User talk:AndriesvN

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A belated welcome!

The welcome may be belated, but the cookies are still warm!

Here's wishing you a belated welcome to Wikipedia, AndriesvN! I see that you've already been around a while and wanted to thank you for your contributions. Though you seem to have been successful in finding your way around, you may still benefit from following some of the links below, which help editors get the most out of Wikipedia:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Again, welcome! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:29, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi again! Please be sure to read MOS:GOD. One of the things it stipulates is that pronouns for deities and figures of veneration are not capitalized (so no "Him", "His", etc.). It would also be nice if you would seek out some good secondary sources (reliable academic monographs would be ideal) to read about the subjects you edit, so you can use these instead of primary sources (i.e., the Bible itself) or websites. Thanks! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:36, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

April 2022

Welcome to Wikipedia. Unfortunately, content you added to Prophecy of Seventy Weeks appears to be a minority or fringe viewpoint, and appears to have given undue weight to this minority viewpoint, and has been reverted. To maintain a neutral point of view, an idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea. Feel free to use the article's talk page to discuss this, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:18, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Meaning: the idea that the Book of Daniel has historicity does not fly with mainstream academia. If you want to assert it as a matter of true belief, that might be so. But as a historical view is not even remotely tenable. WP:CHOPSY laugh at it, sneer at it. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:50, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for you comment. But, no, you are completely wrong. The Liberal view is the minority view. As you correctly state, the liberal view is the one held by academics. That is the view that you have to adopt if you want to progress in the academic world. As far as the average Christian and Evangelical Christianity and most denominations are concerned, Daniel is true prophecy. In other words, most Christians by far believe that Daniel is true prophecy. Christian Liberalism is something that began I think in the 18th century. The person I quoted (Walvoord) is an extremely well known Dispensationalist and Dispensationalism is the dominant Christian view on Daniel 9. I do not share that view but I certainly believe that Daniel is true prophecy. As your page on Daniel 9 currently reads, it is extremely unbalanced. There are at least 5 different views on Daniel 9. Your post reflects only 1. I have been studying the various views for a couple of months now and have posted nearly 30 articles on my personal website. I am willing to help improve your post, if you allow me. AndriesvN (talk) 16:39, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

We have the guideline WP:FRINGE, as in "academically fringe". You have to abide by it if you want to edit at this website. I cannot sanction you, since I am not an admin, but pushing fringe POVs leads to blocks and eventually banning from Wikipedia.

And, you don't get to redefine WP:FRINGE. Your view of what is fringe is binding for... Conservapedia, not for Wikipedia. Is it a historical matter of fact? Yes, it is. So mainstream historians adjudicate the matter, not traditionalist theologians. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:41, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Liberalism is the view that the Bible is purely the product of the evolution of human thought and, therefore, not divinely inspired. As such, liberalism, by definition, is a minority view within Christianity. Looking at the type of comments you reverse, I would say that you are biased towards liberalism and, therefore, in my view, unfit to do this work. AndriesvN (talk) 02:51, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

WP:NPA or DARVO won't save your POV. Mainstream academic consensus WP:OWNs Wikipedia articles, nobody else does: not Christianity, not Islam, not Hinduism, not atheism, and so on.

Agree. Sanger's central argument is that WP should never have accepted the idea of WP:false balance. He thinks we should include points of view strictly on the basis of the number of people that hold them. This would require changing the whole idea of a WP:reliable source; the most reliable source on any topic would be whatever the most people believed, whatever had the largest circulation, and factual evidence would be irrelevant.

The Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita would be the main "reliable sources" for our articles about the Earth's origin, cosmology, evolution, and ancient history. The idea that the Democratic party is run by a secret cabal of pedophiles, that Trump won the 2022 election, that Covid is no worse than a cold, would have to be written as possible facts, given equal credibility with the truth, since about half the US population has swallowed these lies. Our biographies of celebrities would have to include, as facts, the fake scandals published in the National Enquirer, as it is a main source of celebrity info. Our medical articles would have to include, on an equal basis, not only alternative medicine cures, but curses, the evil eye, faith healing, witchcraft, and demonology, as worldwide these are 'medical' traditions believed by a large percentage of developing world populations. Our articles on Woman and Feminism would have to include, as an equal theory, that women are inherently biologically inferior to men, because a large proportion of the developing world still believes this.

In other words, Wikipedia would become like the rest of social media, Facebook Groups without the content controls, a summary of whatever the lowest common denominator believes, because they are the most numerous. --Chetvorno^TALK 19:29, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

