Talk:The gospel

Gospel

This article needs to be merged with Gospel. In fact there is little new content here that is not in the other article.

Peace be with you.--Zeth 00:04, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

[Support] At present, the article Gospel contains little information on "Gospel" besides the literary genre, specific examples of that genre, and canonical issues. The gospel, as Paul means it in his first letter to Corinthians, is not covered by the article Gospel. If such an article exists (or were to exist) on Wikikpedia, I'd prefer that Good news (religion) redirected there. -Acjelen 00:57, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

[Support] Which is exactly why this article needs to be merged, not redirected. DA3N 16:46, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Gospel is "top" a top priortiy article for wikiproject Christianity. Good news is "low" and should be merged with gospel. This article is very poor in its present condition. If all the WP:OR were trimmed, there would not be much left. -- Secisek (talk) 22:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

How can you possible rate Good news (Christianity) LOW? It really ought to be rate TOP but I can live with HIGH.

Good news is Christianity. --Carlaude ^(talk) 04:38, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Gospel is "top". Good news is "low" and should be merged with gospel. At present, it is a meandering, uncited theological piece. ECUSA is not even rated for Chirstianity - it high for the Anglicanism project and that project alone. I would mark mid or low for Christianity. If you don't like a rating, re-rate it. -- Secisek (talk) 22:22, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Gospel is "about the literary genre exemplified in the first four books of the New Testament". The Gospel as a literary genre is one meaning of the term "gospel" but it is not as important as the Evangelion of Jesus, which is the orginal use of the term "Gospel".

If you think the article is a poor article than reflect that in the rating of quality and not importance.

I am glad you are tring to "avoid stepping on toes" but I came to your page because you changed my rating, as soon as I had done it, without a explanation. --Carlaude ^(talk) 04:13, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

[Support] As for Gospel being "about the literary genre exemplified in the first four books of the New Testament" - the limiting of that article and the existence of this article are violations of Wikipedia:Content forking. The two should be merged. Again, when the long In Acts and Broader context in the Bible narrative are removed there isn't much here. Those two sections consist solely of WP:OR with bible citations (a primary source) to "back" the claims up. -- Secisek (talk) 10:10, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

This "Good news (Christianity)" article is in no way about the literary genre.

The "Gospel" article could be-- but is not-- about the message of Jesus in any way.

There is no content forking. There is really more confussion over how they are different than over them being the same.--Carlaude ^(talk) 14:40, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

If you think this article is so poor, why don't you improve it first, then merge it with Gospel. --Carlaude ^(talk) 14:42, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Why not improve it and then merge it with Law and Gospel, adding it in as section on the Good News?--192.160.64.49 (talk) 01:43, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Jesus, what a mess. Of course this should be merged. There isn't any concept of "gospel" in any religion except Christianity, except to the extent that any religion aims for some converts via a message. — LlywelynII 12:23, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - the message and the books are related, but distinct topics. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 14:05, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

  Closing with no consensus to merge. Kolano123 (talk) 14:53, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

What must be done to make this a valid article, or part of one.

WP:V Whether or not this article is merged, the theology presented in it needs to be sourced to a secondary source (i.e. theologians, textbooks) The Bible is a primary source and the view presented needs to be properly attributed and placed into context.

WP:NPOV As phrased, the article is a pretty good Sunday School lesson. That would be perfect on a Church's website, but violates NPOV here. There is nothing about contrasting views either within or outside of the Christian community. Remember that Wikipedia is not the proper place for advocacy of any sort. Robert A.West (Talk) 01:48, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Reply: Dear Robert,

Thankyou for your comments above. I will work on referencing to secondary sources over the coming weeks, and I will add a little more on contrasting views within and outside of the Christianity. But for now I will just make them a little more prominent, so do stay tuned.

I expanded the article in response to the need, as voiced by Acjelen, above (19 July 2005). It may not be perfect as it stands, but it does fill the above need for such an article, whilst not making any claims that the Christian message of the Good News is true.

