Talk:Persecution of Christians in the New Testament

TotallyDisputed tag

Despite our discussion at Talk:Persecution of Christians you chose to copy the content again. Believe it or not, NT is not a reliable source. Please review WP:RS and WP:OR. In the good faith spirit, I am tagging it TotallyDisputed for now. Also see WP:LEAD. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 20:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to ask you to explain the TotallyDisputed tag. If you ask me, the intro to the article is not neutral because it overweights the assumption that early Christians were not persecuted by the Jews. The intro is full of quotes from liberal theologians asserting that the persecution was not as severe or as widespread as Christian doctrine would portray it to have been. While this may be historically true, it goes against the teaching of most Christian churches and thus a truly NPOV article would present both POVs and note that one is the opinion of mainstream Christian theologians and the other is the opinion of liberal theologians.

Note - I've moved the quotes from theologians to a section at the end of the article. I did this to make the lead more conformant to WP:LEAD --Richard 00:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

As for factual accuracy, what are you referring to? I think it is factually accurate that the persecution of Christians by Jews is related in the New Testament. Whether it is factually accurate that this persecution actually happened as told in the NT is another question. If the article presents the NT account as indisputable historical fact, then that should be changed.

--Richard 22:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I recognize that there are a lot of problems with this article. Nonetheless, I think the topic is encyclopedic and so the challenge is to figure out how to fix it.

Please read this message that I left for a fellow editor asking for help.

I agree that NT is not a reliable source. However, the fact of the matter is that somewhere in excess of 75% of Wikipedia text is unsourced. The question is... does anybody challenge the unsourced material as being of questionable truth value? Thus, if the NT is used to establish that Jews persecuted Christians, then the NT is an unreliable source. However, if the NT is used to establish that the NT reports that Jews persecuted Christians, then the NT is arguably a reliable source about what the NT says.

Well, sort of. The problem is that three people can look at the same Bible passage and come up with four different interpretations. Thus, one has to be careful when citing a Bible passage and saying "the Bible says X, Y and Z". If there is any room for interpretation at all, it would be better to provide a reliable source so that we can say "according to source A, the Bible says X, Y and Z".

I have looked for such a source via Google and have come up with a bunch of websites that assert that the Jews persecuted the early Christians or assume that as fact. The problem is the websites do not qualify as Reliable Sources.

Nonetheless, I don't think many people would argue with the assertion that "for centuries leading up to and including the present-day, Christians have assumed that the Gospel accounts of persecution by Jews were true".

The reason that it is important to include the NT passages is not to support the truth of the assertion that Jews persecuted Christians. The purpose is to support the truth of the assertion that the NT tells of alleged persecution of Christians by Jews.

This alleged persecution is important to understanding Christian doctrine and the history of Christian-Jewish relations.

--Richard 21:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Does this mean that every article based mostly or solely on the Bible should be disputed or deleted? What about articles like the one on "Moses"? As that article states, his existence is based soley on the Bible, so how is that handled? If an article is based on the Bible and states this as being the case, how does that violate WP:RS? Jtpaladin 23:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

1. Thanks for trying to improve WP. BTW, no one is saying that the article Moses is perfect.
2. There is a difference between a) describing the Bible narrative (based on RS of course), and b) compiling lists that some WP editors deem to be "Jews persecuting Christians". Let's be aware of WP:REDFLAG and the history of antisemitism. Speaking of which, let's keep in mind that Antisemitism doesn't even mention the story of Purim because some WP editors wanted to have a credible encyclopedic article rather than original research list.
3. Per WP:VERIFY#Burden of evidence: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article." E.g. someone may object to your phrase: "for centuries leading up to and including the present-day, Christians (all/most/some? ) have assumed that the Gospel accounts of persecution by Jews were true". Thanks. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 03:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

You still have not addressed my assertion that the scriptures quoted in this article "describe the Bible narrative". Given the text preceding and following the section titled "New Testament account", it should be clear that this article is not presenting "persecution of Christians by Jews" as incontrovertible historical fact. It is, however, a fact that this idea has been part of Christian doctrine not just "for centuries" but for 2000 years.

• Is there a problem in the with respect to whether all/most/some Christians assumed that this was fact? Yes.
• Will it be difficult to get a good reliable source to back up whether this was uniformly believed until 1900? Yes.
• Can this be resolved with some weasel wording? Yes. I'm trying to come up with a suitable resolution.
• Is it nonetheless true that the vast majority of Christians believed this and probably stil do? Yes.
• Is the pervasiveness of this idea cited by the very theologians who seek to challenge it? Yes.

We must include the scriptures so that the reader will know what the hell we're talking about. Not everybody is familiar enough with the scriptures to know where these allegations of Jewish persecution are and what the specific incidents recorded in scripture are.

--Richard 03:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

For millennia, many people believed and still believe in the story of Purim. By your logic, it should be listed in antisemitism and/or Persecution of Jews. I challenge you to add it there based solely on the Hebrew Bible and see how long it will stay. We should have the same standard for all articles, don't you think? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 04:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that there should be the same standard for all articles. The Purim story is actually a good example of the long history of persecution as a meme in Hebrew/Jewish culture/religion. It could be included in the anti-Semitism article PROVIDED that it is not put forth as being historical fact.

Just this evening, we had a visiting rabbi explain to our Christian congregation that those who convert to Judaism take on the "baggage" of the long history of Jewish suffering. In essence, she was saying that the Jewish identity is bound up in suffering and persecution and the will to persevere and survive through it.

As a myth/legend, the Purim story is an important part of the Jewish psyche (i.e. it means something even to those Jews who do not believe in God per se). The book of Esther mentions nothing about God and thus is all about being true to one's people and culture in the face of personal danger and persecution. This is relevant in the context of Jewish perseverance in the face of anti-Semitism. When I have time, I will go over to that article and attempt to insert mention of Purim although it will probably not be a trivial task.

That said, you are not addressing my primary point. Do you believe that Christians have believed in the NT account of Jewish persecution of the Jews? Do you believe that this belief has affected Christian-Jewish relations to the point of engendering anti-Semitism on the part of Christians? Do you believe that there are theologians who propose striking out certain passages of the New Testament in order to remove the anti-Judaic polemic that they represent? If you don't believe these things, you need to do some reading. Try Googling "persecution of Christians by the Jews". Start by searching for the entire phrase in quotes and then try various combinations like "persecution of early Christians" and "Jews".

The topic is encyclopedic even if the alleged persecution is more myth than fact. It's encyclopedic because of the impact that it has had on Christian belief and action. I don't understand why it is so difficult for you to get this. You seem stuck on the non-historicity of the events.

Traditions about Moses, Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael all influence the interactions of Jews, Christians and Muslims. Would you argue to remove scriptural passages related to these simply because it is unlikely that any of these figures are historical?

If the only evidence we have that the alleged persecutions may have happened are the New Testament and the patristic writings, then we need to cite those. It is up to the reader to determine whether those sources are credible or not. Christians have done so for centuries. Now, some theologians are challenging the credibility of those sources. We cannot cogently explain the criticism of beliefs that we do not adequately explain. It's as if we were trying to explain anti-Communism without explaining what Communism was. Would you advocate deleting passages from Karl Marx because you think Communism is a discredited ideology?

--Richard 06:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

You might find the kind of reference you are looking for in the 1906 Catholic Encyclopedia, for example, from St. Stephen: "Stephen's answer (Acts 7) was a long recital of the mercies of God towards Israel during its long history and of the ungratefulness by which, throughout, Israel repaid these mercies. This discourse contained many things unpleasant to Jewish ears; but the concluding indictment for having betrayed and murdered th Just One whose coming the Prophets had foretold, provoked the rage of an audience made up not of judges, but of foes. When Stephen "looking up steadfastly to heaven, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God", and said: "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God" (vii, 55), they ran violently upon him (vii, 56) and cast him out of the city to stone him to death. Stephen's stoning does not appear in the narrative of the Acts as a deed of mob violence; it must have been looked upon by those who took part in it as the carrying out of the law. According to law (Leviticus 24:14), or at least its usual interpretation, Stephen had been taken out of the city; custom required that the person to be stoned be placed on an elevation from whence with his hands bound he was to be thrown down. It was most likely while these preparations were going on that, "falling on his knees, he cried with a loud voice, saying: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge" (vii, 59). Meanwhile the witnesses, whose hands must be first on the person condemned by their testimony (Deuteronomy 17:7), were laying down their garments at the feet of Saul, that they might be more ready for the task devolved upon them (vii, 57). The praying martyr was thrown down; and while the witnesses were thrusting upon him "a stone as much as two men could carry", he was heard to utter this supreme prayer: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (vii, 58). Little did all the people present, casting stones upon him, realize that the blood they shed was the first seed of a harvest that was to cover the world." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.0.10.205 (talk • contribs)

Also, from Acts of the Apostles: "On the morrow Peter and John are summoned before rulers, elders, and scribes, among whom were present Annas, the High-Priest, Caiphas, and as many as were of the kindred of the High-Priest. And when they had set Peter and John in the midst they inquired: "By what power, or in want name have ye done this?" Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, answering gave utterance to one of the most sublime professions of the Christian faith ever made by man: "Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, in this name doth this man stand here before you whole. He [Jesus] is the stone which was set at naught by you the builders, which was made the head of the corner [Isaias, xxviii, 16; Matt., xxi, 42]. And in no other is there salvation: For neither is there any other name under Heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved." The members of the council were brought face to face with the most positive evidence of the truth of the Christian religion. They command the two Apostles to go aside out of the council, and then they confer among themselves, saying "What shall we do with these men? For that indeed a notable miracle hath been wrought through them, is manifest to all that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it". Here is one of the splendid instances of that great cumulus of evidence upon which the certitude of the Christian Faith rests. A bitterly hostile council of the chief Jews of Jerusalem is obliged to declare that a notable miracle had been wrought, which it cannot deny, and which is manifest to all that dwell in Jerusalem. With dreadful malice the council attempts to restrain the great movement of Christianity. They threaten the Apostles, and charge them not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus; Peter and John contemn the threat, calling upon the council to judge whether it be right to hearken unto the council rather than unto God. The members of the council could not inflict punishment upon the two Apostles, on account of the people, who glorified God on account of the great miracle. Peter and John, being freed from custody, return to the other Apostles. They all give glory to God and pray for boldness to speak the word of God. After the prayer the place shakes, and they are filled with the Holy Ghost."

"Do you believe that Christians have believed in the NT account of Jewish persecution of the Jews?" - yes and yes to your other questions, but it doesn't matter what you or I believe. We need to rely on RS. I think all of us here agree that the current content is based solely or almost solely on beliefs, not facts. This should be made clear from the beginning and I think the article deserves a corresponding title. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 10:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Wait, let's distill this discussion down to the assertion "Throughout history, Christians have believed and most still do believe that Jews persecuted the early Christians".

I don't think anybody disputes this statement. Even the sources cited in this article believe that. I haven't found an explicit statement of this assertion yet but it underlies just about anything that you can find on this topic even those articles which are dedicated to challenging the belief. Not only do Christians believe this but it is the mainstream majority view. The fact that some theologians and historians challenge this belief doesn't change the fact that Christians have believed and still do believe it. All the scriptural passages are meant to do here is to explain the basis for the belief. If the basis of that belief can be challenged, then that challenge should be and, in fact, is presented in the article.

It's as if you were objecting to references to Mein Kampf that asserted that Jews were inferior. Yes, admittedly, you can look for a source that says "In Mein Kampf, Hitler said Jews are inferior" and then cite that secondary source. However, this sort of indirectness is not always the best approach.

Citing a work doesn't mean asserting the truth of the statement. All we're doing is establishing that the assertion is made in the work and that the fact that these assertion were made in the scriptures had a significant impact on Christian belief and behavior.

If you're arguing that we haven't established the connection between the scriptures and the later belief and behavior, I will agree that more sources could help.