It's fairly clear what agenda you are following by doing so - how can anyone have this discussion without concrete examples? You continue to dismiss out of hand people you identify as "theologians" (which is incorrect) or Christians (which is absurd) without any evidence that this has any affect on their scholarship. The only other places you have made these arguments have been in attempts to deny the historicity of Jesus or else, most recently, to deny that Tacitus has anything to say about it because the scholars saying he does are "biased". You have provided no evidence that mainstream scholars who happen to be Christian have reached conslusions any different than anyone else's. Ask anyone who edits in this area: scholars following a non-mainstream, fundamentalist view are regularly removed from Wikipedia. There is no problem on Wikipedia with the POV of theologists be considered a mainstream just based on the fact that their works are historically more numerous. This is just your own POV.--Ermenrich (talk) 00:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Awery, just a bit of housekeeping. When you post new comments to this thread, the newest comments need to be put at the bottom of the thread. That's the only way others can easily keep track of how the conversation has flowed. The Harvard Theological Review probably is a prestigious forum. On the other hand, the paper on Daniel that you want us to use was not published by the Harvard Theological Review. It was published by JISCA, an outlet for advocating conservative religious views. This fits with the general trend we've already observed here -- the folks saying that Daniel was written in the sixth century don't publish in mainstream outlets, generally speaking. It's entirely possible that MacGregor has published all sorts of stuff in reliable outlets. JISCA, however, isn't what most editors here would treat as a WP:RS outlet. When a journal is dedicated to a particular religious view, that matters. Just as, for example, Wikipedia does not make use of articles published in Journal of Creation when dealing with the subject of creationism. The question I'd like to see answered is, have any defenses of a sixth-century date been published in mainstream academic outlets. And if they have been, are they the work of a tiny fringe group of scholars, or do they represent a significant number of scholars. So far, it looks as is the 2d-century date for Daniel assuming its present form is the scholarly consensus, although of course there are hold-outs in the religious world, just as there are hold-outs on creationism. Because of WP:FRINGE, Wikipedia generally doesn't make much use of those who hold out against academic consensus. I don't want to speak for Tgeorgescu here, but I don't think he's saying that Christian scholars are automatically disqualified due to their personal faith. Indeed, almost all biblical scholars that Wikipedia cites are either Christian or Jewish. There's only a handful of non-Christian, non-Jewish biblical scholars out there. We don't sideline the views of Christian scholars on Wikipedia, it's that we sideline the views of WP:FRINGE scholars, those whose views have been overwhelmingly rejected by the academic mainstream. Alephb (talk) 21:14, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

It is your claim that mainstream academic consensus would be "minority view" against the whole system of Wikipedia, starting with Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia admins and ending with established editors. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:00, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

So, if you want to claim that this website has been wholly sold out to the mainstream academia: it is indeed so.

“it is thus clearer than the sun at noonday that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses, but by someone who lived long after Moses.”—this is a conclusion which Wikipedia fully endorses as objective fact, and you will be booed off the stage if you dare to deny it in the voice of Wikipedia.

And if you want to perform a head count: modernists are the Christians who reject fundamentalism. And you have an extra category, evangelicals, who want to be neither modernists, nor fundamentalists. Let me tell you: if you add up fundamentalists and evangelicals, you still have a minority of all Christians. Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and the traditional Protestant churches are by and large not fundamentalists. A lot of Christians don't argue against basic Christian dogmas as they don't argue against the fact that Scholz is the Chancellor of Germany: it's a banal fact, not a life-changing truth. These dogmas learned by rote have no impact upon their use of booze, tobacco, drugs, and sexual partners. So they are modernists by deed, if not by aware intellectual assent. If you tell them that God is Trinity, they will agree it's true. If you tell them that Jesus is God's Son, they will agree it's true. But they consider these boring facts they had to learn at school, not a life-changing message. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:44, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I'm Tgeorgescu. I noticed that you made a comment on the page User talk:AndriesvN that didn't seem very civil, so it may have been removed. Wikipedia is built on collaboration, so it's one of our core principles to interact with one another in a polite and respectful manner. If you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:13, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes. We are biased.

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once wrote:

Wikipedia's policies ... are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.

What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse". It isn't.

So yes, we are biased.

• We are biased towards science, and biased against pseudoscience.
• We are biased towards astronomy, and biased against astrology.
• We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy.
• We are biased towards mathematics, and biased against numerology.
• We are biased towards medicine, and biased against homeopathy.
• We are biased towards venipuncture, and biased against acupuncture.
• We are biased towards solar energy, and biased against esoteric energy.
• We are biased towards actual conspiracies and biased against conspiracy theories.
• We are biased towards cargo planes, and biased against cargo cults.
• We are biased towards vaccination, and biased against vaccine hesitancy.
• We are biased towards magnetic resonance imaging, and biased against magnetic therapy.
• We are biased towards crops, and biased against crop circles.
• We are biased towards laundry detergent, and biased against laundry balls.
• We are biased towards augmentative and alternative communication, and biased against facilitated communication.
• We are biased towards water treatment, and biased against magnetic water treatment.
• We are biased towards mercury in saturated calomel electrodes, and biased against mercury in quack medicines.
• We are biased towards blood transfusions, and biased against blood letting.
• We are biased towards electromagnetic fields, and biased against microlepton fields.
• We are biased towards evolution and an old Earth, and biased against young Earth creationism.
• We are biased towards holocaust studies, and biased against holocaust denial.
• We are biased towards an (approximately) spherical earth, and biased against a flat earth.
• We are biased towards the sociology of race, and biased against scientific racism.
• We are biased towards the scientific consensus on climate change, and biased against global warming conspiracy theories.
• We are biased towards the existence of Jesus and biased against the existence of Santa Claus.
• We are biased towards geology, and biased against flood geology.
• We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in double-blind clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon preying on the gullible.
• We are biased towards astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against ancient astronauts.
• We are biased towards psychology, and biased against phrenology.
• We are biased towards Mendelism, and biased against Lysenkoism.