The article specifically states that the message of the Good News is specifically a Christian message. It does not claim that the Good News is regarded as true by other religions or by a worldwide majority. In fact, near the end of the article, it states, "As the content of the good news makes claims that Jesus is divine in nature, many people regard it as fictitious, inaccurate or simply irrelevant." It also mentions that some branches of Christianity interpret the good news differently, "In some branches of the Christian church, the good news is interpreted to be simply a message that God loves humanity and wants people to love one another." Nor does the article claim that the theological message itself is true.

The Wikipedia NPOV guidelines, include the following:

"NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints, in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification. Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all (by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority). We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views."

I believe the article does not conflict with these for the following reasons:

1. The article itself fits into the category in the NPOV guidelines above of "an article devoted to those views [of a minority]"

2. Brief mention is made that some branches of Christianity hold a different view.

3. Brief mention is made that many people regard the message as fictitious, inaccurate or simply irrelevant.

4. It does not claim that the Christian Bible's message is true.

Fh1 14:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you in advance for doing the work on the sources.

I think the NPOV problems start with the title --use of Good News in this way characterizes a particular understanding of and approach to the Bible (viz Good News for Modern Man) which means that the assertion that this is believed by Christians vel non is misleading. And I am not even talking about Bishop Spong and his crew. Moreover, it really does sound like the title of a Bible study course: "The Good News -- the grand narrative of salvation," and that doesn't help the impression of NPOV. In contrast, "Biblical Narrative (Christian)" sounds more encyclopedic. I guess what I am saying is that it would be a great title for EvangeWiki, but it seems out of place here.

Another problem is the lengthy unsourced quotation. In addition to being plagiarism (because of the lack of citation) an article that is dominated by one quotation is giving enormous weight to that view, and this is advocacy in effect if not in intention.

Hi Robert. Thanks for your helpful comments. I'm gradually adding a few more links and a bit more on differing views. Actually, that isn't a quotation, it is the article's own summary of the Good News according to the Bible writers. I have simply organized it chronologically according to generally accepted methods of Biblical Theology (it is in italics to set it apart from the rest of the article, hence it looks like a quotation). There is necessarily enormous weight to that view because that is what the article is about: explaining what some of the different parts of the Bible and the different biblical authors teach about the Good News. So I've clarified the title a little. Yes, every Biblical scholar or Christian teacher would do it slightly differently, but there the main points would be similar. Actually, in one sense you've hit the hammer right on the head in suggesting it would be a great title for EvangeWiki, as in its original meaning (before modern connotations relating to tele-evangelists etc), "evangelism" meant simply to explain what the Good News (euangelion/evangelion) is. As the article is about the "Good News", the article _ought_ to be explaining what the Bible authors' teaching of the Good News is. The difference is that here the article is not claiming the Bible writers are correct, or that the Good News is true: it leaves the reader to decide for himself or herself. In fact it would be hard to imagine an article on the Good News that didn't try to explain that! Regards, Fh1 09:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that an article on Christian understanding of the overarching narrative (I think the term metanarrative is both a neologism and a misnomer in this context) of the Bible is worthwhile, and I also wonder if this has not been treated elsewhere in Wikipedia. Robert A.West (Talk) 18:01, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Metanarrative is certainly a neologism; the OED cites it, with a hyphen, from 1976. I dislike what Fowler called bastard formations, but it is unneccesary here: a meta-narrative is one that discusses either itself, or the act of storytelling, which the Christian narrative does not - although it can be made to.