However, I don't see the rationale for deleting the scriptural references when they are themselves the central focus of the topic.

P.S. Re a title change - along what lines are you thinking? Perhaps "Allegations of Jewish persecution of early Christians as documented in the New Testament and patristic writings"? It's a long and unwieldy title but it nails the POV and scope issues. I would prefer to address the POV and scope issues in the body of the article rather than in the title.

--Richard 21:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm opposed to using the term "Allegations" in the title for all the reasons Ruchard mentions above. The article should cite more secondary sources, and I'm happy to pitch in and help out next week when I'm back from vacation and can run by the theology library.

Humus, think carefully here. wholesale deletion of scriptural references in WP will take one down a slippery slope. Richard's example of Moses is a perfect case. Are you suggetsing using one set of standards to edit articles on Jewish history and another standard for Christian history? Majoreditor 23:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Please see my comments above: one standard for all based on WP policies is what I am asking. We need to distinguish religious beliefs from historical facts. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 10:19, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

So the problem seems to be entirely around whether this article (and others) present the persecution of the early Christians as historical fact, historically possible but unsubstantiated outside the New Testament or just plain religious story/myth. I think the NPOV stance is that the alleged persecution is "historically possible but unsubstantiated outside the New Testament". Without reference to the New Testament scriptures, this article is sorely deficient. I think we can address the concerns of Humus sapiens by carefully wording the "New Testament" account to match the text that precedes and follows it.

My concern is that I don't have a good sense of what the "consensus" of academic opinion is. I am fairly confident that the consensus of mainstream Christian theologians is that it did happen. That's why I wrote that there is an emerging consensus of liberal theologians that challenges the historicity of the events.

But what is the consensus of secular historians? Can anybody shed any light on what their opinion is?

--Richard 15:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Humus, as usual, I value your thoughts and opinions. You know me that when I get stuck, I'm always contacting you for assistance. Let me try and address your concerns regarding the NT and this article. I can appreciate the concerns some people would have when you take NT quotes out of context. The problem with using information from the Bible is that many of these complaints come from people who have never really read the it and/or simply look to the Bible in order to merely criticize it. Obviously, I'm not saying that applies to you, only that claims of anti-Semitism in the NT are not only unfounded but are repugnant to the very essence of the NT. On a side note, while I haven't mentioned this before, I consider myself to be Zionist Christian. I'm pro-Jewish and pro-Israel. But at the same time I don't try and delude myself that atrocities did not occur between the Jewish community and the Christian community and as someone who can claim a scholarly knowldege of the NT, let me state emphatically that unless a Christian loves the Jewish people as much as he loves himself, he will never see the Kingdom of Heaven. The Jewish people are the "Chosen Ones" and salvation comes from the Jews. It's that simple. The NT is about love and forgiveness and salvation. It is not an anti-Semitic document meant to attack Jews. You can not truly be a Christian if you harbor anti-Semitic feelings. Even more so, you can't be a Christian if you hate anyone for their religious beliefs or racial identity. If you take some of the NT quotes out of context, you can make it into anything you want but taken as a whole, it can never be read in an anti-Semitic fashion. The fact is that the early Christians were Jewish. And, yes, they were persecuted by SOME other Jews. Not ALL Jews. But so what? This happened 2,000 years ago and this is no reason or justification for hatred towards each other.

Christian, Islamic, and Jewish communities have all done bad things to each other. Anyone who has done any research on the history of the middle east and the history of religions of the Mddle East will easily find this to be true. No religious community holds the exclusive franchise on religious based violence or victimization. The article needs to reflect the NT perspective. Whether you agree with the NT or not, it is in fact used as a historical document by a number of scholars and at the very least is a basis of perspective by Christians as a whole. All of the New Testament writers were contemporaries of Jesus and I believe all were Jews. Five were eyewitnesses, three accompanied Jesus throughout his ministry, and all of their writings are in remarkable agreement. In addition to this, their writings continue to stand the tests of genuineness and historicity. By denying the opportunity to include information from the NT in the article, we are denying a source held as fact by millions of people. However, we can also look at the writings of Josephus, Dio Cassius, and Church Fathers when addressing Christian deaths associated with the Jewish revolts against Rome. If you want other historical examples of Christians being killed by some members of the Jewish community, consider what happened to Christians during the 4 major Jewish revolts (this includes the War against Gallus). Also consider later attacks by the Jewish community on Christians, such as what happened when the Perisans invaded the Holy Land and the Jewish community slaughtered thousands of Christians:

"With their churches and houses in flames around them, the Christians were indiscriminately massacred, some by the Persian soldiery and many more by the Jews." -- A History of the Crusades by Steven Runciman.

"Jews in the near East, north Africa and Spain threw their support behind advancing Muslim Arab armies." -- The Position of Jews in Arab lands following the rise of Islam by Merlin Swartz

These kinds of events occurred on all sides. It was a tragic waste of human life. But it was brought on not by scriptural commission by either side but instead by those who craved power, wealth, and domination of other people. Both Christianity and Judiasm are innocent.

But if there is a concern as to how to use the NT for the article then we can simply state, "According to the NT,...". That is a suitable method for quoting a Biblical source and statisfies WP:RS, among other guidelines. As for the the article on Moses, I think that is a great article and this article should mimic the writing style of that one. Therefore, we should expect that an article describing this persecution be completely informative and the use of NT as a source is entirely appropriate. I hope my comments were useful to this conversation. Jtpaladin 16:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. This article is completely original research and unacceptable as an encyclopedic article. It may be narrowly appropriate to cite bible verses in the context of summarizing a particular biblical biographical account (as in the case of Moses and Jesus, i.e., to source a section on what the biblical account says of a biblical character), but it is inappropriate to cite bible verses to source a particular interpretation or opinion on history or politics. One can cite what a reliable source says is an interpretation of a bible verse if it is pertinent, but the use of the bible directly in the way it is used in this article is original research. --MPerel ^{( talk | contrib)} 21:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Disregarding other problems in the article (as I'm only an observer, really), how can citing an explicit NT account on a historical issue when it is presented as "According to the New Testament"?

Considering that it is made apparent that the New Testament is "claiming" such a thing, I don't see how this type of citation would be an issue. After all, we can not determine the NT to be any less reliable than the ancient historians and modern scholars which are cited for their "presentations" of the facts of history today.

As long as the statement is presented as a New Testament testimony, I don't understand how such a claim could be made. It is unusual that the NT's presentation of historical occurrences within that era are receiving a harsher opposition on this page than would, say, the Histories of Herodotus.

While the inclusion of citations for further elaboration would be extremely helpful to the article, there is no reason why the claims of the NT can not be presented and considered. --C.Logan 22:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, C.Logan, I agree. As Majoreditor also said, denying the use of the NT as a source for this article does indeed takes us down a slippery slope. Many articles would have to be deleted and re-written. Other than the article on Moses and other OT figures, another example is the article on Kosher or Kashrut. All references to the OT would have to be removed. The concept of Kosher rests on the Bible and if we are to deem the Bible as Original Research, then all references to the very foundation of Jewish Law would have to be scraped as Original Research. In fact anything even mentioning the Bible, or the Quran for that matter, as a source, would have to be removed. That would be a huge mess and certainly not called for in Wikipedia. As for anyone calling the Bible "Original Research", I mean come on, you've got to be kidding. The Bible does not meet the definition of WP:OR. Jtpaladin 22:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Name Change

• I believe this article should be moved to Persecution of early Christians by Jews. By having "the" in the title, it implies that the persecution was perpetrated by the entire Jewish people in an organized fashion, when realistically, the persecution was more likely carried out by a select group of people. "The Jews" implies some sort of conspiracy. -- Chabuk ^{[ T • C ]} 21:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Using "the" is inappropriate in instances such as this, as it forms a caricature of an entire group of individuals. --C.Logan 21:45, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. Actually I believe the opposite is true on the use of the word, "the". The NT uses the phrase, "the Jews" and I feel that without "the" being used, it would imply that ALL the Jews were guilty, which I do not believe to be true either. Only a select group of Jewish people did any persecuting. Communal persecution of Christians and Jewish people did not occur until later on. For example, as the Persian invasion issue I mentioned above shows or acts during the Crusades. Jtpaladin 23:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I see what you mean. I suppose the meaning of what's said depends partly on how you approach it. A far as I'm concerned, both titles are valid, and both titles ar problematic as well. --C.Logan 23:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• IMHO, more drastic change is needed, and not only in the title. I don't make any parallels, but could you imagine Persecution of Jews by Amalekites or Persecution of Olympians by Titans, based solely on religious myths? What's next, Persecution of Philistines by Jews? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 23:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

While I understand your issue with the specificity of the article's subject, there is indeed reason in keeping such an article intact. Taking that the early foundations of Christianity were within the arms of a predominately Jewish culture, and concerning the theological and scriptural relationship between the two faiths, such an article (which deals with the interaction between two major world religions) is naturally arising.

Persecution of early Christians by the Jews is every bit as relevant as Persecution of early Christians by the Romans, Muslim persecution of Christians, and Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union, and even Christianity and antisemitism and Islam and antisemitism. The historical and personal relevance of such articles is hard to argue against. If one were to deny an article detailing Jewish persecution of Christians, should the article detailing the Roman persecutions also be deleted? I doubt that anyone who agrees with the former would find the same verdict in the latter case. The persecution of the early Christians is one of the fundamental aspects of Christianity's history. Notice that Paul, one of the greatest Christian writers, began his career as a persecutor of Christians himself.

While I understand that your examples are given for example of absurdity, your choices do not really parallel the subject matter of the article. --C.Logan 23:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The article needs to stay intact. Let's focus on adding appropriate references and keeping it balanced. Majoreditor 00:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Humus, the article would be better written as Genocide of the Amalekites by the Jews. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Jews wiped out the Amalekites. But that topic is covered in the Wikipedia article on the Amalekites. The odd thing with that is that the Amalekites are also a Biblical subject without secondary sources so that article would also have to be eliminated if we were to follow your suggestion on excluding the Bible as a reference. As for the Olympians and the Titans, actually it was a war, not a persecution. However, feel free to create that article and give a source. I think that would be a good article.

But if you still want to remove any articles related to the Bible, just say the word and I'll go on a deletion spree. I'll start with articles dealing with the NT and then work myself over to all articles using the Torah and the Quran as a source. I'll go into each article and proclaim, "I have come here to conquer in the name of Humus" and then just wipe each article out of existence. This sounds like more fun than actually making new articles. :p Jtpaladin 00:19, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Well said, Jtpaladin. Majoreditor 00:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

See WP:POINT. I know that the theme of victimhood/martyrdom is big in early Christianity. Let's keep in mind that WP is a neutral encyclopedia and all notable sides need to be represented based on RS. Please do not turn this into a passion play. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 00:34, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that all points need to be presented in the article. It would be useful to add additional information on how all major Christian denominations have repudiated the concept of blaming the Jewish people for the persecution of early Christians. This article will be benefit from additional material. Humus, do you have some specific suggestions in what to add>Majoreditor 00:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Many historical accounts with which we are familiar are based on tenuous sources. We know very little about many periods of history, and documenting the exploits of an underground 1st century movement in the region of Palestine is quite difficult if we don't consider the account given in one of the most widely considered sources on the subject.

No one is attempting to turn this article into a "passion play"- anymore than any other article considering the dramatic nature of massacres, martyrdoms and persecutions- and as long as the article makes the clear notation of "NT = Not necessarily factually accurate", I don't see how presenting Biblical records of persecution by Jews would violate any sort of WP.

The section of the article is explicitly titled "The New Testament account", i.e. "what the New Testament says in regard to this topic". Does this endorse the New Testament as a historically reliable document? No, it does not.

Even the views of fringe theorists are often presented in their own words for fairness, and so it is reasonable that a document which is so widely recognized and contemplated by individuals might also give its own testimony as well.

