Talk:Jesus is Lord

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See Talk:Slogan 'Jesus is Lord'/Delete for an archived discussion about the deletion of this page.

• This entry is something of misnomer. These 'sayings' or 'slogans' are historically called creed. Among these, this one is notably short and ambiguous, one main reason that it was accepted by the ecumenically-oriented WCC. Philip Taron 23:30, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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The term 'lord' applied frequently in Eastern Mediterranean regions to local gods. In a number or Semitic languages the word for lord was ba'al, and prophets in the Hebrew Bible frequently rebuked those who worshipped 'Baal' or 'Baals'.

A particularly famous 'lord' is baal zebub, 'lord of flies'. This has come into English as 'Beelzebub'.

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I'm not sure what the above is about. Is it meant to suggest that calling Jesus "Lord" is somehow blasphemous or otherwise against the Jewish scripture?

If so, good! Please tell us some more about how Jewish people (both laity and theologians) regard the "Jesus is Lord" thing!! --Uncle Ed 00:41, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The stuff about Baal is just wrong. The new testament greek word usually translated 'Lord' in 'Jesus is Lord' is 'kyrios'. In the OT I believe it is usually either 'Adonai' or the name of God himself.

"When the early Christians referred to or confessed Jesus Christ as "Lord" (as occurs scores of times in the New Testament) what did they mean? What was the theological content of this appellation or confession? The root meaning of the Greek term kyrios was "legitimate authority," and this meaning carried into New Testament usage."

http://www.founders.org/FJ06/article1_fr.html

DJ Clayworth 20:22, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Removed references to Evangleicals and Fundamentalists. Most Christians regard Jesus Christ as God. It's a cornerstone of the faith. DJ Clayworth 20:49, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)

In what way is "Jesus is Lord" offensive? DJ Clayworth 13:21, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think it is because in the phrase it is implied that those of all other religions are wrong. BL 13:38, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Bigots find lots of things offensive; I don't know why their opinions deserve to be mentioned in the article. Why don't we go around to every article on a religious topic, ethnic group, country, etc, and write "Some people are horribly offended by this religion/race/country" on it? No...better to delete this article altogether, which is why I just listed it on VfD. If this topic is really central to Christianity, then it deserves a paragraph in Christianity, and if it is even more important than that it deserves a proper article with a proper name, like Christian doctrine of Jesus as Lord. Zero0000

Way to raise the temperature of the discussion, Zero. Seriously though, although I disagree with the tone of the above, the content has merit. Just because someone disagrees with a statement does not make it offensive. Otherwise pretty much any statement could be offensive. In fact calling the statement offensive might itself be offensive, because it implies Christianity is wrong :-) DJ Clayworth 14:30, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

My understanding is that the slogan "Jesus is LORD" affirms that Jesus Christ is identical with the god Yahweh of Judaism. As such it was considered blasphemy by non-Christian Jews at the time St. Paul was writing. This is the sense in which it was "offensive." -- Smerdis of Tlön 01:54, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

And to deny that Jesus is God is also blasphemy from a Christian point of view. Pick any page with religious content and imagine what it would be like if we added "This is considered offensive" every time a statement was made that another religion disagreed with. DJ Clayworth 13:08, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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can we delete this sentence altogether now? No. Good NPOV writing tries to show the different points of view. Kingturtle 02:43, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

True, but showing only the extreme points of view is not good NPOV writing. It is also terrible NPOV writing to use "some people" to express an opinion; each opinion should belong to some identifiable person or group. Far too often on WP, "some people believe" is a code for "I believe", and in many other cases it is mere laziness. The other reason I want to delete the sentence is that everyone with enough brain to find Wikipedia already knows that some people are offended by other peoples religious slogans. It is patronising to our readers to spell out universal everyday knowledge. --Zero 14:35, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The phrase is Christianity's common denominator, all Christians agree to it and anyone who doesn't cannot be a Christian.

