Talk:Gospel of John

FA candidacy

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 23:56, 19 July 2016 [1].

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Gospel of John

Nominator(s): Jujutsuan (Please notify with {{re}} talk | contribs) 06:33, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

This article is about the Fourth Gospel of the Christian New Testament: its origins, history, content and structure, comparison with the Synoptic Gospels, and scholarly analysis. It was recently promoted to GA status (note: I was nominator and resolved most of the issues brought up in the GA review process), and I believe it satisfies the FA criteria. Please note that this is my first FA nomination; based on simply reading the criteria, I would say it qualifies, but I have no firsthand experience of these criteria in action. Of course, I'll be happy to help improve the article during this process as well. Thanks in advance to all the editors who will be involved in this review. Jujutsuan (Please notify with {{re}} talk | contribs) 06:33, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Comments from Maunus

• I am sorry to say that this still needs work. The lead is so short and inadequate that I wouldnt even let it pass GA in that condition - but this is easily fixed. A bigger problem I think is that the sectoins are very short and list like, which makes for poor article flow. The writing style is positively telegraphic with short sentences that states piecs of information but which do not really tie together to become fluent prose. The integrated lists such as the "comparison with synoptics" only makes this worse. The composition and setting section could and should be much longer given the size of the literature on this topic. I also find the theology section lacking, especially in not showing the way that John has been interpreted differently in different theological traditions. Again, given the compexity of the gospel and of the voluminous literature of exgesis I think the theology section is quite simply too deficient. the article currently has only 66 inline citations - there is no way this can be considered to adequately represent the voluminous literature on the Gospel of John - and indeed most of the works in the bibliography are not in fact cited (either they should be cited or removed from the bibliography - clearly I would suggest that they should be incorporated into the article to satisfy the requirements of comprehensiveness and well-researchedness). I would not support the article without a major expansion, and addition of a lot of prose and a much better attempt at summarizing and presenting the entire literature on the topic. It is very laudable that you have taken the article under your wing, since it is extremely important and vital to the encyclopedia. But the topic is very large and requires a lot of reading to be able to become fully comprehensive. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:31, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

• In the "Authorship, date and origin" section I really want a much more comprehensive discussion of the evidence. What is the evidence of authorship and the arguments for and against identifying John of patmos as the author? What is the evidence used for dating? What are the oppposing arguments? What is the evidence for the proposed three textual versions? (Also I think the discussion of anti-semitism material seems tangential to do the origin, dating and authorship material and probably deserves its own full section somewhere). ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:00, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

• There is a general problem with the use of "main" articles throughout - the article linked as "main" should not be a general article, but a more specific daughter article of this one. For example the main article for the section on "Christology" is not the general article on Christology, but rather the non-existing article on Christology in the Gospel of John, and similarly the "main article" for the section on "textual history and position in the New testament" is not Biblical manuscript but Textual history of the Gospel of John. When such specialized articles exist the section should be a summary of that article and the reader can then click on the "main" link to find more detailed information, but in most cases in this article there are no more detailed articles that can be used as "main" articles which means that all the detail that Wikipedia should have on a subject should be in this article. This is also why most sections need to be much longer than they are now, because they are not in fact summary style sections untill there is a detailed article for them to summarize. Until there is then they need to provide the full information on each subtopic, which currently they don't.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:17, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Oppose I agree with ·maunus's points, and think the amount of work involved is too much to do during FAC. FA is very different from GA. I'd recommend a Peer review, after a period of improvement. The "Representations" section is especially poor, with only one ref, and the striking claim, in a one-sentence para, that "The Gospel of John has influenced Impressionist painters, Renaissance art, literature, and other depictions of Jesus, with influences on Greek, Jewish and European history", is completely unreferenced, and without useful links that would get the reader to any expansion of this claim. There should be a section on the pre-modern reception and interpretation, and how John's differences to the Synoptic Gospels were explained and interpreted. Minor point: there's a strange sentence in the lead, starting: "The discourses contained with this gospel seem to be concerned...". Was that meant to be "within" ("in" would be better, and "discourses" is probably not the best word)? Johnbod (talk) 13:33, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Comments from Caeciliusinhorto