If there are available Jewish or third-party sources, this too should be have a preferred place in the article; however, the dearth of such sources does not mean that we should ignore what one particular document does say.--C.Logan 01:04, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Back on topic please!

• So apparently this article is a topic of controversy. Really, that's not what my issue is here. Whether or not this article exists is not the issue here. As of right now, the article exists, however, with its current title, it presents an extremely skewed picture of the events (real or imagined). "The Jews" (implying the entire or even just the organized jewish community) did not persecute Christians, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the Christian bible suggests that they did. Some Jews may have taken such actions, but that's not the picture the title puts across. So, back on topic. Please comment on whether or not you think the article should be renamed. If you think it should be deleted, or needs more references, talk about it elsewhere. -- Chabuk ^{[ T • C ]} 02:38, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, the article itself gives examples of the Biblical claims, such as "a great persecution of Christians by Jews arose in Jerusalem so that Christians fled Jerusalem." (Acts 3:25)

Although it's certain that many Jews did not mind the Christian presence (and from what I've read, Paul's own mentor was one of these Jews), many did in fact see the Christians as a threat, and did indeed persecute them.

An improvement is always welcome, though considering that the title runs parallel to Persecution of early Christians by the Romans (and no one has raised any issues about that title), I'm not sure if I see such a big problem. For example, it is certain that only a select handful of Romans really saw Christians as a threat and sought to persecute them. Is it not the case that these were persecutions perpetrated by Romans? I'm wondering if we're beginning to split hairs with the language. --C.Logan 01:44, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• My understanding was that Roman persecution of Christians was official government policy? -- Chabuk ^{[ T • C ]} 02:38, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

It became the expressed policy of the Roman Empire to suppress Christianity, but at a later date. There were many instances of persecution prior to the policy. Majoreditor 02:47, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

The Roman policy on Christians was never consistent. It changed constantly during the numerous Imperial govts. Sometimes there was zero persecution and sometimes there was extreme persecutions. In the scheme of things, very few Romans ever did any persecuting. Jtpaladin 14:28, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Jtpaladin is correct. All this is explained in Persecution of early Christians by the Romans. Or should be. If you can help improve that article, please do.

As explained below, the titles were designed to use "by the Jews" and "by the Romans" to signify a more or less official persecution by the religious establishment (in the case of the Jews) or by the political establishment (in the case of the Romans). In each case, there was some spontaneous, local grass-roots persecution but the charge is that the persecution was institutional rather than just popular.

I readily admit that the evidence for this is tenuous in the case of the Jews. If someone wishes to contradict this assumption on my part, please educate me. However, everything that I've ever read or heard on this topic in Christian treatments has the strong insinuation that the persecution of Christians was an institutional decision and not just the action of "some Jews".

At the risk of repeating myself, weakening the title suggests two things... (1) the persecution accounts in the NT are true but just of "some Jews" and not the Jewish religious institution as a whole and (2) it mischaracterizes the Christian accusation which explicitly tags the entire Jewish religious institution with the rejection of Jesus.

Another way to look at this question of "some Jews" vs. "the Jews" is that anti-Semitism existed in Europe for centuries before Hitler. However, in writing about anti-Semitism prior to the Nazi regime, we would write about "German anti-Semitism" but not "persecution of Jews by the Germans" because there was no official German policy of anti-Semitism. (At least not that I know of). With the accession of Hitler to power, however, we now have "persecution of the Jews by the Nazis" (or arguably "by the Germans").

--Richard 17:06, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

"no official German policy of anti-Semitism." - you can't be serious. Take a brief look at any volume on Jewish history in Germany. From recent books, The Pity of It All comes to mind. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 23:17, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I am serious. Germany did not exist as a nation before 1871 so we are only talking about the period from 1871 to 1933. Read the "Freedom and Repression (1815-1930s)" section of the Wikipedia article on Jewish history in Germany. Here's a couple of excerpts from that section...

The Revolution of 1848 swung the pendulum back towards freedom for the Jews, but the financial crisis of 1873 created another era of repression. Starting in the 1870s, völkische anti-Semites were the first to describe themselves as such, because they viewed Jews as part of a Semitic race that could never be properly assimilated into German society. Such was the ferocity of the anti-Jewish feeling of the völkische movement that by 1900 the term "anti-Semitic" had entered the English language to describe anyone who had anti-Jewish feelings. However, despite massive protests and petitions, the Völkisch movement failed to persuade the government to revoke Jewish emancipation and in the 1912 Reichstag elections, the völkische parties suffered a temporary defeat.

Jews experienced a period of legal equality from 1848 until the rise of Nazi Germany. In the opinion of the historian Fritz Stern, by the end of the 19th century, what had emerged was a "Jewish-German symbiosis," where German Jews had merged elements of German and Jewish culture into a unique new one. A higher percentage of German Jews fought in World War I than that of any other ethnic, religious or political group in Germany. German Jews enjoyed full equality in the Weimar Republic[citation needed], many[attribution needed] receiving high political positions like foreign minister and vice chancellor. The Weimar constitution was the work of a German Jew, Hugo Preuss, who later became minister of the interior. Marriages between Jews and non-Jews became common from the 19th century; for example, the wife of German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann was Jewish.

So, isnt' that just what I said? ... "anti-Semitism, yes" but no "official" policy of government persecution.

--Richard 03:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh please. We are talking about Christian-Jewish history and not about particular German statehood, so the choice to start in 1870s seems artificial. Take the policies of Frederick II of Prussia who limited Jewish population to few lucky Schutzjuden. Of course many Jews tried to escape - note that all those mixed marriages resulted in losing Jewish identity - BTW, Hitler reminded some of those who considered themselves 100% German about their Jewish ancestors, and the Nazis (while persecuting Christians) did not shy away from quoting John Chrysostom and Martin Luther when it came to Jews. So back to our topic: if the article is to stay, we need to emphasize who were the real victims of crusades, expulsions, burnings, forced conversions, ghettos, etc. - all in the name of the alleged "Jewish persecutions of Christians" and other antisemitic canards. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 05:04, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Articles about Christianity are my secondary Wikipedia passion. My primary Wikipedia passion is working on articles related to Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after WWII and other articles related to that part of German history. From that experience, I can assure you that people care about distinguishing between Prussian history prior to 1871 and German history after 1871. Clearly, the Germans existed as a people prior to 1871 but Germany did not exist as a state until 1871. The fact that you misinterpreted what I wrote about "official German policy" should not provide a justification for you to assert that what I wrote is incorrect. What I wrote was correct as I wrote it although perhaps ambiguous. The fact that you interpreted it otherwise doesn't make it wrong. It just makes your interpretation of it wrong. Please don't use your wrong interpretation of what I wrote to deride what I wrote. If I had wanted to say "there was no official Prussian policy of anti-semitism", I would have. Now that you know what I meant, accept that what I said is correct and that perhaps what you want to say is also correct. I don't have to be wrong in order for you to be right. It's not a zero-sum game. --Richard 16:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Humus, are you suggesting that we create a huge article of communal violence between Gentiles and Jews dating back to the Israeli return to the Holy Land up to present? Frankly, this article is designed to discuss the short period of time where violence by certain Jewish people and groups was aimed at early Christians. That's it. There are plenty of articles all over Wikipedia about Gentile violence between Israel and Jews. I don't see why you would want to incorporate these other articles into this article. That is far beyond the scope of this small, limited article. However, if you want to further discuss actions between the Jewish people and Christians/Gentiles, all the issues you mentioned are all very well covered in articles such as Crusades, Jews, Jewish, Judaism, antisemitism, History of antisemitism, Jews in the New Testament, Christianity and antisemitism, Christian-Jewish reconciliation, Relations between Catholicism and Judaism, Christianity, History of the Jews and the Crusades, anti-Judaism, etc. I found those topics in about 5 minutes. I'm sure there are plenty more topics on Wikipedia addressing your concerns. Jtpaladin 17:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed Returning to the name change issue...--RandomHumanoid 15:02, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Historicity of the NT account as distinct from its role in Christian antisemitism

Humus sapiens, you wrote "if the article is to stay, we need to emphasize who were the real victims of crusades, expulsions, burnings, forced conversions, ghettos, etc. - all in the name of the alleged "Jewish persecutions of Christians" and other antisemitic canards". I think this summarizes your agenda.

Perhaps you believe the NT accounts of Jewish persecution of Christians are ahistorical. However, I think you should be less concerned about their historicity and more concerned about the fact that those accounts were used to justify Christian antisemitism. In this, you and I are in agreement. I don't think you have to assert the ahistoricity of the NT accounts in order to make the point about "the real victims". Using the "expulsions of Germans" as an analogy, there were Nazi collaborators of German descent in Poland who did some pretty evil things. Some argue that this collaboration justified the expulsion of the vast majority of Germans from Poland. Others argue that it did not. At the end of the day, it is not so important whether there were collaborators (there were) or how many there were. What is important is that the fact of the collaboration was used as a justification for collective punishment.

I agree with the conclusion "we need to emphasize who were the real victims of crusades, expulsions, burnings, forced conversions, ghettos, etc. - all in the name of the alleged "Jewish persecutions of Christians" and other antisemitic canards" but not the syllogism "if A then B". That is, I am all in favor of focusing on Christian antisemitism but I don't think this article is the place to focus on it nor do I think that a full treatment of Christian antisemitism is a necessary condition for this article "to stay".

I am happy to make references in this article to Christian antisemitism and to make the linkage for the reader establishing the important role that the NT accounts play in the history of antisemitism.

However, the treatment that you wish belongs in Christianity and antisemitism, not here. (Note: I have contributed somewhat to Christianity and antisemitism and I think that is an important article so this argument is not an effort to shunt your views aside.)

I will comment that my Googling shows that most discussions of Christianity and antisemitism focus more on either the charge of deicide (the Jews killed Jesus) or the Gospel narratives in which Jesus castigates the Pharisees. AFAICT, the alleged persecution of Christians are not the primary focus of scholars who are analyzing the scriptural foundations of antisemitism. I conclude this because most of the articles that I read focus on the Gospel narratives rather than the narrative of Acts.

I will also note that, while deicide is mentioned in the Antisemitic canards article, Jewish persecution of Christians is not. Perhaps you will think this is a deficiency of that article and will attempt to repair it. Before you do, consider that your perspective may be a minority view. In that article, an antisemitic canard is defined as "a deliberately false story inciting antisemitism". We are agreed that Jewish persecution of early Christians was used to incite antisemitism and that it should not have been so used. Where we disagree is whether the story is false.

--Richard 16:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

You make many good points, Richard. As I said above, our article should reflect mainstream scholarship basing on reliable sources, not our personal POVs. Seeing that I am in a minority here and that the discussion got a bit too hot for my taste, I'll try to stay away from it for awhile, in hope it would cool down the discussion and improve the article. Speaking of the charge of deicide, it seems to be the ultimate accusation of "Persecution of early Christians by the Jews". ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 20:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Being raised in the Christian faith and researching various Protestant faiths along the years, at no time did the concept of deicide ever come up. I was never taught to hate Jews or the Jewish faith or find any faith that advocated hating Jews or suggesting that Jews engaged in deicide. On the contrary, I was taught to love the Jews because salvation comes through them. How can you hate a group of people who are a conduit for your own salvation? I've read the NT countless times and at no time did I ever think, "Man, those damn Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus or God". The very notion is not only alien but utterly absurd. That's not to say that there aren't Christians who dislike Jews and Jews who dislike Christians, but neither I or anyone that I knew or know personally was ever part of that mind-set. I grew up in NYC where Jewish holidays closed down businesses and schools. As a kid, what better thing is there when your school gets closed for the day?!! Thank God for Jewish holidays!! I remember when I was 9 years old and gave all my allowance money to help Israeli's after the 1973 war and in 1982, when I wanted to join the IDF (yeah, I know some of you have heard me say this before, but I like repeating myself). When I look at a subject like this, my interest is not blame or hate, it's simple history. As someone who believes that both the OT and the NT are historical, this event happened just as is related in the NT and just as the Exodus is related in the OT. So let's get on with the task of recording this info in this article and relegate criticism of this event in history to very specific and limited listings. The criticisms must come from WP:RS and give reasons for the criticism. We don't want to see a source that says, "Christians were never persecuted by the Jews and what I say is fact". We should want to see, "Christians were never persecuted by the Jews because [this source] and [this source] suggest [this]. We should see WP:RS, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR adhered to by the author(s). As a side note, let me thank Richard, 75.0.9.251, and the various other anon people (why are you guys anon anyway?) who have contributed substantially to this article. Jtpaladin 18:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

My rationale for using "the Jews" in the title of this article

I created this article along with its sister article Persecution of early Christians by the Romans by extracting text from Persecution of early Christians which I had created earlier by extracting text from Persecution of Christians.