How is that an incorrect asumption? BL 08:30, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Some Christians do not agree to it. Kingturtle 21:49, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Which Christians do not? BL 10:54, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I've removed the offending phrase temporarily, not to stifle debate but because what was there at the moment was a mockery. We can put something back if we decide to. DJ Clayworth 13:18, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Now we've decided to keep this, I suggest it goes back to 'Jesus is Lord' rather than 'Slogan:'. It's importance is as a creed rather than a slogan, unless I've misunderstood what Slogan means. DJ Clayworth 17:19, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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I'm restoring my text that Ed Poor removed and put on this page, since no real objection was made to it. I think the fact that the semitic term for lord was frequently used as a name for local gods in the ancient middle east is significant. DJ Clayworth is completely wrong. The terms Adonai and YHWY are names for God in the Old testament; they do not mean 'lord', which was a secular term that was adapted to address gods. 'Kyrios' is Greek for Lord, but the Greek word for God is 'theos'.

                                      -User:66.190.242.110, 8  December, 2003

It was objected to and you did not respond. First why is it necessary or useful in this article? Second is it even correct? Beside how can DJ Clayworth be wrong when he said exactly the same thing that you did -Lord is Greek kyrios in this phrase and the Old Testament used Adonai or the name of God/YHWY instead. No difference here. Your addition seems to imply that the phrase is "Jesus is Lord (Baal)", not as is correct, "Jesus is Lord (kyrios)". Rmhermen 06:42, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

Requested move

Slogan 'Jesus is Lord' → Jesus is Lord – There is no need for "slogan." The expression is sufficient for article title, and is the way Wikipedia articles should be named. For example "Cat" not "Animal cat."

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support per nom. David Kernow 14:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. —Nightstallion (?) 09:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Distinguish Lord from LORD is not balanced

Saying "It is important to distinguish between the statement that Jesus is a Lord or Messiah figure versus stating that Jesus is LORD (all caps), the popular Hebrew euphemism for the tetragrammaton," seems to imply that it is false. However, most Christians are Trinitarians and believe that Jesus is both man and the incarnate God of Israel. Furthermore, the contemporary Greek Old Testament at the time uses the word κύριος for the LORD. The same word is used in the phrase "Jesus is Lord" and most Christians see it as equivalent. -- EmperorBMA|話す 06:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Intolerance towards Christianity

Well, why is this article included for possible deletion? Give us a massive break! If instead of "Jesus," the article would read, "Mohammed is god" or even, "Mickey Mouse is lord," nobody would pay any attention.

On Wikipedia, the notability test is used to decide "whether a topic can have its own article." The test of notability predicates on the idea that "Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable: if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article."

The "Jesus is Lord" article qualifies for "notability" according to the Wiki-analysis elucidated above.

Of course, since it is Christianity, it is capriciously non-tolerated.

--Llosa (talk) 18:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Rewrite

This article has been noted as in urgent need of attention. The following is a proposed rewrite of the lede with indications of possible sections to follow. Some of the material from the present article can be incorporated but much of it is un-sourced and some probably inaccurate or irrelevant.

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The saying "Jesus is Lord" (Greek: Kurios Iesous) is the shortest credal affirmation found in the New Testament and there are several slightly more elaborate variations of it. It serves as a statement of faith for millions of Christians who regard Jesus as both fully man and fully God and is the motto of the the World Council of Churches.

In general use, the term 'lord' was a courtesy title for social superiors, but its root meaning was 'ruler'. Kings everywhere were styled 'Lord' and often considered divine beings so the word acquired a religious significance. When the Old Testament was translated into Greek (see Septuagint), Kurios was used for the divine tetragrammaton JHVH which was no longer read aloud but replaced with adonai a special form of the hebrew adon = 'lord'

For a christian to recognise Jesus as Lord caused problems for society. When in 27 B.C. Octavian received the title of “Augustus” it carried religious overtones, suggesting a special relationship with the world of the gods, symbolised by the cult of the Emperor’s ‘genius’, a veiled form of emperor-worship. To refuse to honor the national gods was unpatriotic and akin to sabotage. By around 150 A.D. provincials had made up their minds that the Christians by refusing to worship the Gods were responsible for all manner of ills such as famine, plague and earthquakes and of practices such as cannibalism and black magic.