• The first thing I noticed was that the article is relatively short: only 14kb of readable prose. (Though you have quite a lot of content that is in bullet-point/numbered list form, and thus is not counted in that). That's not necessarily a problem for a featured articles (the recently promoted Dorset Ooser is shorter), but FAs are supposed to be comprehensive, and the Gospel of John is a topic which has been discussed extensively for almost 2000 years: I would expect that a comprehensive article on the topic could be longer.
• Reading through the article, even as someone who is not a new testament scholar, there are obvious places where the article could stand to be more comprehensive: the article has barely any discussion of the question of authorship, and even less on dating, for instance. The section on textual history is very short. There is virtually no discussion of the development of the new testament canon: was John's position as a canonical gospel ever in doubt? (e.g. the Marcionist canon consisted solely of Luke and Paul's epistles) Nor is there any real discussion of how the canonical order of gospels (MMLJ) was developed, though the article notes that it was not always consistently so...
• Lots of the lists don't do the article any favours. A comparison with the synoptic gospels could be rewritten as prose, for instance, with paragraphs discussing respectively the differing material presented, how the theology differs, contradictions, and genre/stylistic differences.
• The section on "representations" is a bit generic and doesn't currently add anything to the article. "The Gospel of John has influenced Impressionist painters, Renaissance art, literature, and other depictions of Jesus". Well, fine, but how? How has the Gospel of John specifically, rather than the gospels in general, influenced artists and writers?

The above are the major issues, but there are also some more minor nitpicks:

• According to WP:EL, there should usually not be external links in the body of the article. I can see at least four instances of this.
• Some wikilinks are repeated. There are at least two links to Beloved disciple and to Jesus Seminar. There may be others. Per MOS:DUPLINK, these should be removed.

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 13:34, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Comment: (I wrote this before there were any comments on the page, but got edit-conflicted. No doubt some of the prior reviwers will have beaten me to the draw on some points). This is an important article, rightly recognised as such in various Wiki projects. It was recognised as GA a few days ago, and has had no significant preparation for this FAC. I note that this is the nominator's first stab at FAC; there is a considerable rise in standards between GA and FA, and I would normally expect a first FAC nomination to have gone through a comprehensive peer review before coming here. While the article is interesting and well written, it falls short of FA requirements in several respects:

• Citations: there are numerous uncited statements throughout the article. Note in paricular:

• End of "Textual history" section
• First paragraph, "Chronology" section
• First paragraph, "Gnostic elements" section
• Numerous statements within the "Comparisons" section
• Most of the "Representations" section

• There is overuse of bullet points rather than narrative, especially in the "Comparisons" section
• The "bibliography" needs to be divided between cited texts and additional reading.
• There is a confusion in that, having declared the authorship of the gospel to be anonymous, with the claim of "John the Evangelist" "rejected by the majority of modern biblical scholars", you then regularly ascribe authorship to "the evangelist". Who have you in mind? It might be better to refer simply to "the author" or "the writer".
• I note that this article "incorporates text from" a 1910 article featured in the Catholic Encyclopedia. I'dlike to know what use you have actually made of this somewhat outdated source.

The above are some of the points that a thorough peer review could deal with. In its present form I think the article will struggle at FAC, and it may be wise to consider withdrawal and a later nomination after further article development. Brianboulton (talk) 13:37, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

• Comment I see that the criteria are much more demanding than for GA, and that several editors have suggested putting this through a peer review first. I would be supportive of ending this FA nomination and initiating a peer review instead. What would be the most appropriate way to close down this discussion to begin that process? Jujutsuan (Please notify with {{re}} talk | contribs) 17:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

• Notify the FAC coordinators, here, that you wish to withdraw this nomination. When this is done, go to WP:PR and open a peer review in the "Philosophy and Religion" section. Then notify the reviewers who've commented here and invite them to contribute to the review there (I will certainly join in). Brianboulton (talk) 20:19, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Brian. Jujutsuan (Please notify with {{re}} talk | contribs) 20:32, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

• Nominator wishes to withdraw: @FAC coordinators: I would like to withdraw this discussion in order to replace it with a peer review. Jujutsuan (Please notify with {{re}} talk | contribs) 20:32, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. --Laser brain (talk) 23:56, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

Peer review

Gospel of John

I had recently nominated this article for FA, but other editors pointed out some serious flaws that need to be resolved before it's ready to be promoted. I would like to work on these issues. I'm transcluding the failed FA nomination below. EDIT: Transcluding created problems, so I'm replacing it with a simple wikilink. Thanks, —Jujutsuan (Please notify with {{re}} talk | contribs) 01:50, 20 July 2016 (UTC), edited 21:33, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

FA candidacy page

• Notifying editors from the previous FA discussion: @Maunus, Johnbod, Caeciliusinhorto, Brianboulton, Laser brain, and Gerda Arendt:. Jujutsuan (Please notify with {{re}} talk | contribs) 01:56, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