The major reason for this series of article creations is that I wanted a target for a {{main}} link in the History of Christianity article. It was too unwieldy to point from the "Persecution of early Christians" section of History of Christianity to Persecution of Christians. Eventually, I found that even Persecution of early Christians was putting two dissimilar topics (i.e. by the Jews and by the Romans) together so I split it up.

I understand the reasoning behind Chabuk's proposal to eliminate the word "the". In general, it is true that "the XYZ people" never do anything. Only specific individuals who happen to be from the XYZ people do things.

However, in this case, I would suggest that there is a good reason to leave the word "the" in the title and it is quite simply this: the phrase "the Jews" is precisely the wording that has been used historically to describe this series of alleged persecutions and it was used intentionally to attack the entire Jewish nation/culture as not having followed God's will. Christianity has defined itself in contrast to the Jewish religion from which it originated and has in both the past and the present tagged "the Jews" with responsibility for rejecting the message of the Messiah.

For us now to sanitize the charge by dropping the word "the" is to begin the process of defusing the charge. IMO, it is not Wikipedia's place to do this. Although it is the right thing to do "in the real world", it is also POV and thus inappropriate. We are saying that the vast majority of Christianity is wrong and that the minority viewpoint which is emerging is right. This means we are taking sides in a dispute. It is my intent that this article should describe the charge exactly as it has been formulated historically along with any evidence that the charge was inaccurate.

The charge has never been that "some Jews" persecuted some Christians. It has always been that there was a deliberate effort by Jewish synagogues to persecute Christ-following Jews and evict them from the synagogues. Thus, Persecution of early Christians by the Jewish hierarchy or Persecution of early Christians by Jewish religious leaders would be more accurate titles. However, I prefer Persecution of early Christians by the Jews because it more closely matches the phrasing that has been used historically in Christian sermons and apologetics.

--Richard 07:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Richard, I'm just starting to look over this article and talk page, and am sort of starting from the bottom up. I understand, but disagree with, your rationale for the article title. I would actually go with Jewish persecution of early Christians for a couple of reasons. (a) It is slightly less unwieldy and clunky, which gets points in my book. (b) While the charge weighed by early Christians was about institutional persecution by "the Jews", this quite likely reflected more localized situations - i.e., in a given area there may have been that sort of persecution, but in another it may not have existed at all; and the negative situation is the notable case that is preserved in the historical record. (c) I remain unconvinced by the argument that we have to use the exact phrasing as they did in order to preserve the historical accuracy of our account - indeed (forgive me as me Greek is getting rusty), but wouldn't our title then have be "Persecution of the Christians by the Jews", based on the koine Greek use of the definite pronoun? Anyway, that's my two cents on this little tidbit of the conversation. Back for more later, as I'm catching up after not really being online regularly for almost 2 weeks. Pastordavid 03:41, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's try to come up with a neutral title like Christianity and antisemitism. Lest we forget the results of 2000 years of painting "the Jews" as Christ-killers. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 21:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Jewish persecution of early Christians is an appropriately neutral title, in my opinion.--C.Logan 21:44, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

That (as the current title) would imply that Jews indeed persecuted early Christians. I find it ironic that this is offered while we don't have an article titled Christian antisemitism (it is a redir to neutral title Christianity and antisemitism). Please consider something along the lines of Allegations of Jewish persecution of early Christians. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 21:52, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

It would be NPOV to mince and mix the title to cater to any group, Jews included. Why not, in the same vein, re-name everything as an 'alleged' occurrence? "Allegations of Christian antisemitism", or even "The alleged Holocaust". The title only needs to say so much; the article does the rest. If an individual is going to be thoroughly offended by an article which deals with "persecution of early Christians" from "Jewish sources" without taking the text within into consideration, the problem is their own, not Wikipedia's. Even concerning that title, how much more must we vanillafy things? The Jews of today are as far removed from the Jews of that time as the Italians are from the Romans who similarly persecuted Christians. --C.Logan 22:16, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

You won't find a serious historian denying the Holocaust. Let's keep in mind that whether the NT allegations against "the Jews" were real or not, the real victims of those accusations were countless Jews in the last 2 millennia. Unfortunately, even today there are plenty of those actively seeking to promote antisemitism, and this article is in real danger to become just another tool for that. Please don't make it difficult to assume good faith. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 22:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Descriptive names: "Choose a descriptive name for an article that does not carry POV implications." We can have a neutral title Allegations of Jewish persecution of early Christians and Jewish persecution of early Christians as a redir if you prefer. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 23:06, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I will abide by a consensus of a proposed move discussion if a formal discussion is held. However, failing evidence of such a consensus, I object to any proposed title of the form "Allegations of..." as it is just as POV as the current title in that such a title would suggest that the charges are false. Since no evidence has been presented that the charges are, in fact, false and since substantial evidence exists that the mainstream of Christian theology and Biblical scholars believe it to be true, I am inclined to leave the title stand as it is.

Articles such as Pontian Greek genocide, Holocaust and Holodomor are not prefaced by "Allegations of ..." even though they are disputed by some. I am happy to provide a balanced NPOV treatement in the article text (although it is currently canted in favor of those who would minimize the alleged persecution) but I do not think NPOV is served by adding "Allegations of..." at the front of the title.

--Richard 05:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Please be so kind as to reread my post just a few lines above, starting with "You won't find a serious historian denying the Holocaust". ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 08:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

(a) Godwin's law. Let's leave the Holocaust/Shoah out of our considerations here, its not a helpful line of conversation. (b) There are reliable sources that take the primary material that we have discussed, and come to the conclusion that, in approximately the years 50-150, there was considerable persecution of the Christian community by the Jewish community. (c) No one, as far as can tell, is attempting to whitewash, defend, or provide a rationale for the history of Christian persecution of Jews. The editors that I have seen commenting here are merely trying to provide an accurate historical description of events in the early years of Christianity. Please try to not assume the worst about the motivations of others. Pastordavid 14:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Humus sapiens is "assuming the worst about the motivations of others". My sense of it is that he just sees things differently and is perhaps more passionate (and yes, a bit self-righteous) about it than some of us. --Richard 15:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Propose title change to Jewish persecution of early Christians

There seems to be an emerging consensus that "Jewish persecution of early Christians" is a better title for this article than "Persecution of early Christians by the Jews". I propose to change the title of this article and its sister article Persecution of early Christians by the Romans.

I acknowledge that Humus sapiens does not believe that this title change will address the NPOV issues that he sees with the title. Nonetheless, I am assuming that he will see the new title to be no worse and perhaps even an improvement on the current title.

Thus, I propose that we change the titles immediately and continue to discuss possible alternatives to address Humus sapiens concerns.

If no one objects, I will rename both articles in the next day or two.

--Richard 15:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Richard, why don't you wait on title changes until we can get concerns about the article's existence settled? That's like fighting over who gets to be captain of the Titanic after it hits the iceberg. Humus appears to be objecting to the entire article, so a title change at this point does absolutely nothing. I think perhaps a call for a preliminary consensus is in order at this point. It's absurd that we are spending this much energy without getting consensus on the existence of the article. Jtpaladin 17:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Factual accuracy

There are at least three ways to view these events. Let "a=Persecution of Christians by some Jews; A=Institutional persecution of Christians by Jews; let B=Christian persecution of Jews

First, the perspective that we all reject: The Jews persecuted the Christians and this justifies 2000 years of Christian anti-semitism. This is "A happened AND A justifies B".

Second, the perspective that is, I believe, the mainstream position: Some Jews persecuted the Christians. Enough so that the Christians viewed this or, at least, cast this as an institutional rejection of Christianity (culminating the hypothesized Council of Jamnia). The polemic and conflict arising out of this sectarian conflict colored Christian attitudes, policies and behavior towards Jews for the next 2000 years. This anti-Semitism is rooted in the original conflict between Jews and Christians during the formative years of early Christianity. However, most people today reject the notion of the events providing any legitimate justification for anti-Semitism. This is "A happened; A was used to justify B BUT many people argue A does not justify B".

Third, the perspective that some liberal theologians are pushing: The NT account is ahistorical because there is no corroborating evidence outside the New Testament or the writings of the church fathers. (Note: Forgive me if I am overstating the position.) According to this perspective, the persecutions either never happened or were exaggerated by either the NT authors or later interpreters of the NT authors. For example, it is possible that the incidents in the NT represent isolated incidents and do not represent an institutional policy. Later events (post Bar Kokhba) may have led to a re-interpretation of the isolated events into a perception of institutional policy. This is "A never happened; a happened; A was used to justify B BUT many people argue A does not justify B".

I believe that all of these perspectives (yes, even the first one) should be presented in the article. We should give "due weight" to each perspective citing sources who support each view.

Finally, I think that we are agreed that we should not say "Jews persecuted the Christians" but rather "According to the NT, Jews persecuted the Christians". If this formulation were used uniformly throughout the article, would there still be a dispute over factual accuracy? --Richard 15:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Sourcing

I'm still catching up on my reading for this talk page, but have noted the concern for non-primary sources attesting to the subject of the article. I am providing a small excerpt below (which happened to be in the first source I thought to pull off my shelf) as an example, and will add some sorcing to this article in the next week.

Robert Lee Williams, "Persecution" in The Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd edition, ed. Everett Ferguson (New York:Garland Publishing, 1997). ISBN 0-8153-1663-1. (NB:Section title in the article is "Jewish Persecution of Christians from Jesus' Death to the Great Fire in Rome").

"...Christians lived with the ambiguity of toleration by Rome and persecution by Jewish authorities. The Jewish persection consisted of considerable harassement and a few deaths ..." (entire section is about two paragraphs)

The article continues, accounting persecuation of early Christians by Rome, and also continued Jewish persecution, e.g.: "As Christianity became distinguished from Judaism as a new religion, it suffered the disapproval of both Jews and the larger Gentile public." Pastordavid 03:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Williston Walker, et. al. A History of the Christian Church, Fourth edition (New York: Scribner's, 1985).

"Presumably, then, Stephan and his Greek speaking fellow believers lacked the respect for the Temple and for the Law which Palestinian Christians habitually envinced, and they were persecuted not on the grounds of their belief in Jesus as Messiah, but because they talked as though they were prepared, Jews though they were, to jettison the demands of the Law in light of their new faith ... In other words, the persecution was selective and touched only those Christians - the Hellenists - who spoke words against "this holy place and the law" ... The Jerusalem community, however, enjoyed relative peace, obviously maintaining its loyalty to the temple and Law ... This peace was briefly broken under the kingship of Herod Agrippa I (41-44 ce) ...It may have been this brief persecution which led to Peter's departure from Jerusalem" (pp. 24-25).

Pastordavid 14:31, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Disputed tag

Please leave the totally disputed tag on the article. Whether or not you agree with the rationale of those involved in the discussion here, the fact is that this conversation is evidence that the article is disputed. Removing it does nothing to help us move toward consensus on the talk page. Pastordavid 14:16, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Whether this article should exist

In a nutshell, my argument is that the concept or perception that Jews persecuted the early Christians is important enough in Christian theology and history that there should be an article on it even if there is uncertainty as to the extent and official nature of the persecution.