And we are not going to change. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:17, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I grant you that the current academic consensus is that Daniel was written in the 2nd century BC even though the book itself states that it was written in the 6th century BC.

However, firstly, the average Christian is not even aware of that view. I mentioned this to a colleague of mine and she did not believe me. The view that Daniel was written in the second century BC is not taught in churches. Those who believe that, simply avoid the topic. Those who believe that Daniel is true prophecy, written in the 6th century BC, use it as cornerstone for their eschatology and preach other views very strongly.

And Wikipedia is not a resource for academics. It is a resource for the average person. In the case of Christian concepts, it is a resource for the average Christian. Therefore, given your emphasis on the liberal view, you are not addressing the needs of the average Christian.

Secondly, you also know that liberal criticism developed in the 19th/20th century. The reformers, e.g. Luther and Calvin, believed that Daniel is true prophecy. Again, by over-emphasizing the current scholarly consensus and by ignoring the orthodox view of Daniel 9, you are doing a disservice to your readers.

Therefore, what I would like to propose is that you allow a more balance discussion. Your section on Composition, currently, does not even address the possibility that it was composed in the 6th century. AndriesvN (talk) 05:45, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Not done. See these policies and guidelines: WP:NOTTHEOCRACY, WP:CRYBLASPHEMY, WP:RNPOV. Wikipedia kowtows to the Ivy League, this is by design; you cannot change this, you're lacking any power to do so. Jimmy Wales won't permit it and Wikipedia admins won't permit it. We do not kowtow to Sanger's view that the opinion having the most adepts (this is a point which you have failed to demonstrate, by the way) would be the most acceptable.

If they want a pulpit, I suggest here, not WP. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:29, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Morals: according to WP:SOAPBOX, Wikipedia is not your pulpit for preaching the good news. Same as we don't allow Muslims to delete pictures of Muhammad, we won't allow you to preach the good news at this website. We are a hard-core encyclopedia based upon WP:SCHOLARSHIP. If you cannot get Britannica and Larousse to endorse your POV in their own voice, well, neither will Wikipedia do that.

Oui, vous avez raison, Jimmy Wales est un pornocrate. En plus, c’est un dangereux religieux extrémiste. La preuve : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion Et de surcroît, il appartient aussi à plein de sectes : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secte L’enquête le confirmera, mais ce serait aussi un serial killer : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer Moi non plus, je ne me laisse pas duper. J’ai aussi interdit le Larousse à mes enfants : on y expliquait ce qu’était la masturbation, la sodomie et la fellation.

— Patrice

And we report Luther's POV as being Luther's POV, not as being WP:THETRUTH. If you want a simple explanation, the neutral point of view for Wikipedia articles is the POV of the Ivy League.

As I already told you, traditionalist theologians do not own the problem of the dating of this book. Mainstream historians do. So, Wikipedia will only listen to mainstream historians and mainstream Bible scholars, as opposed to people preaching what should be the true beliefs of their own congregation. We may review what the Pope thinks about it, but Wikipedia does not consider the Pope an authority in this matter. And does not consider Luther and Calvin authorities in this matter. They might be the authorities at your own church, but they do not pass for mainstream scholars at Wikipedia.

Appeal to authority is what Wikipedia is all about. It is not the place to argue with what the authorities say. Further, Wikipedia accepts academic and scholarly authorities, not religious and dogmatic authorities. Anything else is original research. Rick Norwood (talk) 16:01, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a venue for rendering mainstream scholarship, and we despise so-called "scholars" who in fact are preaching to their own choir. We reject your view same as Britannica and Larousse have rejected it upon https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-literature/Daniel#ref597857 and https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/oeuvre/livre_de_Daniel/115594 . Wikipedia isn't their dumber sister.

Ask any admin of the English Wikipedia and they will reject your POV, too. We simply do not peddle WP:Fringe theories. This is deeply enshrined in the identity of Wikipedia, that's who we are in respect to religious POV pushers. tgeorgescu (talk) 09:36, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for all the responses. I was not expecting such a broad range of responses. I do understand your perspective. My point is not that the majority has the truth. In fact, the opposite is true. In the history as recorded in the Bible, the majority is always wrong. My point is that Wikipedia must speak to people at the level which people are at. Currently, your page on Daniel 9 does not do that. In other words, in my view, the average Christian would not understand what you are saying. Regards AndriesvN (talk) 10:43, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

You should ask yourself questions like:

What an encyclopedia is?

What an encyclopedia does?

What is an encyclopedia based upon?

Wikipedia is WP:MAINSTREAM, it does not pander to piety.

In other words, what you wish was rejected, is rejected and will remain rejected. Ask any admin and you won't get any other answer. There is no other mainstream historical dating of the Book of Daniel. This is the only mainstream historical view, there is no other, it does not have competition, it does not have challengers. So, Wikipedia won't compromise an information pertaining to mainstream history just because you beg nicely for it.

It's like asking Wikipedia to write that Columbus has discovered America in 992 AD. Won't do. No established editor in the sane mind is going to allow that.

I don't care about what "good Christians" believe about it, the dating in the 6th century BC is simply untrue. It's pseudohistory. A dating of 6th century BC is not history, it is fundamentalist superstition. This is not a superstition-friendly website.

