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Duplication

Jesus outside the New Testament by same editor. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:47, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Matthaei authenticum

And this appears to largely be restored POV content copied from old versions of Jewish-Christian Gospels, Gospel of the Hebrews etc.:

Matthew (one of the Twelve disciples and a Jew) was also part of the Diaspora. The Church Fathers recognized this and said that his gospel was born out of necessity. It was composed in Hebrew and meant for Hebrew Christians. This Hebrew Gospel was translated into Greek, but the Greek translation was lost. The Hebrew original was kept at the Library of Caesarea. The Nazarene Community transcribed a copy for Jerome which he used in his work. Matthew's Hebrew Gospel was often called the Authentic Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel according to the Hebrews or sometimes the Gospel of the Apostles and it was once believed that it was the original to the Greek Matthew found in the Bible, although this is currently disputed by modern Biblical Scholars. The Hebrew Gospel was widely circulated among early Jewish Christians. These groups included the Nazarenes, Ebionites etc. It was generally believed that they added their own oral traditions or midrash to the "Hebrew Gospel" giving rise to what are now known as the Jewish Gospels. Almost all critics are agreed, that the Jewish Gospels, are just modified editions of Matthew's Hebrew Gospel.

"Matthew's Hebrew Gospel was often called the Authentic Gospel of Matthew"?? That is not a NPOV, one commentator, Jerome, comments that one Jewish-Christian group regarded their version as the original one. This seems to be doggedly preserving a bit of Misplaced Pages-only reality. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:02, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually Ictu has some good points re Google BooksGoogle Scholar that I will try to address over the next few weeks. Cheers - Ret.Prof (talk) 16:38, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

POV tag

Sorry in some ways but can't see any alternative to this tag; done to hopefully attract attention of other editors. I admit string the various OR primary references from Jerome Eusebius etc together and it looks on the surface to be reasonable. The giveaway is the lack of modern academic sources. The peculiar thing is the nature of the essay, which is largely a wholesale resurrect/revert of old/deleted material.In ictu oculi (talk) 00:24, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Back to the fountainhead

I actually agree with you. I am not sure what the solution is. The problem is that sources explain that during the formative years of Early Christianity 75 ancient witnesses testify to the fact that there was a Hebrew Gospel in circulation. Google Link Over 12 different witnesses testify that it was written by the Apostle Matthew. Google Link No ancient writer either Christian or Non-Christian challenges these two facts. Google Link

Letter to Pope Damasus Jerome, 383 A.D.

The labor is one of love, but at the same time both perilous . . . I am now speaking of the New Testament. This was undoubtedly composed in Greek, with the exception of the work of Matthew the Apostle, who was the first to commit to writing the Gospel of Christ, and who published his work in Judæa in Hebrew characters. We must confess that as we have it in our language it is marked by discrepancies, and now that the stream is distributed into different channels we must go back to the fountainhead.

Nicholson, Parker, Edwards, Bütz and others agree with Jerome. Thus the Hebrew Gospel is the basis for a number of topics. How do we go back to the fountainhead without duplicating material? The matter is further complicated by the fact that the Catholic Church and a number of scholars believe that Jerome was wrong and that the Gospel of Matthew in the Bible was written by Matthew. Until then I will redirect the article as a sign of good faith.- Cheers - Ret.Prof (talk) 04:13, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Merged

Duplication, not needed per Ictu - Ret.Prof (talk) 18:52, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Duplication

The articles having to do with the formation of the Gospels and the Historical Jesus are bit of a mess. Duplication, redundancy, original research, POV pushing etc. Ictu has some valid points. I am going to try to deal his concerns and with a bit of good will we may be able to solve some of the problems. - Ret.Prof (talk) 10:47, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Organization of sources

I suggest the article sources be organized using one of the formats acceptable for WP:GA / WP:FA quality articles. That will save major rework later. The reliable sources should be listed at the bottom in alphabetical order in a section called Literature or References, while the footnotes in the article should be listed as Footnotes or Notes or Citations and refer to the Literature / References. Please see the WP:MOS and GA/FA examples of ways to do this. Ignocrates (talk) 21:24, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I have no trouble with that suggestion. What I am doing now is going though the article line by line removing any original research, and providing Google Links for easy verification. Have I missed anything? - Ret.Prof (talk) 22:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I've just deleted some. Note that original research includes using sources that don't actually mention the subject of the article but together are used to make an argument. There were also some self-published sources and some other dubious ones. Still are I believe. Dougweller (talk) 16:59, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Title

I was also thinking of changing the title to Christian Oral Tradition Ret.Prof (talk) 22:21, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

But what is the subject of the article? I'm not sure it meets the criteria of WP:OR or "essay," but it is still in isolation from the main historical Jesus articles. What subject is it adding?