Chabuk argues below against keeping this article on the grounds that the only major source is the New Testament. The NT sources are endorsed by the writings of the Church Fathers but they presumably are relying on the NT and other unrecorded anecdotal evidence.

To this, I respond... "There is an article on The Exodus". The only historical evidence of the Exodus is the Old Testament. There is no record of the Exodus in Egyptian histories. So why is there an article on the topic?

The article on The Exodus doesn't even really signal that there is any doubt that the Exodus actually happened until well into the article.

--Richard 23:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Many WP articles are far from perfect, but two wrongs won't make one right. Of course The Exodus should state that it is based on the biblical story. In this case we have to be doubly careful because the belief that Jews persecuted the early Christians and killed Jesus resulted in centuries of real persecutions of Jews by Christians. Again, let's note that Antisemitism properly doesn't mention the story of Purim because there is no proof that it in fact took place. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 20:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Let us assume that the Exodus, Purim AND the persecutions of Christians by Jews are all either ahistorical. Nonetheless, they all deserve articles precisely because they are important to the psyche of their respective religions. Persecution has a special significance in Judaism and perhaps to a lesser extent in Christianity as well. This significance is an encyclopedic topic even though some of the persecution is ahistorical.

--Richard 21:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Delete - this article is specifically aimed at reviving or inciting bitterness (and likely hatred). Even if we accept that documenting superstitions is a valid part of the project (and I have problems with it), we should immediately strike out articles such as this one. PalestineRemembered 11:07, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

It is? Wow, I guess I never got the memo about that one. Doesn't quite seem that way at all to me, but I suppose we see things through our respective lenses.--C.Logan 14:01, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Moving Forward

Before we get to bogged down here in the discussion, let's see if we cant find ways to move forward. Starting at step one (as suggested above) (and yes, I know voting is evil, but straw polls are helpful in determining consensus).

The following discussions are an archived debate. The consensus, as of early June 2007, was that this article should be kept, with the scope and title to be clarified through further discussion.

Step 1

Is there consensus that this article (under whatever name), ought to be kept. That is, is there sufficient material from reliable sources to support an article on this topic? Pastordavid 17:42, 5 June 2007 (UTC) I ask everyone to please be patient, as I am going to leave this up a while longer before suggecting that we move forward. Pastordavid 14:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

No

• Disagree - Only major source is the Christian Bible and Gospels. Sources which, by definition, are biased. -- Chabuk ^{[ T • C ]} 22:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
• Disagree - "Persecutions..." implies facts. If it is to stay though, since the article deals with religious beliefs rather than historical facts, this should be reflected in both its title and its text. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 20:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
• Disagree - The Christian Bible and Gospels are not reliable sources. If someone chooses to believe them, that's fine and their personal decision. Regardless, they cannot claim historical accuracy from a scholarly perspective. This article is therefore entirely unbalanced and anti-intellectual.--User:RandomHumanoid^(talk) 10:02, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe that the voting is over and done with... although I'm not aware if there is an intention to leave this 'open to the addition' of further votes and comments.--C.Logan 10:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes

• Agreed. --Jtpaladin 18:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
• Agreed. --Richard 18:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
• Agreed. --Majoreditor
• Agreed. --C.Logan 01:31, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment about the "consensus" to keep"

Just to be clear, a 4-2 consensus is a very "thin" consensus. I think we can presume that Pastordavid would !vote in favor of keeping the article but even then, it is only a 5-2 consensus. A truer consensus would be developed by a more widely advertised AFD debate. If either Chabuk or Humus sapiens feel passionately that this article should not exist, then they may wish to submit this article to AFD and advertise it on Talk:Christianity and Talk:Antisemitism among others.

Indeed. I did not expect this to be a full AfD, but if that is what is desired it could be helpful. Pastordavid 22:20, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Step 2:Scope

The next logical step seems to me to be deciding on the scope of the article. I hope that those of you who did not want to keep the article will continue to particpate in the discussion, as this article needs your input. I am going to list my suggested scope below -- please add another suggestion if you have improvements. Pastordavid 21:49, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion 1

• That the article deal with persecution of Christians in two periods: 30-70c.e., and 70-150c.e.
• That the article be heavier on secondary and tertiary sources than primary sources.
• That there be a section (as there is now) dealing with modern scepticism about these accounts.
• That there be a section on how these accounts were retold as if they were contemporary events during the middle ages (and beyond) to justify antisemitism.

1. Support --Richard 22:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
2. Support. This proposal seems reasonable and evenhanded. It is especially important to support statements with better secondary and tertiary sources. Majoreditor 00:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Comments on this issue

• My problem with this process is that I don't think the article should be deleted necessarily - it's discussing something which most likely took place to some extent (and this is a Jewish person talking), however, the only source of note (the Christian bible) is, by definition, biased in this issue (as it was written by the very people who were allegedly being persecuted). As I wrote to Paladin; My issue is not with using the bible as a source. It's using the bible as the only source on a topic which will lead to an inevitable bias against a a certain group or groups. Using the bible as the only source in the Moses article would not be (and isn't) a problem because it's not saying "Moses was better than Jesus" or something like that. There's nothing qualitative in that article. However, the entire Persecution of early Christians by the Jews article is qualitative and based on a source which is (purported to be) written by the very people who were (allegedly) being persecuted! If there were some Jewish sources, or some third party sources as well, that would be a whole different story.

I'm not quite sure where this would go from here. I haven't edited this article to any substantial extent, so I'm more or less an outside voice, but if you see where I'm coming from/agree with me, let's have some more input. Rather than a strict "keep it or delete it" option, what's a possible third way? -- Chabuk ^{[ T • C ]} 22:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Yes, and this seems to be the point of Humus sapiens as well. However, I urge you to re-read the article and tell me if you don't think the article is basically saying "It's not clear whether it happened and if it did, it may very well have been exaggerated by Christians to serve anti-Jewish polemic. These alleged incidents have been used over the last 2000 years to justify anti-Semitism. Recently, scholars have begun to question whether the incidents happened and, if they did, whether they occurred to the extent that Christian doctrine teaches."

If you disagree that this is what the article says, please explain why you think so using specific quotes from the article. If you agree that this is what the article says, then please explain why this is unacceptable.

Please also consider Christianity and antisemitism, Jews in the New Testament and Antisemitism. I am on a campaign to insert text in each of these articles to assert that passages in the New Testament has been used to justify anti-semitism. (Some of those articles have text along those lines already.)

What other issues need to be addressed in the "third way" that you are asking for?

--Richard 23:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. That is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for in the scope discussion above; i.e., how can we define the scope so as to make clear the questions of veracity? Your concern is also precisely why I added what I did about not focusing on primary sources, and raising the questions of modern skepticism about these accounts. If you have further suggestions on how to make this as even handed and NPOV as possible please jump in - your input is great. Pastordavid 22:58, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Pastordavid, if you can please address these issues and allow me to ask questions:

* That the article deal with persecution of Christians in two periods: 30-70c.e., and 70-150c.e.

Can you please clarify what would be the importance of creating two periods? I don't see further need to section off the article but perhaps you have a good reason for doing so.

* That the article be heavier on secondary and tertiary sources than primary sources.

I think it best to use all possible sources that have as close to a personal knowledge as possible.

* That there be a section (as there is now) dealing with modern scepticism about these accounts.

That's OK with me unless the scepticism is merely throwing stones without examples. Just saying that the NT is anti-Semitic without explaining the reasoning is not a good source. Just like someone denying the Holocaust because "Hitler couldn't possibly be all that bad" is a ridiculous source for criticism of the Holocaust.

* That there be a section on how these accounts were retold as if they were contemporary events during the middle ages (and beyond) to justify antisemitism.

Not only do I not really understand the reasoning for that but it sounds like you would be going out of your way to see the NT as anti-Semitic. Could you please elaborate on that one a bit? Thank you. Jtpaladin 01:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

All very reasonable questions, and thank you for the chance to explain further.

• • I divided into the two sections because that is how I have seen it handled in other sources. In dealing with early Christianity's relationship with Judaism, the destruction of the Temple in 70 marks a turning point -- as does the role of Palestinian Christians in the Jewish revolt that preceded the destruction of the Temple.
  • My suggestion favors secondary and tertiary sources for two reasons. Per WP:OR, primary sources are to be used only sparingly and cautiously throughout wikipedia, in order to avoid original research. A second reason is that the use and interpretation of primary sources is an issue that was raised on that page, and I thought it appropriate to address that concern.
  • Modern NT scholarship is often quite skeptical, in particular, about the historicity of the account in Acts. Further scholarship questions the degree, or intensity, of the events described -- especially those described by the early Christian apologists, for whom exageration was an rhetorical tool.
  • I do not think that I am going out of my way to present the NT as anti-semitic, and I apologize if I came across that way. What I am trying to do is present the information in as even-handed a way as possible. As I read through information about this, it seems that events of roughly 30-150 were retold in the middle ages as though they were current events, in order to justify antisemitic actions and laws. I'm not saying that the texts are themselves anti-semitic - but they were used to justify anti-semitism; which is a notable event in presenting the history of these events.

Again, I appreciate your questions and the chance to eloborate further on my suggestion for the scope of this article. Pastordavid 14:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Pastordavid, I appreciate your time and thoughts on my questions. I think this goes back to the fundamental issue, which is in using the NT as a basis for this article. You either accept it or you don't. I'm not aware of any NT scholars that question the accuracy of Acts. But then again, this may be more your speciality and are aware of sources of which I am not. The problem with this time period is that as a small, upstart sect of Judaism, you're not going to find much in the way of major historians of that time that are going to discuss the persecution in any great detail or maybe not at all. The Romans considered this matter an internal dispute between Jews and not the rise of some new religion. Later Church fathers do not dispute the accuracy of the NT in this regard so I can't see weakening the article based on the study of more contemporary scholars. Again, the majority of our knowledge of events during the period of time in question comes from the NT. You're also not going to find major discussions of Christianity among non-Christian historians of that time. I certainly encourage the inclusion of as many historians of that era as possible but not to the extent that we weaken NT sources. I think you can reinforce the article with writings from early Church fathers as opposed to looking at 20th century scholars. I hope my thoughts make sense. Thank you again for your time. Jtpaladin 00:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Is the New Testament a reliable source? Is it a primary or secondary source?

Pastordavid wrote: * That the article be heavier on secondary and tertiary sources than primary sources.

I think it best to use all possible sources that have as close to a personal knowledge as possible.

Pastordavid wrote:

• • My suggestion favors secondary and tertiary sources for two reasons. Per WP:OR, primary sources are to be used only sparingly and cautiously throughout wikipedia, in order to avoid original research. A second reason is that the use and interpretation of primary sources is an issue that was raised on that page, and I thought it appropriate to address that concern.
  • Modern NT scholarship is often quite skeptical, in particular, about the historicity of the account in Acts. Further scholarship questions the degree, or intensity, of the events described -- especially those described by the early Christian apologists, for whom exageration was an rhetorical tool.

Here's what WP:OR says

Primary sources are documents or people very close to the situation being written about. An eyewitness account of a traffic accident is a primary source. United Nations Security Council resolutions are primary sources. Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it's easy to misuse them. For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source.

Secondary sources draw on primary sources to make generalizations or original interpretive, analytical, synthetic, or explanatory claims.

You can consider the New Testament to be a unreliable primary source (in the same way that eyewitness accounts are not 100% reliable). Or you can consider it to be a secondary source that makes interpretive, synthetic and explanatory claims. In either case, Wikipedia cannot quote a passage from the NT and assert it as fact solely on the basis of it being in the New Testament.