The real problem with the fundamentalist interpretation is that it also sets a fixed date for the Second Coming—and Jesus did not return when expected, so most Christian churches have abandoned that interpretation. So, yeah, Luther, in his own century, could claim that the interpretation was accurate. But that was a ridiculous claim in the 20th century. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:27, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

The Pharisees - the intellectual elite of that day - did not believe Jesus in spite of all His miracles. Why? Because what one believes depends on what you WANT to believe. The Pharisees did not WANT to believe. Therefore, they found evidence that He is NOT the Christ. They said “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons” (Matt 9:15), and, after He, on a Sabbath, healed a man that was born blind, they said, “this man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath” (John 9:16).

Jesus said to them, "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?" (John 5:44), and "Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the market places" (Luke 11:43; cf. Luke 20:46)

I respect your position, but if that was the intellectual elite of Jesus’ day, why should the religious elite of today be any different? AndriesvN (talk) 13:48, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Faith (true belief) is in the eye of the beholder. We agree to disagree upon the true faith. Only Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses still hold out to historicist interpretation, for the vast majority of Protestants it is debunked theology since the 1850s. And Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, by and large, were not adepts of the historicist interpretation. In the end, you have proven yourself that your POV is the POV of a tiny minority. Therefore you yourself admit that WP:FRINGE fully applies to your claim. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:57, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Are you saying that the Evangelicals also accept the Maccabean theory? I would be surprised. Nevertheless, I feel safer in a tiny minority. The majority is always wrong; particularly so, the intellectual elite. I want to finish my series on Daniel 9 first. Then I want to tackle the question of the authenticity of Daniel again. Regards AndriesvN (talk) 15:15, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

The majority is always wrong; particularly so, the intellectual elite. Then you won't like it here. This is not a website meant for you. If you don't value the teachings of the intellectual elite, then you don't belong among us. It's like joining a swingers club in order to promote chastity.

We're following Wikipedia's guidelines as close as we can here. The root of the complaint (although the complainers may not understand it) is that Wikipedia is heavily mainstream-science based. Since homeopathy is so widely rejected by the mainstream, there is really no chance that it's going to be treated in the way the proponents wish. Like most of these kinds of debate, it all comes down to "What kind of encyclopedia is Wikipedia". We don't have to apologize for taking the mainstream science view...that's what Wikipedia is. The simple answer for people who don't like our rules is to set up their own encyclopedia with the rules they like...and indeed, there are several efforts to do exactly that out on the Internet. The problem with that is that the pro-fringe folks realize that these other encyclopedias are getting very little readership...so they want to put their views into Wikipedia, where they'll be seen more widely. What they don't get is that the reason that Wikipedia is the fifth (or so) most popular site on the Internet is precisely because we have the rules and values that we do. In effect, the public has voted for Wikipedia and against encyclopedias with different rules...and that's why we shouldn't change our rules...and if the rules don't change - then we're not going to change this article to be more friendly to the Homeopathists.
— User:SteveBaker

Besides, evangelicals know who peddles historicism and call them "cultists". tgeorgescu (talk) 00:35, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

You have to distinguish between hard facts and faith. The idea that Daniel was written in the 2nd century is based on the scientific fact that accurate, long range predictions of the future are impossible. Therefore, the accurate predictions in Daniel must have been written after the fact. However, that accurate, long range predictions of the future are impossible has not been proven to be correct. It is assumed as a matter of 'faith'. Therefore, I reject it. In may other respects, where things are based on hard facts, I find Wikipedia very useful. Regards AndriesvN (talk) 07:49, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

I would like to chime in here that the reason we know the Book of Daniel was written in the second century BC is because the prophecies in it are only accurate up until a certain date: 164 BC exactly. After that date, all of the prophecies are catastrophically wrong. The only way that you can arrive with a work containing accurate prophecies up to one, specific date and inaccurate prophecies thereafter is if the book was actually written at that date, making all the "predictions" prior to that point actually be history framed as predictions to make the actual predictions found later seem reliable. --Katolophyromai (talk) 15:41, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Anyway, you don't get to decide for us what is fact and what is opinion. The mainstream academia does that, and you are not part of it.

Methodological naturalism is part and parcel of the epistemology of history. So, of course, your own faith in prophecy could be a theological explanation, but never a historical explanation.

You do have theological views, that's your legal right. But your theological views are incompatible with the historical method. That's why Wikipedia will never render your views as history. Wikipedia will never claim that your views amount to historical fact, or at least to a plausible historical reconstruction of the past. We are biased against pseudohistory.

If you want a view that historians can work with miracles, see Graham Twelftree - The Historian and the Miraculous on YouTube, but such view sorely fails at Wikipedia according to the WP:FRINGE guideline. Some of the points from the speech are worthy or serious consideration, but in the end his solution to the problem can only be accepted by true believers. tgeorgescu (talk) 14:42, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

To respond to Katolophyromai

To say that “the prophecies in it are only accurate up until a certain date: 164 BC exactly” seems to be circular logic:

·       The “prophecies” after Antiochus IV are inaccurate because the evil king is Antiochus but

·       The evil king must be Antiochus because the prophecies after 164 BC are inaccurate.

