Talk:Barbara Thiering

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The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 21:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Supernaturalistic"

To the person editing from 68.126.153.92 and 69.110.93.205, please keep in mind that encyclopedias (and perhaps encyclopedists) in general tend to be a little conservative in their vocabulary. Please allow me to suggest that you provide a citation of the article's subject's use of this word and it can be inserted into the article as "...what Thiering calls "supernaturalistic"[reference]", so that it is clear that this word is coined by Thiering and not by Wikipedia. Thanks for understanding. Jkelly 22:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

REPLY:
Dear friend,
Simply look at M-W.com and you will see the term "supernaturalistic" listed as an adjective. I am the person who originally posted the Barbara Thiering article, based on information that I requested and received from Dr. Thiering herself, so please allow that word to stand. That particular sentence came straight from her.
The original (and correct) sentence is:
"Her academic books and journal articles have challenged Christian orthodoxy, offering a new answer to its supernaturalistic beliefs."
It would be an error to say "supernatural beliefs," because we are not talking about "beliefs that are supernatural." Instead, we use "supernaturalistic," which means we are talking about beliefs that (ostensibly) *refer* to supernatural phenomenon. That's a very important distinction.
So your earlier point about the term being supposedly coined by Dr. Thiering is incorrect. It is an established term, which is recognized by reputable dictionaries.

[edit] Gnostic connection

The article says:

"They wrote according to the theory of pesher that is illustrated in the Scrolls, in two levels. For the “babes in Christ” there were apparent miracles, but the knowledge of exact meanings held by the highly educated members of gnostic schools gave a real history, of what Jesus actually did."

But Thiering hardly mentions the gnostics. In response to the question, "Are any of the gnostic gospels written in Pesher?", she replied on her website: "They are in Coptic, translated from Greek, so since the complete pesher only works on Greek, it is difficult to be certain. But it does not appear that they give a word-for-word pesher. Rather, they are written for insiders, the 'knowing ones' or gnostics, and draw on the inside knowledge, in undisguised form. Much of it is symbolism, eg the marriage symbolism of the Gospel of Philip, which is the richest source of their thought."
The people Thiering says wrote the pesher documents (the gospels in the Bible, the books of Acts and Revelations, some New Testament epistles, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and some of the Nag Hammadi Library) were the monastic inhabitants of Qumran, that is, the historical Essenes mentioned by Josephus, not the gnostics. To be precise, they were the original Christians, and included Jesus himself. D021317c 05:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of biased Vermes review

It is time that this biased statement and the quote from Vermes be removed. It not appropriate to place inside a biography without a chance to refute it. It is now outdated and Dr. Thiering's book has been republished. This is a place for a biography not a forum for discrediting an individual.

For those who are willing to take the time to study the question and who are not just Vatican moles, Dr Thiering has supplied the following in relation to Geza Vermes’ statement, beginning with the first step in her case, the Christian date of the Teacher of Righteousness and his rival the Wicked Priest. Vermes has denied the validity of this step.

The Tucson carbondating tests of 1995, 1996, gave good evidence that the particular group of documents concerning the Teacher of Righteousness and his rival the Wicked Priest were composed for the first time in the 1st century AD. These persons appear only in one group. The evidence and argument are set out in an article in the professional journal Radiocarbon, vol 1, number 2, 1999, pp 169-182, by G.A. Rodley and B.E. Thiering, “Use of Radiocarbon Dating in Assessing Christian Connections to the Dead Sea Scrolls”. The essential points are, first, that a group of documents concerning the Teacher, of the genre of pesharim, are autographs, of which one copy only exists. Two in this group were tested. 4Q171 (4QpPs a, the pesher on Psalms) is carbondated 29-81 CE (AD), and 1QpHab(the pesher on Habakkuk) is carbondated 88-2 BCE (BC), permitting a subsequent date for use of its parchment. Attempts to explain these as anomalies are open to criticism. Further, a copy of CD (the Damascus Document, not a pesher), where the Teacher and his rival also appear, is carbondated 4-82 CE (AD). A certain fragment which was thought to make CD much earlier can be shown to have been mistakenly treated in terms of its semicursive script. It is an early source, which was incorporated in the main document CD.

Another criticism of the soundness of Vermes’ position comes from his use of the historical sources. He includes in his dating scheme the statement that a certain leader was a king, although it is made plain that there were no kings at that time. In The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Penguin Books, 1998, p.331) Vermes is dealing with the fragment 4Q448, which includes the term “King Jonathan” in its column B and probably in column C. The editors of the fragment, Esther and Hanan Eshel, have taken the title to refer to Alexander Jannaeus (103- 76 BC), a Hasmonean ruler who was certainly called king in Jerusalem . Josephus in Jewish War 1, 70 makes it clear that Jannaeus (the Greek equivalent of Jonathan) was called king because his predecessor and brother Aristobulus (105-104 BC) had claimed that title for the first time. “Aristobulus …transformed the government into a monarchy, and was the first to assume the diadem”. The editors’ identification of Alexander Jannaeus is argued for in Israel Exploration Journal 42, 1992, 199-229. Vermes, however, holds that the name means Jonathan Maccabeus. Jonathan was one of the heroic Maccabean brothers , whose career is described in Josephus’ Jewish War 1, 48- 49 and 1 Maccabees 9:19- 12:53. Jonathan led the people 161-143 BC and claimed the high priesthood. But it is certain that the major change to a monarchy did not occur until 60 years later when the people were ready for it.

