
syllogism, but the second premise (all religous people push for nonsense) is wrong, and clearly biased against religious people. I hope you can appreciate my reasoning here, and if not, let's just agree to disagree.
Apaugasma (
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contribs)
18:41, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
As an outside observer, it seems like @ Tgeorgescu: is simply refusing to WP:Listen. The user is saying that there are mainstream sources that do suggest that Mark was written before AD 70, and Tgeorgescu simply puts hands in his ears and keeps shouting "it's not mainstream consensus". Very puerile and childish behavior from someone who spends 45% of his Wikipedia career on ANI threads -- JimboBuckets99 ( talk) 22:55, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
(As Perkins makes clear, a pre-70 date is very much a minority), see [2]. I don't put all my money on it either being fringe or mainstream minority view. The pre-70 camp could argue that the end of that war became predictable, or that it is a later edit to the gospel, or some other reason, anyway, they agree it is v.e.e. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 01:11, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
The New Testament gospels have an interesting example of Vaticinium ex eventu. The first gospel written, according to scholars, was the Gospel of Mark. Scholars date the Gospel of Mark from the late 60s C.E. to the early 70s C.E. [1] with most scholars preferring the later date [2]. Mark gives Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Second Temple the following way: "But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains." (Mark 13:14 NRSV) The Gospel of Luke, written after Mark, changes the phrasing: "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains." (Luke 21:20-21)
However, this is disputed. Atheist New Testament scholar James Crossley [3], liberal theologian John Robinson [4], and biblical scholar Craig Evans all date at least one of the gospels pre-70 AD.
Tgeorgescu, could you provide a diff that shows where Rusdo implied in any way that either the verses from Luke or Mark would not be v.e.e.? I've been looking a bit into this, and it appears to me like you may be chasing a ghost. It seems that their concern is rather that there is a minority scholarly view which dates Mark to slightly before 70 CE, and that they would like WP to reflect this important nuance. Apaugasma ( talk| contribs) 03:11, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
In Mark 13, Jesus similarly imparts revelations to his successors—and to the audience of Mark's time—about how the future will unfold after he has departed.
Since the discourse begins with a prophecy that the temple will be destroyed (13:2), and a war in Judea is foretold in 13:14—20, most scholars interpret it as referring to the events surrounding the destruction of the temple in AD 70, although there is vigorous debate as to whether the apocalypse was composed during the first Jewish war (AD 66—70), or shortly afterward. Either way, it belongs to a time when Jerusalem was either about to be desolated or had already been razed. On either interpretation, Jesus's prophecies concerning the horrors to befall Jerusalem constitute a vaticinium ex eventu—a prophecy after the event—directed to the Markan community, which is concerned by alarming events taking place in Judea and is vulnerable to being "led astray" (13:6). The intent of the discourse IS not so much to convey esoteric information as to reassure the audience of Mark's time that, although events seem to be spinning out of control, God is still in charge of history (cf. Lane 1974, 446; Moloney 2002, 250-51).
against the view that Mark 13 is a vaticinium ex eventu and thus against an A.D. post-70 dating. That quite clearly establishes that those who hold the pre-70 CE dating do not view Mark 13 as a v.e.e. And this is precisely what we find in Liefeld & Pao 2005, who date Mark in the early 60s CE, and discuss the v.e.e. only as something that could have been added by Luke. Furthermore, while Hengel 1985 does affirm that most commentators view Mark 13 as a v.e.e., he also points to a scholar who explicitly argues that this is improbable, and another source which discusses the controversy. Finally, Soulen & Soulen 2001 actually records that even the interpretation of Luke as a v.e.e. has been challenged. I do not know enough of this subject so as to confirm that these sources are representative of the scholarly debate (some, like Boyd, seem unreliable), but I do know that the current article text does not at all represent these sources. In fact, Rusdo's proposal does so much better, although it definitely needs rephrasing.
References
The pronunciation given here is a bit off. For one, it appears to be an attempt at Classical Latin rather than Ecclesiastical Latin judging by the vowel length. The correct classical Latin pronunciation would be Latin: [wäːt̪ɪˈkɪnɪ.ʊ̃ˑ ɛks eːˈwɛn̪t̪uː], whereas the Ecclesiastical pronunciation is [vat̪iˈtʃiːnium eks eˈveːntu]. Since I cannot edit to fix this, I would be glad if someone can go ahead and do so. Av = λv ( talk) 00:51, 4 May 2021 (UTC)