However, there are several major differences between Antiochus and the evil king in Daniel. I provide a summary below.

Daniel 11:2-19 correlates well with known secular history until the death of Antiochus III in verse 19. There are also many similarities between Antiochus IV and the predicted evil king. But Antiochus IV by no means exhausts the passage. Antiochus IV is not the complete fulfillment of Daniel’s predicted evil king. He was only a type of the evil king. For complete fulfillment, we must search for a later and much more powerful evil king.

Daniel 11, therefore, may be understood as two stories intertwined. The text describes the history up to and including Antiochus IV but, while discussing Antiochus IV, it jumps to a future and worldwide evil king. In that case, it is possible to align the prophecies to the centuries after Antiochus.

Jesus referred to “the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel” as something in His future (compare Matt 24:15 to Dan 12:11). The liberal interpretation not only destroys the book of Daniel. It discredits Jesus Christ and the entire Bible. Revelation, in particular, picks up on various aspects in Daniel, such as the beasts (Dan: 7:4-8; Rev 13:2), the "time, times, and half a time" (Dan 7:25; Rev 12:14), and the oath (Dan 12:7; Rev 10:6). If Daniel falls, Revelation also falls.

Another thing, even if Daniel was written in 164 BC, it contains real prophecy: Daniel says that a Messiah will appear within 500 years after the decree to restore Jerusalem, therefore before the destruction of AD 70, that the Messiah will be killed, that reconciliation will be made for iniquity and that sacrifices will be stopped. For me, in the light of the NT, this is Jesus Christ in the first century.

As another example, the prophecy symbolizes four empires by means of beasts. The first three empires come to an end when the next overruns them. But the fourth come to its end by dividing into various kingdoms (Dan 2 - divided kingdom; Dan 7 - 11 horns). This is a remarkable accurate prophecy of the fall of Rome in the 6th century.

SUMMARY OF DIFFERENCES ANTIOCHUS AND THE EVIL KING

Some of the things that Antiochus did not do, include the following:

·       Exalt himself above every god (Dan 11:36),

·       Served a “strange god” unknown to his fathers (Dan 11:38).

·       Seize the kingdom by intrigue (Dan 11:21)

·       Cause deceit to succeed (Dan 8:25)

·       Distribute plunder, booty and possessions (Dan 11:24)

·       Began small (Dan 7:8; 8:9) or weak (Dan 11:23),

·       Became greater than all of his predecessors (Dan 7:20), including Alexander the Great (Dan 8:8-9),

·       Expand his kingdom “toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land (Judea)” (Dan 8:9).

·       Kill “the prince of the covenant” (Dan 11:22). He did not kill Onias. In any case, the word links shows that “the prince of the covenant” (Dan 11:22) is the "prince" who “confirms the covenant with many for one week” (Dan 9:27), namely, Jesus Christ.

A comparison of the attributes (heads, horns, wings, etc.) of the beasts in Daniel 7 and 8 shows that the two beasts in Daniel 8, identified as Medo-Persia and Greece (Dan 8:20-21), are parallel to the second and third beasts in Daniel 7. The fourth beast in Daniel 7, therefore, must be the Roman Empire. It follows that the evil 11^th king coming out of that beast, comes out of the Roman Empire: It cannot be a Greek king.

Antiochus does not fit the time periods. For example, in Daniel 9, the first 483 years are from the “decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince” (Dan 9:25). In the critical interpretation, the first 483 years preceded Antiochus IV. But 483 years before Antiochus brings us to about 50 years before Jerusalem was destroyed. There was no such decree at the time.

Antiochus IV was not principally opposed to the God of the Bible. He ordered the various nations of his empire to abandon their particular customs and robbed temples of various gods; not only the Jews. AndriesvN (talk) 15:06, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

We don't decide facts through WP:OR, but only through citing sources and discussing the reliability of sources.

Your POV belongs to the fringes of historiography and to the fringes of theology. We cannot censor you from holding opinions, but your WP:PUSH for fringe POVs will be curtailed. These are the rules of this website: if you don't abide by the WP:RULES you will be blocked and then banned from this website.

Wikipedia does not pander to piety, but it takes a hard-core mainstream Bible scholarship approach to the Bible. See WP:ABIAS. Stated otherwise, Wikipedia caters to views worthy of being taught at the Ivy League. So, if you dislike Ivy League Bible scholarship, you also dislike Wikipedia. In our articles about the Bible and the history of Ancient Israel we don't do as if the Ivy League does not exist. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:07, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

References

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November 2023

Hello, I'm The Herald. I noticed that you added or changed content in an article, Voyager 1, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so. You can have a look at referencing for beginners. If you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. The Herald (Benison) (talk) 09:08, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi "The Herald" I think I provided a link to Space.Com. All the info is from that site, except the number of stars in the Milky Way and the number of galaxies in the Universe. That I googled. But no big deal. For me, it is just an indication of how BIG God is. Combined with the miracles that we are surrounded with, such as the miracle of sight, it allows me to look forward to my death. AndriesvN (talk) 14:12, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

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Your submission at Articles for creation: The Dedication Council of 341 (January 17)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reasons left by S0091 were:  The comment the reviewer left was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit after they have been resolved.