Vermes is primarily dealing with the next step in Dr Thiering’s case, the application of the pesher technique to the gospels, Acts and Revelation, giving new information about the history and political setting of Jesus. The results, presented fully in her extensive publications, are subject to testing by a strict criterion of consistency. The fullest detail is to be found in the Pesher of Christ website

http://www.pesherofchrist.infinitesoulutions.com/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dylanstephens (talk • contribs) 08:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a Thiering disciple doesn't like the fact that Thiering is regarded as a kook. That Vermes quote sums up the low regard with which this crank writer is regarded in her field and it or something like it IS an appropriate piece of information to add to this entry. Calling Theiring's academically derided book "groundbreaking" on the other hand is not (NPOV? Hardly?) As it stands this entry now reads like something written by the Babs Thiering Fan Club.
And how the hell can C14 dating determine when a text was *composed*? It's that sort of batty claim by Thieiring and her muddled acolytes that puts her on the very edge of the nutty fringe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.23.148.243 (talk) 08:03, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Vermes summed up the academic reception of Thiering's work accurately and so I have replaced the removed quote as a way of indicating Thiering's reputation in academia. It is simply a fact that Thiering's work is not accepted by other scholars and that's all the Vermes quote is saying. The word "ground-breaking" has also been removed - that is not a NPOV description of Thiering's book. Thiudareiks 01:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

While you do have a point that the "ground-breaking" is not NPOV, I suggest that you be satisfied with "controversial". one of you says "And how the hell can C14 dating determine when a text was *composed*?" You are missing the point: the date that the writing material was made determines the absolute earliest date that it was written on the writing material. You can go forward, but not back! If it was a copy of an original, where is that original? The burden of proof falls upon Vermes and all those who choose to close their eyes to the connection with Jesus. The carbon dating is a relevant issue as it negates many of Vermes’ key assumptions that require an earlier date. Thus this evidence together with other evidence serves to undermine Vermes’ stature as the "absolute authority" on the DSS. It is the case of science negating bad logic. Opinion is changing since 1994 as there are quite a few prominent scholars who have presented differing options than Vermes based on proper dating of the group of scrolls that appear to parallel events in the early Christian community. Wikipedia on Vermes currently states “a controversial but respected authority on the life and religion of Jesus”. It would not be appropriate to battle the issues by including their comments or the Vermes’ review in the bio of Barbara Thiering, just as it would not be appropriate to place a statement about Vermes work by Barbara Thiering in his bio. It is just a battle of controversial versus controversial and not worth cluttering these pages with. Please find other places to vent your disagreements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dylanstephens (talk • contribs) 20:11, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Whether Vermes himself is right in his personal academic opinion that Thiering's thesis is nonsense is irrelevant. The quote from Vermes is merely to illustrate that Thiering's thesis has not been accepted by her academic peers. You can argue about the dates of the DSS all you like (and your argument from carbon-dating of the writing material as evidence that those manuscripts are autographs or close to autographs is nonsensical), but the FACT remains that what Vermes says about the reception of Thiering's work is true: she has been rejected by the academic community.
The fact you think this is unfair or that you think she should be accepted or that the academic community is wrong is all totally irrelevant. The fact remains that Thiering is an isolated theorist of dubious reputation whose work has been rejected by her peers. This is something that needs to be mentioned in an article which is highly focused on her thesis. It is misleading to give the impression that Thiering and her thesis is highly regarded academically when it has been almost universally rejected and scorned. Please don't take this quote out again - this article is a NPOV encyclopaedia entry, not advertising for Thiering and her followers. Thiudareiks 00:53, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

This section needs a serious note that the 3 people criticizing her work have a vested interest in denouncing her as it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Why don't we have any secular responses to her work? Is it because it doesn't fit with the pro religious agenda here? I guess NPOV means nothing here when religion is involved. Raphjd (talk) 09:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Please read what WP:NPOV actually says. "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." The review represents a significant view and is I think represented fairly without bias (ie it doesn't call it a great or a horrible review, etc). It is your opinion that the review is written because of a conflict of religious belief, but that doesn't make your opinion fact or mean the review should not be included. I would expect the people interested in her work enough to write reviews to be religious scholars, that should not be surprising.
So, if you think this article needs secular scholars criticising her work to be NPOV, by all means provide them. Or scholars praising her work (from reliable sources for either of course). Doug Weller (talk) 10:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)