However, the NT can be quoted if the intent is simply to assert that a particular book in the NT says that "X is true". This is not the same as Wikipedia asserting that X is true. In this case, Wikipedia simply asserts that "The NT says that X is true". This is an important distinction.

Pastordavid wrote: * That there be a section (as there is now) dealing with modern scepticism about these accounts.

The Book of Acts has traditionally been considered an eyewitness account written by the physician Luke. However, some modern scholars doubt that Luke was an eyewitness to the events recorded.[1]

--Richard 16:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you have a hard sell with the argument that the NT is not a primary source, and personally I am not there with you right now, as I think it falls squarely into the definition of a primary source: In historical scholarship, a primary source is a document, or other source of information that was created at or near the time being studied, by an authoritative source, usually one with direct personal knowledge of the events being described. However, there may be others in this discussion who are persuaded by your argument.

Further, I think the criticism of Acts is even more than you have described here. Even among those who ascribe the account of Acts to Luke, there are many scholars who doubt the accuracy of Luke's account and question the degree to which he took liberty with the facts for rhetorical purposes (especially true among Pauline scholars). Pastordavid 21:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a couple of distinct but related issues involved here.

First of all, a source that is indisputably primary is an actual document such as a treaty, a decree or an official document such as a birth or marriage certificate. Unless one argues that the document is a forgery, you can't get much more primary than that.

Another document that is pretty close to primary is an autobiography although not everything in an autobiography can be considered to be "the gospel truth". There is certainly room for critical analysis of an autobiography.

A biography is even less reliable as it now interpolates another person who may or may not be more objective than the person who actually lived the events.

With the gospels and the book of Acts, the unresolved questions remain "who wrote it" and "when was it written"? For example, was the book of Luke really written by Luke the physician, ocmpanion to the apostle Paul? If so, the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts are more reliable as being written by "an authoritative source close to the events". However, NPOV requires us to accept that there is an alternate theory about the authorship of the Gospels and the Book of Acts.

The second problem of "when were they written?". Raymond E. Brown suggests that most of the Gospels were written around the time of the fall of the Second Temple or afterwards. This was apparently the scholarly consensus in 1996. Previously, traditional Christian had generally assigned dates 2-3 decades earlier than those reported by Brown. See the Wikipedia article on the Gospels

The traditional view is that the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were both written about 60CE but some scholars suggest a later date in the range between 70 and 100CE. see Acts of the Apostles

Given these dates, do the Gospels and the Book of Acts function then as primary sources or secondary sources? Today, we would not consider works written 30-50 years after the fact to be primary with the possible exception of interviews with eyewitnesses (e.g. Holocaust survivors). Even then, such accounts have to be considered with some skepticism since the human memory is a frail instrument and subject to error. How much error and distortion can we expect to be introduced in the course of 30-50 years?

In short, while traditional scholarship ascribes the Gospels of John and Matthew to eyewitnesses and the Gospels of Luke and Mark to disciples of eye-witnesses, some scholars of the 20th century have ascribed authorship to anonymous non-eyewitnesses.

Thus, a traditional perspective would consider the Gospels and the Book of Acts to be accurate primary sources whereas more modern scholarship might cast it as secondary sources (i.e. compilations of primary sources which are now lost to us)

--Richard 04:22, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Periods of Christian-Jewish relations

Pastordavid wrote: * That the article deal with persecution of Christians in two periods: 30-70c.e., and 70-150c.e.

Jtpaladin wrote:

Can you please clarify what would be the importance of creating two periods?

Pastordavid responded:

• • I divided into the two sections because that is how I have seen it handled in other sources. In dealing with early Christianity's relationship with Judaism, the destruction of the Temple in 70 marks a turning point -- as does the role of Palestinian Christians in the Jewish revolt that preceded the destruction of the Temple.

I am a bit concerned that the destruction of the Temple in 70 is the traditional turning point from the Christian perspective.

The perspective that I have been picking up from my (admittedly light) reading is that some scholars see the Gospels and the Book of Acts as having been written or revised to reflect Christian polemic of the period after Bar Kokhba's revolt (132-135).

It is claimed that the conflict between the Jews and the Christians intensified after Bar Kokhba's revolt because Christians had failed to support the revolt. The Christians claimed that Bar Kokhba could not be the Messiah because they knew that Jesus was. It was this disloyalty which led the Pharisees to effectively excommunicate the Christians. And this excommunication led Christians to intensify the NT accounts as part of their anti-Pharisaic polemic. (NB: I am not asserting that this is incontrovertible fact but simply that this is an emerging POV among some scholars.)

My first question would be "Why does the second period end at 150CE?". What is the period that starts after 150CE? My second question would be "Was the Bar Kokhba revolt as an important event in the historiography of this topic?" Is there evidence that the relationship between Christians and Jews changed substantially after the Bar Kokhba revolt?

My third question would be "What evidence is there that the relationship between Christians and Jews changed substantially after the fall of the Temple in 70?"

Are we talking about three periods (30-70CE, 70-135CE and 135CE onward) or two? If two, then which two? (30-70CE + 70CE onward) or (30-135CE + 135CE onward)?

We might choose to sidestep this debate by not trying to delineate periods but rather mentioning the two events (fall of the Temple and Bar Kokhba's revolt) and their impact on Christian-Jewish relationships.

--Richard 16:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

A random comment: the Destruction of the Second Temple in 70 is certainly a significant, historical event, but it's not clear that it significantly effected Judaism-Christianity relations. Generally, the Council of Jamnia c. 90 is put forth as the turning point in early Judaism-Christianity relations, though even that is somewhat suspect. Probably, in my opinion, there was no "historical turning point" but rather a gradual process. 75.15.203.50 16:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with the anon user above. There is no real distinction between the two periods. Keep in mind that the Kitos War also saw a great many dead on both sides. As Christianity grew, the violence went on to become communal where entire communities attacked each other. But that communal fighting became more the norm after 330 A.D. I would not partition the article along the lines suggested but instead keep it as one. Jtpaladin 00:01, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Right now, the article is divided into two periods, the apostolic era (meant to signify the era of the Gospels and the Book of Acts) and the post-apostolic era (the era after that, roughly 70-100AD and onwards).

Jtpaladin's assertion that the violence became "communal" is not discussed in the article. Can you provide more information on this era so that we can expand that section of the article?

--Richard 00:39, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Antisemitism in the NT

Jtpaladin wrote:

It sounds like you would be going out of your way to see the NT as anti-Semitic. Could you please elaborate on that one a bit?

Pastordavid wrote:

• • I do not think that I am going out of my way to present the NT as anti-semitic, and I apologize if I came across that way. What I am trying to do is present the information in as even-handed a way as possible. As I read through information about this, it seems that events of roughly 30-150 were retold in the middle ages as though they were current events, in order to justify antisemitic actions and laws. I'm not saying that the texts are themselves anti-semitic - but they were used to justify anti-semitism; which is a notable event in presenting the history of these events.

I think we need to distinguish three things: what actually happened (and we can never really know that), how the events were portrayed in the NT and how the events were interpreted and used later in history.

Pastordavid isn't asserting tha the text are themselves anti-semitic but a number of scholars are asserting just that.

Is the NT antisemitic? It's not important what JT, David or I think. That would be OR. What is important is that there is a significant body of scholars who are finding anti-semitism in the NT. That POV should be reported (along with any counter-balancing POVs which can be cited to reliable sources).

I think there should be a small section in this article that makes reference to how these passages were used to support anti-semitism but I would not spend too much time on it here as I think that is the subject of another article, perhaps Christianity and antisemitism.

--Richard 16:45, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Richard, I understand and agree with what you are saying. I have no problem with a short section on someone claiming anti-Semitism in the NT. The only thing I ask is that it come from a scholarly source and that the source actually explain what it sees as an anti-Semitic example in the NT. Keep in mind that there is a large body of work done by lunatics who claim the Holocaust never existed. I only ask that the equivalent lunatics are not quoted for this article. Does that seem fair and make good sense? Jtpaladin 23:55, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, look at the current version of the article. Is the treatment at the end of the article (the "Reassessment" section) NPOV from your point of view? Are the sources scholarly enough and sufficiently non-lunatic? I ask this in all sincerity because I contributed significantly to that section using material which I found on the Internet. I don't have the scholarly expertise to determine whether I found opinions that represent the lunatic fringe or a substantial minority of liberal theologians. The only thing that I am fairly confident of is that this is not the belief of "mainstream Christianity".

--Richard 00:34, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Removal of link to Pauline Christianity

The article on Pauline Christianity asserts that the term is "is an expression which has been used, by those critical of Catholic, Orthodox and traditional Protestant Christianity, to describe what is regarded as a distortion of the original teachings of Jesus due to the influence of St. Paul."

It should be clear that the Pauline Christianity article is not a natural follow-on to the section in this article about persecution of Christians as recorded in the "Acts of the Apostles". For this reason, I have removed the "see also" link to Pauline Christianity.

Perhaps Paul the Apostle or Pauline epistles would be a more appropriate link. Anybody have an opinion as to what would be the best choice?

--Richard 02:20, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The point is that not only was Paul persecuted by "the Jews", but by Jewish Christians as well. I've updated the article a bit, see what you think. 68.123.64.142 19:50, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Less than optimal scholarly sources

As I mentioned, I have no problem with criticism of NT claims of persecution and in fact I encourage some varying opinions in order to balance the article but the following examples that are in the article are merely attacks and not an examination of facts. Consider what James Everett Seaver states:

"Much of Christian hatred toward the Jews was based on the popular misconception... that the Jews had been the active persecutors of Christians for many centuries. Juster, Parkes, and Williams have ably shown the fallacy of this idea concerning Jewish persecution of Christians during the first three centuries."

Okay, first of all, who are "Juster, Parkes, and Williams" and what did they say and how did they reach their conclusions? All Seaver is saying here is that what he says is true because some other guys who we don't know what they said, have agreed to this claim.

He continues:

"It remains to discover whether there is any basis for the claim, often voiced in the writings of the church fathers, that the Jews were actively persecuting Christians during the crucial fourth century, thus inviting Christian hatred and retaliation."

Seaver picks the 4th century for whatever reason to make his argument. I would basically agree that the 4th century was rather a quieter time in terms of persecutions. Christianity achieved recognition, the Jewish people had been through three major revolts and suffered as a result of them, and Islam was not yet on the scene. So picking the 4th century is like saying the Jews didn't suffer through the Holocaust in 1946. Well, yeah, because WWII was over. Thanks for stating the obvious. Same thing here. After the 4th century, we start to see a different set of circumstances based upon communal conflict and horrific new violence.

Once again, Seaver plays with history:

"The... examination of the sources for fourth century Jewish history will show that the universal, tenacious, and malicious Jewish hatred of Christianity referred to by the church fathers and countless others has no existence in historical fact. The generalizations of patristic writers in support of the accusation have been wrongly interpreted from the fourth century to the present day. That individual Jews hated and reviled the Christians there can be no doubt, but there is no evidence that the Jews as a class hated and persecuted the Christians as a class during the early years of the fourth century. [Emphasis mine]

Ok, first Seaver tells us that persecution didn't happen, then he says it did, but in a small 50 year time period, it didn't happen. Seaver neglects to mention what happened during the War against Gallus and he neglects the communal strife of the later centuries. This guy is not a good source for this topic and without objection I would like to remove him. Anyone that has a better source for this section, please feel free to add it.

Now we get to Douglas Hare. Mr. Hare claims, "Few Christians were martyred prior to the Bar Kokhba revolt. Most of those who were killed were victims of mob violence rather than official action. None were executed for purely religious reasons although individual missionaries were banned, detained and flogged for breach of the peace."

Well, that flies in the face of what we know. Not only from what the NT tells us but the deaths in the Kitos War demonstrate that Mr. Hare is simply wrong and not a good source. Again, without objection I would like to remove his comments and ask that someone post a better source for this point of view.