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S0091 (talk) 21:42, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: The Dedication Council of 341 (March 8)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by MicrobiologyMarcus was:  The comment the reviewer left was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit after they have been resolved.

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microbiologyMarcus ^{[petri dish·growths]} 18:20, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia and copyright

Hello AndriesvN! Your additions to Arian controversy have been removed in whole or in part, as they appear to have added copyrighted content without evidence that the source material is in the public domain or has been released by its owner or legal agent under a suitably free and compatible copyright license. (To request such a release, see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission.) While we appreciate your contributions to Wikipedia, there are certain things you must keep in mind about using information from sources to avoid copyright and plagiarism issues.

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It's very important that contributors understand and follow these practices. Our policy requires that people who persistently do not must be blocked from editing. If you have any questions about this, please ask them here on this page, or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you. — Diannaa (talk) 13:50, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi Diannaa

I think your concern is that I quote verbally for every statement I make. The reason that I do that is that the traditional account of the Arian Controversy, according to RPC Hanson, one of the leading scholars on the subject, is a complete travesty. Other scholars agree. In the second half of the 20th century, significant progress has been made in understanding that Controversy, revealing that many of the previous assumptions are false. I am trying to get that new perspective on your articles about the fourth century. But it is a very controversial topic. The mainstream church does not like this new perspective at all. It poses all sorts of questions. Therefore, I am trying to show that my additions are what the current top experts in the field say.

So, I don't know. You could also be a traditional Christian that just does not like these new conclusions. Or are you an independent administrator? Please let me know. That will help me to decide what to do. If you are independent, one option is to put my changes back but without the quotes.

Regards, Andries AndriesvN (talk) 16:06, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

I am not the person who removed the content. Someone else did that, and their edit summary said "Too long for the lede and written in an argumentative rather than an encyclopedic tone". I have double checked and most of the material was quotations, but some of it was not. Hence the revision deletion. I suggest that instead of us discussing it here what your next steps should be, that you propose an addition on the article's talk page. — Diannaa (talk) 23:51, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I posted on the talk page. I would appreciate your reconsideration of your objection. As explained there, I think the topic requires more quotations. Regards AndriesvN (talk) 05:45, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Some of the copied content was framed as quotes, which is okay; short quotations are allowed. But some was copied without any indication that it was intended to be a quotation. That's not allowed, and is a violation of our copyright policy. — Diannaa (talk) 11:03, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Understood - Normally I convert concepts into my own words, but sometimes I use some of the original author's words because I cannot think of better words. I will put them in quotation marks. AndriesvN (talk) 13:10, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I note that Indyguy does not care to respond. I would like to work on that page again but do not have time right now. AndriesvN (talk) 06:29, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: The Dedication Council of 341 (April 1)

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Toadette ^{(April Fools Day!)} 08:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

RevelationbyJesusChrist is my own website. I have spent some years now studying the Arian Controversy and want to continue some years more. I believe that it is important to understand what really happened. RPC Hanson, one of the leading scholars, say that the traditional account of the controversy is a complete travesty. But there is a huge gap between the academics and popular Christianity. Your own pages also do not reflect the latest views of scholars. Due to discoveries over the last 100 years, the views have changed dramatically. AndriesvN (talk) 12:54, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Administrative noticeboard incident

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is User:AndriesVN. Thank you. Nautical Mongoose (talk) 17:17, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

AN post

You posted the following on WP:AN:

Arian Controversy

My subject of specialization is the Arian Controversy. That was a controversy during the fourth century that resulted in the Christian Trinity doctrine, which is the mother of all doctrines. Due to research and discoveries of documents, the scholars of the last 50 years have concluded that the traditional account of that controversy is history according to the winner and fundamentally flawed. Many pages in Wikipedia suffer from this. Since I have been studying this topic for several years now, on a fulltime basis, I have started to adjust Wikipedia pages. However, this has resulted in severe reaction from the traditionalists. Other editors have complained about my edits and some summarily delete my additions. I now had an example in which a user Arsenic-03 deleted a paragraph that is disastrous for the traditional account of the controversy, but which I adequately substantiated with quotes from world experts. It is on the Homoousion page and reads:

In the traditional account of the Arian Controversy, this term (homoousios) is the key word of the Creed. However, soon after Nicaea, it disappeared from the debate. For more than 20 years, nobody mentioned it, not even Athanasius, the great hero of the Arian Controversy and defender of the Nicene Creed, nor the Western church, which is often described as the stalwart defender of Nicaea throughout the fourth century. In other words, it was not regarded as important at Nicaea.

These facts are well established and recognized by the experts. I appeal for protection.  AndriesvN (talk) 17:19, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I have removed that post, since that board is for matters that require the attention of administrators. This was not such a post. However, I note that this edit, where you reverted User:Arsenic-03, contains an unacceptable personal attack in the edit summary. I urge you to a. STOP making personal attacks; b. discontinue edit warring; c. seek consensus on the talk page. Continuing with edit warring and that kind of harassment will likely lead to a block. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 17:38, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Please see my responses to Girth Summit and Liz below. AndriesvN (talk) 08:34, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

ANI

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:18, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Advice, with some urgency

Hi - as Hemiauchenia has noted above, there is a discussion about your editing going on at WP:ANI. I would urge you to do some reflection before commenting there, and to get your head around what we do on this project.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That is to say, it is a tertiary source of information, which mostly draws its information from secondary sources. Our mission is to summarise what high-quality secondary sources say about any subject. If those sources are wrong, so are we - that isn't a bug, it's a feature. Again, if we are reflecting the consensus position of modern scholarship, we are doing our job. If that position is incorrect, we rely on the checks and balances within scholarship - once the scholarly position has shifted, so will we. But not before that - Wikipedia is not the place to start or pursue a campaign to correct scholarship.