And sorry, see page history, since article restored, POV tag restored. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I think my main concern here is this article being a sole-author with a past history on WP of editing solely on subjects feeding into the lost Hebrew Gospel theory. But aside from that there are plentiful other articles about the formation of the Gospels. The following strike-throughs illustrate sentences which are potentially problematic:

Most critical scholars today would accept the view that the texts of the first written accounts of Jesus Christ were based upon the Oral Tradition. Some scholars believe these early writings were based directly upon the Oral Tradition, while others argue others argue that the Christian logia grew into pericopes, which were in turn collected into still larger accounts or proto-Gospels. Then the Gospel authors further developed these proto-Gospels into the final Gospels we have in our canon. Scholars are in general agreement that the Christians up to the destruction of the Temple had no written Gospels being circulated among them.

The writings of the Church fathers also tend to confirm that the Oral Tradition was the basis of the earliest gospels. Matthew was said to have been part of the scattered ie (the diaspora or Tefutzot תפוצות, "to scatter"). More importantly, the Church Fathers record that when he was about to leave, he reduced the Oral Tradition to written form. Papias stated "Matthew wrote down (synetaxato) the "logia" in the Hebrew language (Hebraidi dialekto), and each interpreted (hermeneusen) them as best he could. Matthew may have written an early hypothesised lost gospel known as the Gospel of the Hebrews or the Hebrew Gospel.

When Peter (one of the twelve disciples and a Jew) left Jerusalem, he preached the Gospel orally to the Jewish diaspora in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia Minor and Bithynia and eventually went to Rome. However it was Peter's scribe Mark who first reduced the Oral Tradition of Peter to written form. According to Jerome, Mark set down these teachings of Peter in what is now called the Gospel of Mark

Most modern scholars agree that Mark composed the first gospel, in Koine Greek. Peter is said to have reviewed this work and given it his blessing, elevating the Gospel of Mark to the level of an eyewitness account. The Gospel of Mark was widely circulated and scholars agree that it was a primary source used in the writing of later gospels.

For reference - what a more mainstream treatment looks like: Taken from the relevant "Oral tradition" section of the Gospels article:

The oral traditions that the evangelists drew on were transmitted by word of mouth for decades. This oral tradition consisted of several distinct components. Parables and aphorisms are the "bedrock of the tradition". Pronouncement stories, scenes that culminate with a saying of Jesus, are more plausible historically than other kinds of stories about Jesus. Other sorts of stories include controversy stories, in which Jesus is in conflict with religious authorities; miracles stories, including healings, exorcisms, and nature wonders; call and commissioning stories; and legends. One of the most important concerns in accurately accounting for the oral Jesus tradition is the model of transmission used. Form criticism (Formgeschichte) was developed primarily by the German scholars Karl Ludwig Schmidt, Martin Dibelius, and Rudolf Bultmann. The oral model developed by the form critics drew heavily on contemporary theory of folkloric transmission of oral material, and partly as a result of this form criticism posited that the Jesus tradition was transmitted informally, added to freely, and was uncontrolled. However, "Today it is no exaggeration to claim that a whole spectrum of main assumptions underlying Bultmann's Synoptic Tradition must be considered suspect. " A number of other models have been proposed which posit greater control over the tradition, to varying degrees. For example, largely in response to form critical scholarship, Professor Birger Gerhardsson examined oral transmission in early rabbinic circles, and proposed that a more controlled and formal model of orality would more accurately reflect the transmission of the Jesus tradition in early Christian circles, and therefore that the oral traditions present in the gospels have been fairly reliably and faithfully transmitted. Professor Kenneth Bailey, after spending a great deal of time in remote and illiterate villages in the Middle East, used his experience with orality in such places to formulate a similar model of controlled transmission within the early Christian communities, but posited an informal mechanism of control. Controlled models of the Jesus tradition, and with them an evaluation of the gospels as possessing greater historical reliability, have been accepted by several scholars in recent years. However Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld adds that the early followers of Jesus were not interested in simply preserving the past but were also interested in fitting the narratives to suit urgent information, audience interest and creativity in communication and believed that they were in direct communication with Jesus though the Holy Spirit, thus making it still difficult for historians to assess the historical reliability of the oral tradition. With regards to Bailey's studies, Maurice Casey writes that they cannot be applied to 1st century Jews as they were about a different culture at a different time.