Next, we have G. George Fox. He argues that "the hostile utterances of rabbis were towards those Christians who didn't support Bar Kochba and was due to anti-Jewish feelings which were caused by Gentile converts to Christianity. This however is controversial as only certain segments of the community ever accepted Bar Kokhba as the Messiah, while many Rabbis scorned such a proposition."

Well, actually, no, that's not true. At the time, Bar Kokhba was widely accepted by all major segments of the Jewish community and it wasn't until after the failure of this revolt that Bar Kokhba was denounced. And blaming Christians for their own persecution simply because they converted is akin to blaming Jews for the Holocaust. Both are absurd.

Then, "Fox also argues that the persecution accusations and stories of early Christians matrydom are exaggerated by the Church. He asserts that it is unhistorical to assume that the matrydom of Stephan was representative of a widespread persecution of Christians because events of this nature weren't uncommon in that time." Actually if you're going to say that these persecutions were uncommon because it was common to kill Jews then you are making an absurd claim.

Fox claims, "In support of this assertion, Fox argues that thousands of Jews were killed by Romans and it wasn't something new or novel. Thus the persecution hardly started before 70 A.D. and when it was started by Bar Kochba, it wasn't not on purely theological grounds but also because of the disloyalty of Christians in the rebellion against the Romans." This part is so stupid, it left me speechless. Judaism was a "tolerated" religion within the Roman Empire. Jewish people were not targeted for random persecution. It wasn't until the revolts that Jewish people were attacked. Saying that Christians were persecuted because they wouldn't join in on a revolt may be true but it is certainly not the sole reason for persecution and it's certainly insane to refer to the actions of Christians to remain neutral in the revolt as "disloyalty". Come on. Mr. Fox needs to go bye-bye. Please find a sane scholar for this section.

Next, Claudia Setzer speaks. "Setzer asserts that, Jews did not see Christians as clearly separate from their own community until at least the middle of the second century." Really? And how does she make this determination? We don't know. But she continues: "The Christians, on the other hand, being a new movement, worked out their identity in contrast and opposition to the Jewish community and saw themselves as persecuted rather than 'disciplined.'" OK, so the persecutions were "disciplinary" actions? Nice one. Again, the Nazis were only "disciplining" the Jewish people. The Soviets were merely disciplining the Ukranians. The Turks were merely discipling the Armenians. I mean, come on. I think Claudia Setzer needs to be removed and replaced with a more rational explanation.

And now for craziest one of them all. According to Lillian Freudmann, "Nearly every book in the New Testament expresses slander and contempt for Jews. Most Christians have maintained that the New Testament is not anti-Jewish but that antisemitism arose as a result of the misunderstanding of it. Examination of the contents of the New Testament does not support this claim." Freudmann is the worst of the bunch. She expresses contempt and hatred for the NT in a classic form of Christophobia. Without explanation, she denounces the NT and along with it displays a form of insanity normally reserved for anti-Semites. Of course, I think Lillian needs to get some therapy and her comments removed from this article.

Lastly, "John Dominic Crossan also addresses this issue in his 1995 Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus." I don't know what he claims in his book and frankly if he's trying to equate Jesus with anti-Semitism, he needs a new occupation other than writing. So, once again, this guy should go bye-bye.

I appreciate the efforts to bring a different perspective to this article but I don't think it's too much to ask for input that makes a coherent argument for the varying perspective. I think whoever is cited as a source should be able to make their argument and be consistent with the historical events discussed in this article. I hope my request is reasonable and makes good sense. If not, please share your thoughts and which source(s) should remain and your reasoning behind it. Thank you. Jtpaladin 01:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

The purpose of wikipedia is not to judge Wikipedia: Reliable sources, it is merely to report what they are. See also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, in particular What_wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_publisher_of_original_thought, What_wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox, What_wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_censored. 75.0.2.217 04:11, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

If I understand what User:75.0.2.217 wrote, I think he is saying that we should report what the sources said without judging it to be right or wrong. For the most part, I agree with that except that we should indicate whether a particular POV is the majority opinion or a minority perspective.

I would prefer to bring in additional perspectives from other sources to counterbalance the perspectives in the article than to delete the ones that we already have unless someone wants to argue that Source A is more authoritative than Source B for POV X. My concern is not whether Seaver, Hare, Matthews, Setzer, et al. are right or wrong. My real problem is that, not being a scholar, I don't know how authoritative these people are. Are they leading scholars or just one of "the pack"? Who are the best people to cite as representative of this POV? --Richard 04:21, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Richard, I agree with what you are saying. In a nutshell, the only thing I'm asking is that whatever source(s) we use in that section, the source(s) actually give a rational explanation for their point of view, i.e. they take the facts, analyze them, and point out specific examples in making their argument. The current sources don't do this. Even worse, some of them simply ignore any kind of analysis and just go into hysterical Christophobia. Frankly, I don't care to judge whether the source's opinion is right or wrong, only that it be made based on some coherent argument. We have a responsibility to use scholarly sources that make an argument based on the relevant information and that it's not just some wacko with an axe to grind. I think you'll agree that this is the very essence of WP:RS and WP:FRINGE. I hope that's more clear. Jtpaladin 18:44, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I made some edits to illustrate POV throughout this article and removed the {{TotallyDisputed}} tag in hope that it will facilitate progress and understanding.

"Recent re-assessments of the New Testament account" may be "recent" only in Christianity, let's try to be neutral. It is wrong to say that "Jewish rejection of Jesus' ministry" was/is merely "alleged", etc. Also I have returned that section closer to top: it seems more logical and neutral to describe the historical context first and only then list the allegations out of context.

Added a relevant citation by Jeremy Cohen regarding the historicity of NT. As for Seaver, all it takes is to follow the link provided as a ref: [2]. Feel free to rework that citation.

I hope cabal was a joke? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 09:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Humus, Cohen's comment that the Gospels are not historical doesn't go far enough. The whole Bible by that standard is not historical, so can we find an author that states that as a whole rather than point to one who singles out the Gospels? I know that if someone were to add a source who claims that the Bible is not historical in the article on Kashrut or some other OT article that there would be calls to remove it. Is there a difference or could I be mistaken? Jtpaladin 17:16, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that if some WP articles are substandard, then others must devolve be removing relevant and notable scholarly sources? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 00:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Cabal is a joke? Why do you say that? My copy of Webster's 2nd says: "1. A conspiratorial group of plotters. 2. A secret plot or scheme." 64.149.82.63 19:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The article talked about Judaism as a cabal. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 00:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

New testament is anti-Jewish?

In the section, Relationship to antisemitism, the text reads: "Most Christians have maintained that the New Testament is not anti-Jewish but that antisemitism arose as a result of the misunderstanding of it. Examination of the contents of the New Testament does not support this claim". Is this correct? Thanks, --Tom 20:00, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a quote from a Wikipedia:Reliable Sources:

According to Lillian Freudmann, "Nearly every book in the New Testament expresses slander and contempt for Jews. Most Christians have maintained that the New Testament is not anti-Jewish but that antisemitism arose as a result of the misunderstanding of it. Examination of the contents of the New Testament does not support this claim."<ref_Lillian C. Freudmann (1994). Antisemitism in the New Testament. University Press of America. ISBN 0819192953./ref>

It is not the purpose of wikipedia to determine if reliable sources are "correct", but merely to report them. If you have a reliable source that contradicts this claim, by all means, add it and cite it in the article. See also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. 64.149.82.63 20:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

er, ok. Anybody else like to chime in?? --Tom 20:19, 13 June 2007 (UTC)ps I am not even sure why that section is in this article. This article seems like a real mess, imho. Anyways, --Tom 20:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

So, there are two POVs being presented in this article...

1. The traditional Christian interpretation of the NT - the Jews persecuted the Christians
2. An alternate interpretation that suggests that tne the account in the NT was exaggerated or even fabricated

The second interpretation is connected to the thesis that the authors of the NT were either anti-semitic or, being a bit more generous, a number of passages in the NT have been used by Christians to justify anti-semitism.

If you think these points can be made in a more cogent manner, then please fix it.

--Richard 20:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, I am going to show my ignorance, but "The traditional Christian interpretation of the NT - the Jews persecuted the Christians" is that for real? This article is a mess, imho, because it seems opinionated and full of unrelated material and very confusion to folks like me without a sinificant religious background. Anyways, thanks for trying!--Tom 12:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Throughout the NT, there are two major categories of scriptural passages that reference the Jews. The first category includes the passages that castigate the Jews for "not getting it" where "it" is the good news of the gospel of Jesus. The second category describe persecution of Christians by the Jews ranging from the stoning of Stephen to a number of incidents in the Book of Acts. It has been argued that these two sets of passages have been used on numerous occasions throughout two millenia of Christian history to support anti-Semitic sentiment, policy and actions.

--Richard 20:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I must have been absent that day at Sunday school :). I should probably step out of editing this article since I have very limited/no knowlege about the Testaments. Anyways, have fun with this and thanks for the explaination, --Tom 13:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you be more specific about what you don't understand? 75.15.196.110 18:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Tom is right. Here's a simple solution: Remove quotes from sources that do not explain their analysis. I've said this before and the ridiculous quote remains. Without objection, I would like to clean-up unreliable sources who are spewing pure hate and don't even bother to justify their postions. Jtpaladin 17:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Since she has written a whole book about it, presumably she does explain her analysis, but we can't cite the whole book, so what is the problem? I find the quotation dogmatic and self-righteous, but the author is a legitimate source. Paul B 17:16, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Paul, that's fine but maybe there's a better quote we can post. And perhaps her analysis can be stated as part of a summary? What are your thoughts? Do you think we should leave it as is? Jtpaladin 23:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the book, but I'm unhappy with unqualified statements about "slander" (which are unprovable). Paul B 00:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

What statements are slanderous? Jtpaladin 12:44, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't ask me. I didn't write the book. Are we talking at cross purposes here? According to Lillian Freudmann, "Nearly every book in the New Testament expresses slander and contempt for Jews. Paul B 12:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, yes, I'm sorry, I thought you meant I was being slanderous. For a moment there we were doing an Abbott and Costello routine. :p I agree, from the small amount of text stated from her book, not only is there no analysis but it's written like an attack on Christianity. Commonly referred to now as Christophobia. Jtpaladin 13:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Moving sections around

I restored the sequence. Please stop moving them around, at least without discussion. I don't think it is fair to start by quoting NT stories without giving historical context and describing their historicity by academic sources. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 00:18, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Humus, why is the criticism of this article the first to be analyzed? I don't know of any other article that starts off with heaps of criticism before discussing the premise of the article first. I disagree with your arrangement. Ordinarily I would do a revert but I have great respect for your opinion. Can you please explain? Jtpaladin 12:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I think that relevant and notable scholarly sources describing historical context should go first. Instead of setting the historical scene first, we drown the reader with minute details. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 12:23, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Humus, thank you for the response. I would find myself agreeing with you if perhaps you can provide a similar article that places criticism before the relevant details of the subject. This goes back to WP:MOS. As always, thank you for taking the time to address this with me. Best Regards. Jtpaladin 21:25, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Attention "Anon" editors

Guys, you are making valuable additions to this article and yet you remain anon. Please create user accounts so we can address you properly. Thank you. Jtpaladin 13:00, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Order of sections

There is some sentiment that the description of the topic (i.e. alleged persecution of early Christians by the Jews as narrated by the New Testament and discussed the Church Fathers) should be presented first followed by sections criticizing the historicity of the account. There is also at least one opposing viewpoint which suggests that the NT account needs to be put into context before the details of the alleged persecution are presented.

Please express your opinion below.