As a tertiary source, as I have said, we rely mostly on secondary sources. I don't know, or care, who you are in real life: your blog is not a reliable, secondary source. If and when you publish your work, and if and when that work is reviewed by other scholars in the field and accepted as reliable, then it can be used here as a source - but not before that.

As it stands, it is looking likely that your account is going to be blocked from editing. If you are willing to engage with some constructive criticism about how you are going about editing here, and to listen to a more experienced editor, please reply to this message, and indicate at the ANI discussion that you have done so. That is your best chance to avoid being blocked, in my view. If you are not willing to do so, then good luck in your future endeavours. Girth Summit _(blether) 00:33, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments.

You say your “mission is to summarise what high-quality secondary sources say about any subject.” That is exactly what I am trying to do. I only edit pages dealing with the fourth-century Arian Controversy. Due to research and discoveries, scholars today explain that controversy very differently than 100 years ago. My sources are the books published over the past 50 years by leading scholars. (Simonetti, Hanson, Williams, Ayres, Anatolios)

You say, “if we are reflecting the consensus position of modern scholarship, we are doing our job.” “Once the scholarly position has shifted, so will we” But you are not reflecting the consensus position of modern scholarship. The Wikipedia pages still mostly reflect 19th-century scholarship. For example, the Controversy is named after Arius, who is described as a heretic. But Archbishop Rowan Williams, in a 2002 book on Arius, described him as a conservative and his opponent Alexander as a Sabellian, which was declared a heresy in the third century and still is regarded as such. If that would help you, I would love to make a table of (traditional) statements on your pages compared to what modern scholarship teaches.

You say, “Wikipedia is not the place to start or pursue a campaign to correct scholarship.”I am not trying to correct the scholarship but to present scholarship. The leading 20^th-century scholar on the Arian Controversy, R.P.C. Hanson, wrote that the traditional account of the Arian Controversy is a complete travesty. In my edits, I provide long quotes from modern scholarship to show that I am not presenting my own views.

You say my “blog is not a reliable, secondary source.” I totally agree.

I think it is important that you understand why I am so vehemently opposed. The reason is that the fourth century controversy resulted in the Trinity doctrine, which is the most fundamental and foundational doctrine of the mainstream church. The traditional account of the Controversy had been developed to bolster that doctrine. Rewriting the history of the Arian Controversy threatens that doctrine. The authors I quote are all leading Catholic scholars. They do not need a false account of the Arian Controversy to accept the Trinity doctrine. But tertiary level traditionalists do not have enough understanding to do the same and want to retain the traditional account.

As for me, I am completely independent. I do not belong to a church organization or a group. I have been studying this subject for about three years now on a full-time basis. I do not study the ancient writings themselves but the books written by scholars who made in-depth studies over many years.

Regards AndriesvN (talk) 05:31, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Please also see my response to Liz below. AndriesvN (talk) 08:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't know anything about the controversy itself - I've literally never heard of it (despite being brought up in the Catholic church myself). As such, I am not in a position to judge where the scholarly consensus is at present without doing a lot of reading. However, it has been asserted that you have been citing your own website as a source. That is a huge problem, and. Is always going to lead to problems - why is that necessary if, as you say, you are only reflecting what modern scholars say? Why not stick to those scholars' publications?

I'd urge you to try to engage with what other editors are telling you. As things stand, if you cannot give your editing colleagues some degree of confidence that you understand how we do things here, you are likely to be kicked off this project in the very near future. Girth Summit _(blether) 08:52, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I have a copy of Hanson's lecture 1988 on my site and I sometimes refer to that on Wikipedia pages. Please look at my edits yourself, and you will see that I always quote leading scholars. But I will stop putting in any references to my own site. As you say, I don't need that.

I think another thing you need is to understand that your articles on the Controversy currently deviate significantly from modern scholarship. I plan to read one of you articles and prepare a table showing such differences, with quotes from scholars. AndriesvN (talk) 09:34, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

That will take me a day or two. Could you delay your decision until I have done that? AndriesvN (talk) 09:37, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

It's not my decision. There is an ongoing discussion at ANI (linked to above), and at the moment it's looking like there is a consensus that you be shown the door. Your indication that you will not link to your own website any more is promising - that is a good start, and you would be well advised to head over to that discussion and say that. As for the table, that isn't going to help - these discussions aren't about who is right and who is wrong on the substance of the matter, they are about whether an editor is willing to abide by our policies and guidelines, and to work constructively with others. That's what you need to convince people of. Girth Summit _(blether) 10:16, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