Headlinks to this article on not clearly related articles

There are currently 8 or 9 seemingly promotional headlinks (ie above the whole article lede), mainlinks (above sections) and questionable inline links to this article made (and restored) by RetProf the article creator and sole contributor. See What links here I'm not sure what if any Misplaced Pages policy relates to this, but the headlinks seem gratuitous, especially seeing as there are better articles with a wider spectrum of Misplaced Pages editors contribution. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

References

The references are in dire need of improvement. In particular, with reference numbers referring to this version of the article:

• The first four references about the Jews' oral tradition seem rather off-topic, and the one link points to a list of books instead of to the correct book. Do we really need four sources for such a statement which is nothing but background?
• The link for no. 6 points nowhere.
• No. 7 is the same as no. 5, just the next page. We should merge them into a single reference and tow different footnotes denoting the pages within that reference per Ignocrates' suggestion.
• No. 8 uses weasel words. Which scholars believe that James wasn't Jesus' brother, and why is that even relevant to this article?
• No. 9 points to p. 77 of this book which according to Google's preview does not have page numbers. Referring to p. 77 is useless when we cannot tell which page is p. 77. This source also contradicts the next paragraph by saying that according to traditional belief the Oral Torah was received on Mt. Sinai.
• The paragraph about the Oral Torah being misunderstood as having been given to Moses has another source (no. 12) which explicitly says that it was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Another of the sources (no. 11) has a link pointing nowhere, and not just due to a typo.
• No. 17 discusses consensus among scholars without providing an actual reference.
• No. 18 contradicts the statement it's supposed to source.
• No. 19 doesn't say what it's supposed to say, but at least it doesn't say the opposite.
• The link for no. 20 could be improved, and I'm not sure from the snippet whether this one actually says what it's supposed to.
• No. 21 says that some gospels were directly based on oral tradition, but not all. From the snippet one cannot tell what it says about the others, but it's rather outdated anyway.
• No. 22 is a modern translation of another piece of 19th century scholarship. Is that still the state of the art?
• Nos. 34 to 37 are ancient Church fathers. Is there no modern scholarship on this subject?
• Nos. 38 to 43: Six sources for a voyage of Peter? Isn't that excessive for a event rather insignificant in the wider context of this article? Besides, No. 41 doesn't mention Peter's voyage to Rome.
• No. 40 refers to "pp. 3-203". Could we be a little more specific?
• No. 44 supports a statement which is flat-out contradicted by modern scholarship. It sounds as if it were meant to be factual.
• Nos. 45 to 51 are my favourite: We begin and end by claiming consensus of modern scholars, and in between we have ancient Church fathers and an account that is at best disputed by modern scholarship, if not outright discredited. This seems to be a bad case of synthesis of sources to make a point.
• Nos. 57 to 59 could do with page numbers.

As an aside, the article could do with an entirely rewritten introduction that shows what it's supposed to be about. The current introduction fails spectacularly at that task. Huon (talk) 14:44, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, although I'm not convinced this can be saved without being entirely rewritten. If it's covered in another article it can be turned into a redirect. Or maybe just turn it into a stub? I think one of those - redirect or stubify so it can be rebuilt - are our best choices.

Note that the author's creator has just said he's no longer editing, claiming he's been hounded - a claim I think is a way of avoiding legitimate complaints. Dougweller (talk) 15:12, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

1. Jerome's preface in a letter to Pope Damasus in the year 383.

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