• I said "I'd recommend a Peer review, after a period of improvement", but you've launched it straight away. Personally I think the various FAC comments gave you plenty to work on, so I'll come back later, probably in a week or three. Johnbod (talk) 02:40, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, you should work on the points identified in the FAC, in particular the straightforward ones such as uncited statements, bullet-point prose, and sorting out the sources from the general bibliography. I'll be watching the article page, and will comment here when some of these issues have been tackled. Brianboulton (talk) 16:26, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

@Brianboulton: Regarding your last two bullets in the FA review:

• The editor who inserted the claim actually mis-paraphrased the source. I've corrected that. The evangelist was always called "John", according to the source. In any case, saying "the evangelist" doesn't imply "John the Evangelist" or any other particular identity—the word "evangelist" simply means "author/writer of a gospel", whether he be named John, something else, or truly anonymous. A capitalized "Evangelist" might in certain contexts, but this form isn't used in the article.
• I'd like to know, too. That notice was here when I first arrived (albeit somewhere else, IIRC), and I haven't been able to figure out which part of the text it refers to. But I haven't removed it in case there really is something from CE that I've missed.

Jujutsuan (Please notify with {{re}} talk | contribs) 22:03, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Comment: I think that the lede in particular could do with some work. At the moment I feel that it presupposes too much prior knowledge on behalf of the reader. For instance, we don't mention the part of the world in which it was written, or the rough date in which this happened. These is the sort of essential information that really needs to be in the lede. Still, I wish you all the best with your revisions to the article! Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:06, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Why they are so sure of that there was a final form

Since they obviously lack evidence in the first century. Tanengtiong0918 (talk) 20:53, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Dubious section on gnosticism

The section of gnosticism feels weird in places. What does it mean to "forcefully argue" for example, and is this phrasing that satisfies NPOV? The whole section feels written as if its purpose were to argue against any connection to gnosticism. Not going to change it because maybe there's a good reason for these things, but I'd appreciate a second opinion. Not alexand (talk) 18:24, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Getting sources right

User Silverfish wants to edit the article with some material, but his edit (his words, that is) repeats what is already there, while the page cited by him does not support what he wants to say.
Here is his edit, the original material in square brackets, his addition in quotes: [The author may have drawn on a "signs source" (a collection of miracles) for chapters 1–12, a "passion source" for the story of Jesus's arrest and crucifixion, and a "sayings source" for the discourses, but these hypotheses are much debated], "and recent scholarship has tended to turn against positing hypothetical sources for John."
Clearly, the material sourced from Reddish ("these hypotheses are much debated", meaning the passion source and the sayings source) means exactly the same thing as the material Silverfish wants to add. I'd be fine with replacing Reddish as our source, except that Silverfish's source - page 142 of Chris Keith's 2020 book titled The Gospel as Manuscript - says nothing about John's sources beyond the synoptics. Achar Sva (talk) 07:56, 19 December 2024 (UTC) Achar Sva (talk) 07:56, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

My addition reveals a recent trend in scholarship against advocating for hypothetical sources behind John rather than simply claiming that hypotheses are debatable without any information about where the debate is headed. There is a clear trend though, as Chris Keith explains:

...Johannine scholarship has witnessed a turn away from source-critical hypothetical reconstructions of John's sources. Source-critical reconstructions of the tradition history of the Gospel of John, whether Bultmann's three-source theory, Fortna's signs source, Brown's complex multistage community development theory(ies), or any modern variants, gain(ed) currency from a form-critically inspired and historical-positivist era of New Testament scholarship. In this era, scholars had great confidence in their abilities to stratify layers of the gospel tradition and assign them to corresponding stages of a community's development. This source-critical procedure and the concomitant Gospel community hypothesis it requirees, however, have both received strong criticism. Scholars working in media studies...have increasingly eroded confidence in the criteria by which scholars identify earlier (often oral) traditions in written texts...There really are only four known Jesus books that could antedate the Gospel of John. Among them, only the three Synoptic Gospels have a clear-cut case for priority to the Gospel of John."

In short, scholars are moving away from trying to discover hypothetical sources of John and from treating oral traditions like an onion where you can peel back accretions to find a pristine core. The source supports the claim. Silverfish2024 (talk) 08:12, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Not 'turned against', but 'turned away'. And not 'positing', but 'reconstructing' and 'identifying'. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 08:37, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I said in my edit summary and again at the head of this thread that the material you wish to add to the article is already there, sourced to Reddish; I also said that the material as you source it, page 142 of Keith's book, is not actually there. These are the issues you need to address. Achar Sva (talk) 04:13, 21 December 2024 (UTC)