As an aside, I'm going to give you some links to some of our policies and guidelines, which you will need to commit to following. I'm not saying that you have been in breach of them, I haven't read enough of the content you've been adding and the sources you are using to know - I just get the feeling that you are not familiar with them and wanted to draw them to your attention. WP:SPS (a section of the verifiability policy) discusses using personal websites as sources. WP:SYNTH (a section of the no proginal research policy discusses the problems inherent in taking information from multiple sources and drawing conclusions that are not in the sources themselves. WP:SCHOLARSHIP (a section of the reliable sources guideline) goes into how to identify the best sources to use. I note that in your response above, you are referring to a 1988 lecture that you host on your website. I'm not sure how well a lecture by an individual scholar would be received as a source. My partner is an academic historian, who gives lectures to students and to the public. Her lectures are not subject to peer review, and are generally not reviewed at all by any other scholars (except down the pub after the lecture, where they might pick it apart). Her lectures are, essentially, her take on a given matter. That is very different from her journal articles which are reviewed prior to publication, and her scholarly monographs which are peer reviewed prior to publication and also reviewed in journals after they have been published. My gut tells me that a lecture by an individual scholar should likely be given similar weight as an expert self-published source - we exercise caution when using those. Girth Summit _(blether) 10:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

If you want to try to not be topic banned, go to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#AndriesvN and Christian theology articles to state your case. As it is, there is substantial support for you being topic banned from Christian theology. TypistMonkey (talk) 13:08, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks

I think I have done that. Would you do me a favor and check? Perhaps I put it in the wrong place. AndriesvN (talk) 14:56, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

November 2024

Please stop. If you continue to violate Wikipedia's no original research policy by adding your personal analysis or synthesis into articles, you may be blocked from editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:09, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi Liz

Please see my response above to Girth Summit. In brief, the fourth-century Arian Controversy resulted in the Trinity doctrine, the foundational doctrine of the Church. The modern study of the Arian Controversy began less than 200 years ago. At first, by focusing excessively on the writings of the ‘orthodox’ but partisan authors, scholars got it completely wrong. However, particularly in the second half of the 20^th century, much progress has been made, resulting in scholars describing that Controversy very differently. The following are some quotes from leading catholic scholars of the past 50 years:

- “This conventional account of the Controversy, which stems originally from the version given of it by the victorious party, is now recognised by a large number of scholars to be a complete travesty. To see this it is only necessary to read that weighty and magisterial recent work upon the subject, La Crisi Ariana del Qarto Secolo by M. Simonetti, a Roman Catholic scholar whose integrity is as unexceptionable as his orthodoxy.” (Hanson lecture 1988)

- “In his wonderful dramatic prose Pavel Florensky epitomizes a centuries-old account of the Council of Nicaea: in one decision and with one pronouncement the Church identified a term that secured its Trinitarian and Christological beliefs against heresy and established a foundation for subsequent Christian thought. The narrative offered in Chapters 1–10 demonstrates why such older accounts are deeply mistaken.” (Ayres, p11)

- “The modern critical study of the subject really begins with Newman's justly celebrated essay of 1833, The Arians of the Fourth Century” (Rowan Williams, 2002, p2-3)

- “The study of the Arian problem over the last hundred years has been like a long-distance gun trying to hit a target. The first sighting shots are very wide of the mark, but gradually the shells fall nearer and nearer. The diatribes of Gwatkin and of Harnack [published at beginning of the 20th century], can today be completely ignored.” (R.P.C. Hanson, 1987, p. 95-96)

- “Some of these problems and inconsistencies can be explained by the fact that older research depended heavily on Athanasius as its source. The 19th century lionized Athanasius and made his career appear even more glorious than it was.” (Lienhard)

- “Athanasius' works … are written from his point of view. When the controversy is seen from another point of view… a distinctly different picture develops.” (Lienhard, p. 416)

- “If Athanasius’ account does shape our understanding, we risk misconceiving the nature of the fourth-century crisis” (Williams, p234).

- “'Arianism' as a coherent system, founded by a single great figure and sustained by his disciples, is a fantasy, more exactly, a fantasy based on the polemic of Nicene writers, above all Athanasius. (Williams, p82)

- “The accounts of what happened which have come down to us were mostly written by those who belonged to the school of thought which eventually prevailed and have been deeply coloured by that fact. The supporters of this view wanted their readers to think that orthodoxy on the subject under discussion had always existed and that the period was simply a story of the defence of that orthodoxy against heresy and error.” (Hanson, 1987, p. xviii-xix)

- “There has been a quite remarkable amount of new work on Arianism in recent years. … What had seemed clear points of reference faded away alarmingly as my studies advanced.” (Williams, p ix)

- “A great deal of recent work … helped to demolish the notion of Arius and his supporters as deliberate radicals, attacking a time-honoured tradition.” (Williams, p. 21)

- “The four decades since 1960 have produced much revisionary scholarship on the Trinitarian and Christological disputes of the fourth century.” (Lewis Ayres, 2004, p. 2)

- “A vast amount of scholarship over the past thirty years (written in 2004) has offered revisionist accounts of themes and figures from the fourth century” (Ayres, p. 2).

However, the Wikipedia pages on the Arian Controversy are edited not by the world's leading scholars but primarily by people intending to defend the Church. The consensus of modern scholars and the consensus of the church are very different. AndriesvN (talk) 08:26, 1 November 2024 (UTC)