Any single retelling of the Message is necessarily PoV - other Christians would tell it differently. If the single retelling were the Apostle's Creed, for example, it might be defensible as Fh1 defends this, that nearly everyone agrees with it; but the Creed belongs on wikisource, not here. Septentrionalis 20:04, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there is an article on the Apostles' Creed and it includes the Greek text.Robert A.West (Talk) 20:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

OIC. But that is discussing variations of a liturgical text. This isn't. Septentrionalis 21:37, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

What must be done to make this a valid article would be distinguishing it in some way from Religion or from Gospel. Since that hasn't been done over a span of decades, it should be merged back into Gospel. — LlywelynII 12:26, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Meaning and Origin of Greek

This article is missing its an important attribute. That is an explanation of what the original Koine Greek word says in Koine Greek. The article tells us how it is translated which is definitely not the same as telling us what the Koine Greek meant. Here are two relevant examples of what is missing:

Pentecost (Ancient Greek: πεντηκοστή [ἡμέρα], pentekostē [hēmera], "the fiftieth day")

The term "Pentateuch" (Πεντάτευχος, literally "five cases") is a Greek word used to refer to the "Five Books of Moses." The first known use of this term dates to circa 150-175 CE, and it is used by Origen, Athanasius, and Tertullian, among others.

Nick Beeson (talk) 10:32, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Members of the Church of Christ denomination appear to have treated this article as their property... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.177.61.210 (talk) 06:36, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 23:21, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Good News (Christianity) → The gospel – "The gospel" on its own, almost always refers to the subject of this page, but "good news" is pretty rarely used. Per WP:THE, "the" is acceptable here because "the gospel" means something different from "a gospel", which usually refers to particular books. It also serves as a NATURAL disambiguator. "Gospel" should not be capitalized in this usage (see this, this, and this). JFH (talk) 20:37, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Please note the current requested move Gospel → Gospels at Talk:Gospel/Archive 3#Requested move. tahc ^chat 21:54, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

I also prefer to "The Gospel" but "The gospel" is still better than no change. tahc ^chat 00:08, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Besides being contrary to common usage, what justification would you give under MOS:CAPS? --JFH (talk) 02:54, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

• Support but preferably to The Gospel as per a slight preference in printed sources [1]; in my experience as well it is usually treated as a proper noun (and indeed currently is at this article, as well!). Red Slash 00:47, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

In the sources I gave, it's capitalized when it's a particular Gospel but not just the gospel, which is our subject. I think your ngram is probably picking up a lot of the Gospel according tos and Gospel ofs. Here's an attempt at a better ngram. --JFH (talk) 01:06, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, after thinking about it some more I think you're actually right. I no longer prefer the capitalized version and would prefer The gospel. Red Slash 02:11, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment a related move request is occurring at Talk:Gospel/Archive 3#Requested_move -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 03:36, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment. My personal preference would be to move this over the redirect at Evangelium to avoid confusion with Gospel (which I think is correctly titled), or perhaps to use the title Gospel (evangelium) for disambiguation. Between the current title and The gospel I'm on the fence; I don't consider either to be entirely satisfactory. Deor (talk) 16:11, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Yeah, but WP:COMMONNAME would pretty much put the kibosh on that title (Evangelium). And no disambiguation necessary, really. Red Slash 01:49, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
    • Evangelium isn't a disambiguator anyway, because the books are just as much evangelia and the gospel itself. If "the gospel" is too ambiguous I would reccomend Gospel of Jesus Christ. --JFH (talk) 14:00, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support move to The Gospel per WP:COMMONNAME. "Good News" is not the common term in most mainstream churches. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:17, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment, if this gets moved to The Gospel it's going to be an outlier. Capitalization of "gospel" is almost always reserved for particular books, and I don't see any justification in MOS:CAPS for capitalizing here. --JFH (talk) 13:04, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

This Bible verse shows the word is not capitalized by mainstream translations. --JFH (talk) 16:39, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Evangel

Leaving aside the mess from having forked this in the first place and then moving it to such a bad/misformatted title, currently "Evangel" redirects here. Evangel can be the Evangelium, but more often it's the specific separate gospels or, still more often, the saints who wrote them. — LlywelynII 12:32, 3 May 2024 (UTC)