Wikipedia:Peer review/Ebionites/archive1

UberCryxic's suggestions

Several things:

-It needs many more in-line citations. Seven just isn't enough. There are some claims in there that definitely appear sketchy to average readers....like...."Accordingly they dispossessed themselves of all their goods and lived in communistic societies" and "While Ebionites undoubtedly drew their doctrines from ideas circulating in the 1st century CE, Judeo-Christian origins scholar Robert Eisenman argues that they existed as a distinct group from Pauline Christians and Gnostic Christians before the destruction of Jerusalem," among many others.

-Generally speaking, the article needs to be expanded. Right now it is too short.

-The section Ebionite writings should be written in summary style, not lists. Same thing with the Sources section.

-Pictures would also be nice.UberCryxic 23:26, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I agree with you about the summary style. In fact, the sources section was a recent addition, and it should probably be recombined with the writings section. I will recheck the sources of the claims you mentioned. Ovadyah 01:31, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Slrubenstein's suggestions

This is an important article but clearly it needs work. I have three general comments.

1. A definition or account of what the Ebionites believed should be in the first paragraph. Later in the text we find this: "All these Christian sources agree that Ebionites denied the divinity of Jesus, the doctrine of the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and the death of Jesus as an atonement for the Original Sin. Ebionites seemed to have emphasized the humanity of Jesus as the mortal son of Mary and Joseph who became the Messiah as "prophet like Moses" when he was anointed with the "holy spirit" at his baptism. Sources also suggest that Ebionites believed all Jews and Gentiles must observe Mosaic Law; but it must be understood through the Sermon on the Mount's expounding of the Law by Jesus." I think an abbreviated version of this should be the second sentence. I am not sure that the vows of poverty needs to be in the first paragraph.
2. I think this article needs to be conceived as one of a series of articles on non-Pauline early Christianity e.g. along with the so-called gnostics, Nazarenes, etc. So I suggest an overview article on 2nd century Christianity i.e. Christianity before Pauline Christianity emerged as the clear dominant form of Christianity (I am no expert, I know the Council of Jerusalem is important and the Nicean councils would provide an outer limit, or whenever most people agree the NT was effectively canonized). Such an article would provide a brief description of each variant of Christianity, and I would encourage editors to coordinate their work on developing corresponding articles for each movement (like Ebionites) so that each one has a similar organization, they are all linked to one another, and a clear portrait of heterogeneous and heterodox early Christianity emerges. I think the priority should be to help readers imagine a time when Christians just did not take the current NT canon, or Pauline theology, for granted. An umbrella article can explain what the basis of heterodoxy were (as a non-expert I propose three: (1) the fact that Judaism too was in flux and it was some time before the Mishnah was widely accepted as authoritative - as long as Judaism was in such flux the relationship between judaism and Christianity would likely be in flux too; (2) Roman persecution made it difficult for Christians to organize and institutionalize; (3) certain teachings of, or uncertain facts about the life of, Jesus invited a wide variety of interpretations. But really, the question is what do professional historians say?), and the second priority should be to show how all of these movements taken together reveal something about what it was like to live in 2nd century Roman Empire as a "follower" (however defined) of Jesus, in a way that no single article about a single form of Christianity can show.
3. I know one problem with the discussion of most early non-Pauline is that the primary sources were written by opponents of these movements. I think every article in this series therefore should have three components (1) a summary of what people like Irenaeus and Tertullian wrote about the movement, (2) a discussion of how historians have used these texts to better understand the early Catholic Church - i.e. make the point that before interpreting what these sources reveal about groups like the Ebionites, historians first try to figure out what they reveal about early Catholic orthodoxy and struggles among early Christians (e.g. Elaine Pagels argues that one thing that made the Gnostic Gospels so threatening to Irenaeus and others was not just the theological claims about Jesus, but the threat to the authority of the bishops which is what early Church fathers were struggling to establish), (3) finally a more detailed presentations of how historians have tried to reconstuct what the Ebionites (and other groups) really believed and practiced, and why. One strength of this article is that it names major scholars researching this area. The problem is these scholars are named in the second paragraph. I think the introduction is too early to name specific scholars (instead, the second paragraph should just summarize what it is these scholars are asking or arguing over). The good news is that this list provides a starting point for a more detailed section that really draws on these sources to spell out (a) what they all agree about (b) what most agree about and (c) what many of them are still arguing about or unsure of.

Anyway, this is my suggested plan for how to go about turning this article from an interesting almost-stuf, to a very good or great article. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I think a summary of the early church fathers would help. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Hippolytus are writing about Ebionites within 50 years of each other, so we could describe Ebionites of the second century vs. the fourth century. The problem of what distinguishes an Ebionite from a Jewish Christian is contentious. A more detailed presentation of how various scholars have tried to reconstruct the Ebionites is in order. Ovadyah 01:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)