Support

• Support Present the topic first and then criticize it --Richard 18:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support presenting the description first, followed by criticism, per Richard's earlier reordering and per Jtpaladin's comments above. Majoreditor 16:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support As with any article, it is appropriate to present the description first and then criticism. I believe this is in conformity to WP:MOS. Jtpaladin 13:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support As per the above. Present the topic first, and then discuss interpretation, criticism, et cetera. It is acceptable to provide a lead description which explains that some criticize the account, but ordering criticism first is a little nonsensical and over-cautious, and possibly POV-driven more than anything.--C.Logan 12:10, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't you think 2,000 years of "Christian love" towards Jews warrant some caution? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 12:15, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Humus, we're talking about a very small part of history. We're not discussing violence between Jewish and Christian communities of later years. You sound like you're mocking the article because Christians should not complain about this period of time since other people who called themselves Christians engaged in hostilities against members of the Jewish community in later years. Regardless of your feelings of these historical issues, we both know that WP:MOS states that criticism goes later into the article and not at the beginning. Jtpaladin 13:42, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Criticism concerning the historicity of the account should be presented, but after the presentation of the account itself. It is a seemingly neutral order of 'statement-->response'; the text is not telling individuals to react in a negative manner towards Jews, and it merely presents a (supposedly) historical account, so I'm uncertain what the concern is for such caution. If a reader is really going to tend to view things through anti-semitic lenses, then the order of the article is not going to sway their interpretation, unfortunately enough.--C.Logan 12:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Page after page of retelling the NT stories is hardly "presenting the topic", it is rather intentional drowning the reader with minutiae. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 23:20, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll buy that. I do think the section is too long and that we don't need to retell the NT stories but rather summarize them. Two to three paragraphs max ought to do it. Anyone want to take a whack at doing this? --Richard 02:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Richard, the only thing I want to see are all the appropriate references that are made in the NT and other historical sources, including observations by non-Christians and Church Fathers. I don't care how long the article gets, that until this is all documented, we should not cease providing every verifiable source. Jtpaladin 13:42, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose - I tend to think that relevant and notable scholarly sources describing historical context should go first. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 12:06, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

NOTE: Although I think the first section should present the NT account first, I have no problem with briefly pointing out issues about historicity in the lead and even in the opening paragraph of the section on the NT account. Unlike Humus sapiens, I do not have an ax to grind for or against the historicity of the NT account. My concern is one of readability. If the reader is not familiar with the NT account, then it makes no sense to plunge into a detailed discussion of the criticisms of the account. --Richard 18:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Getting a little too personal there, colleague. It is not about criticism or praise, but historical perspective by a variety of scholarly sources. Is it too much to ask from an NPOV encyclopedia? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 12:09, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Mmm... I'm sorry if you saw my comment as getting too personal. My point was that you seem to be confident that the NT account is ahistorical whereas I am willing to believe that the NT account describes historical events although perhaps overstates and exaggerates the truth in the service of anti-Jewish polemic. Thus, you would prefer not to get into presenting the NT account at all because you view it as fabrication and lies. I would prefer to present it and then analyze the amount of truth that can be found therein.

--Richard 17:56, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Humus, as I offered recently, send me forth in your name and I will do unto the OT articles what you suggest here. Every article that uses the Torah and the Talmud would face "Humusanization". :p If you want to put criticism first and thereby change the rules of WP:MOS, then lets you and I go and do that to all the Torah-based articles. But I think you're going to find that other editors will not give in to this change in MOS. Consistency and WP:MOS are relevant and giving an accurate account of the NT and supporting sources is within WP:NPOV. Also, the critics of the NT articles don't seem to disagree with the validity of the NT accounts only that they think the NT is somehow anti-Semitic. From the brief quotes we have from these sources, they don't say how but that's their conclusions. Nevertheless, without even really analyzing those sources, we are not only including them in this article but you are also favoring a format style that runs counter to WP:MOS. I know you're an editor who sticks to the rules so this 180 degree turn is surprising. Thank you for your time. Jtpaladin 14:10, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

You seem to have a problem with WP rules to rely on scholarly reliable sources. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 08:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Humus, come on, bro, don't say something like that. You know me better than that. Are you saying that the Bible is not a RS? Again, I offer you to join me on a campaign to remove the Bible as a source from every article in WP. Do you know what kind of chaos that would cause? I've never seen anyone challenge the Bible as a RS here at WP. If there is some official pronouncement from Jimbo or in some rule that points out the Bible as unreliable, please post it and let's work from there. Thank you. Jtpaladin 13:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course the Bible is not a WP:RS. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 23:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Please, let's not go down this road. Clearly, there are people who believe that Noah actually lived and things happened exactly as it is written in the Bible. There are other people who believe that the Bible is not a RS with respect to the actual existence of Noah (or Jesus for that mattter). I believe that Wikipedia cannot credibly assert anything solely on the basis of the fact that the Bible said so. The Bible is a primary source. What we should be doing is finding secondary sources who offer opinions on what is said in the Bible. If we want to assert that the Jews persecuted the Christians, we need to cite scholars who are of that opinion based upon, among other things, what is written in the Bible but not based solely upon what is written in the Bible.

As far as I am concerned, the Bible is only a RS with respect to establishing what the Bible says and even then we would have to be very careful about not interpreting what the Bible says.

--Richard 06:08, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Humus, if the Torah, NT, and the Talmud are not RS then can they be used as the sole source in so many articles? Jtpaladin 00:28, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Richard, I believe that the Bible is a Primary source in some "books' of the Bible and a Secondary source in others. It depends upon which "book" in the Bible we are talking about. Either way, declaring that the Torah, NT, and the Talmud are not Reliable Sources creates a serious problem for many articles in WP that rely upon these sources. If we are to eliminate articles or sections of articles that use the Torah, NT, and the Talmud as the sole source, then not only will other editors resist this action but will probably come to my house and burn it down!! If they do show up to burn my house down, I'm going to refer them to Humus!! :p Jtpaladin 16:56, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Jt, you can refer them to me as well. Are you prepared to accept the Bible as a reliable source for the Flood, for the existence of Joseph and the veracity of the Exodus from Egypt? Are you prepared to accept the Gospels as a reliable source for the census around the time of the birth of Jesus and the visit of the Magi? Are you prepared to accept the Gospel account of the crucifixion as a verifiable, reliable source? I list these points because there is no independent historical confirmation of these.

The historicity of all of the above events have been challenged by scholars. As far as I am concerned, the Bible is only a reliable source for statements that say "In Book XYZ of the Bible, it is reported that ....". In cases where these accounts are challenged, it is important to adopt an NPOV stance and present any opposing viewpoints. I do not think it is acceptable to say "There was a flood which covered the entire earth" and then quote Genesis as a source.

I am not prepared at this time to tackle all the "other articles" that quote the Bible as a source because I have other Wiki-fish to fry. However, I am amenable in general principle to take on the project later on. Perhaps you can suggest a few example articles for us to look at. I'll start. Here's an article that I'm interested in because it's related to this one. Jews in the New Testament.

--Richard 17:52, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

What a mess!

This article really was a mess. And, despite my efforts to re-organize it, it still needs a lot of work.

Please give the entire article another read with "fresh eyes". Hopefully, my recent re-organization has improved it. Let me know if the story is now told better with this flow and give me feedback on what we need to do next.

I have introduced relatively long quotes from Paul H. Jones FROM INTRA-JEWISH POLEMICS TO PERSECUTION: THE CHRISTIAN FORMATION OF THE JEW AS RELIGIOUS OTHER. These points should probably be summarized and integrated with the other text rather than quoted but I don't have time to do that so I just quoted him for the time being.

--Richard 15:45, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The missing piece

See Antisemitic canard#Accusations of deicide. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 11:53, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

This "canard" is actually a red herring. Historically, there have been at least two separate reasons that have been offered to justify anti-Semitism. Deicide is one but rejection of Jesus is a separate (though related) issue.

The charge that dominates this article (note that deicide is hardly even mentioned in this article) is the rejection of Jesus and the Messiah and consequent persecution of the Christians. (NB: Deicide IS mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew when the Jews are alleged to have said "His [Jesus's] blood be on us and on our children!")

Even if you grant that the Romans crucified Jesus and that the Jews (as represented by the Sanhedrin) had little to do with his death, the fact still remains that the NT is rife with claims that the post-Easter Christians were persecuted (or at least excommunicated) by the Jews.

Now, if you look at the scriptural passages, you might note that most of the "persecutions" were brought on by Christians preaching their heretical teaching in the synagogues. That is, it's not as if the Jews went around rooting out Christian family churches or stuff like that. Instead, the Jews were just nasty to the point of violence when Christians came around to their synagogues preaching their heterodox beliefs.

Now, if you want to argue that these persecutions either never happened or were overblown, be my guest. The article already cites several scholars who say just that.

However, please stop trying to muddy the waters by dragging up the "deicide" canard. That's not what we're talking about here. That is a different POV debate for a different article.

Uh, well, on second thought, we probably should mention the deicide charge in passing because it probably does have its roots in the same scriptures that are being discussed here.

--Richard 03:08, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that second thought. I don't see how to mention the false accusations of deicide would be considered as "muddy the waters". Isn't it the worst charge of "Persecution of early Christians by the Jews"? As for "rejecting Jesus" charge, it is not up to other religions to make decisions for Jews whether to accept Jesus or Buddha. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 09:54, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The Antisemitic canard article is a canard itself. It is so full of misconceptions and seemingly intentional distortions that there's no way anyone can claim that article to be NPOV. The section, Antisemitic canard#Accusations of deicide is just as bad if not worse. That article has no criticisms of the Antisemitic canard at all. So this is an perfect example of how not to write an article if you are looking to adhere to WP:NPOV. While history is replete with both acts of anti-Semitism and Christophobia, it's important to give a NPOV account and treat the topics fairly and within a proper context. Unfortunately, too many articles on WP fail to do that. Jtpaladin 14:54, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

You are wrong on all points, but this is a wrong place to discuss it. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 09:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Humus, as you know, I put great value on your opinion so if you feel that I'm mistaken in my impressions of the Antisemitic canard, I will take that at face value. Of course you are correct that this would not be the best place to discuss this matter but since you did mention that article, I thought I would take a quick look at it and noted that the format of that article follows the standard WP:MOS which articles here at WP follow. I also noted that there was no criticism section in that article. I can't find any article that starts off with a criticism of the topic before discussing the basis of the article. If there are any such articles, would you kindly post them here? Also, if you wanted to discuss that article in any detail, please let me know when and where would be acceptable to you and I will certainly do my best to meet with you and discuss it. Again, thank you for your time and help on this and the various other articles to which you have helped me. Best Regards. Jtpaladin 16:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the compromise is that there needs to be two "Background" sections. One "Background" section sets the background immediately prior (Jesus died, was claimed to have risen from the dead and was proclaimed to be the Messiah by his disciples). This sets off a conflict between the Jews and the Christians.

The other "Background" section establishes that these passages were used as justification for anti-Semitism over the next two millenia. It also asserts that some historians think the passages are either ahistorical or, at least, exaggerated.

These two "Background" sections are either in sections of their own or in the lead. However, they are short sumamries of the points made above, not detailed analyses.

Then we go into the NT account. Then, we come back and provide detailed discussion of the points that were summarized in the "Background" sections.

--Richard 21:48, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Richard, yes, that might work. I guess it just comes down to how it's all phrased. Also, as I'm a crazed fanatic regarding WP:MOS, can we please make sure that there is some precedent for doing it this way? I don't want us to go through all this effort only to have some higher authority come in and poo-poo the article because it doesn't conform to WP:MOS. By the way, you're doing great work here. My compliments to you. Jtpaladin 21:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I am for a compromise. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 08:57, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Lack of progress on article

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I've posted the move proposal on the front page and will wait some time for responses. The main thrust is that the article content is not historical in nature, but theological with historical criticism. The heavy reliance on the NT, a primary source (WP:PSTS), is problematic absent a framing of the article as a discussion of depictions in the NT. I recognize that this is linked from Persecution of Christians, however, in that article the main thrust is that there is little reliable information and that the primary sources overstate the persecution by the Pharisees. - CheshireKatz (talk) 15:59, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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