J.G. Davies comments that the Christian begins from the confession of Jesus as Lord – Jesus who is sovereign over the individual’s relation to the state, “we must understand the state in the context of the command to love one’s neighbour.” He had earlier quoted from an article on ‘Priests and Socialism in Chile’ written in 1971 by Maruja Echegoyen: “Loving one’s neighbour, which is the first commandment by definition, today means working to destroy the structures that can destroy my neighbour, the people, the poor”.

References

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Jpacobb (talk) 21:46, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

A very good approach, and good references, etc. As you noted this is an important item and hence deserves much better than the current page. I suggest just replacing the current text with what you have, and add other sections later on. That way the flags can come off. Thanks for your attention to this. History2007 (talk) 23:10, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Done Jpacobb (talk) 21:01, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I might change the phrasing to "Jesus Is Lord is the shortest credal affirmation...," as that tends to be closer to standard MOS, but otherwise like it a lot. John Carter (talk) 21:18, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, a significant improvement over what there was. I often think that these key articles are neglected in WikiProject Christianity while peripheral items about specific church buildings get a lot of attention. So this was about time.

I added a a few links to creeds, etc. and those may raise more questions in fact, but that may result in improvements. I liked to Kurios - is that the right way to do it. Some time ago I wrote Kyrios and probably these need to be further clarified, given that you guys may know more about it. As it progresses, I will say more. And we probably need some images etc. to do it justice. History2007 (talk) 17:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

By the way, regarding the mention of Octavian/Augustus and religious overtones, there is a section in the Son_of_God#Imperial_titles about the deliberately confusing use of "divi filius" at that time which may be interesting. I wonder if the two issues relate... History2007 (talk) 17:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks for the information and the image.

With regard to Kyrios/Kurios, both are acceptable. Originally Greek manuscripts were written in capital letters and a capital 'U' was 'Υ', lowercase which came into use rather later was 'υ'. My impression is that academics tend to use 'u' for transliteration (tho' I can think of exceptions) but that the 'y' tended to win out in ecclesiastical and literary writing, possibly to reflect pronunciation as the the Greek 'u' sound slid towards a long 'ee' sound. In Spanish "y" is called 'the Greek i' and pronounced like the 'ee' in 'deed'Jpacobb (talk) 20:44, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok, but two questions please:

• Should the link be Kurios or Kyrios? I am really not sure, but giess 60% in favor of Kyrios.

• Does the image related to divi filius on the coin and the use of that title relate to the discussion here?

Now that the article is in much better shape, I see no need for the tag at the top. I will remove it. The last section needs a minor title change regarding bibliography. You can just add other sections as you see fit. Then the lede needs to expand at the end to include the new items. History2007 (talk) 21:30, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Experimental Formats

I have taken the chance to experiment with format while reworking this article.

1)I am not happy about the layout of the Bible verses in the references section: I'd like something more compact. I want to make them easily available but they overload the paragraphs. Perhaps someone with wiki mark-up ability can find a better solution. The other would be to use standard <ref>--</ref> tags.

2) More important, I have tried to reduce the impact of in-line references which can all to easily overload the page. I have an idea about a template similar to harvcol, but would need a technician to translate it into proper code.

All comments gratefully received.Jpacobb (talk) 16:47, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Personally I do not care about the look as much as the content, given that we are generally so far behind in getting content in good shape. The reference format you have is fine with me, but I have a feeling that some MOS-oriented person may come around and change the all with one of those AWB tools in 3 weeks. So the issue here is that while there are 3 users who can address the content, there are 300 others who deal with format, and go around articles at random and redo them with various tools to fix spelling errors, and make them all look similar to some MOS format which the tool is geared to.

My advice would be never to "get attached to format in Wikipedia" for someone will change it. Good content usually stays in good shape, but there are many, many people who clean things up (often nicely) and change formats. So I can help you with some formatting, but I fear that it may be a prelude to disappointment when someone just runs a tools and changes it all. What I generally do is just use the standard format you see everywhere and accept the fact that in Wikipedia formats change, while content may stay stable. History2007 (talk) 17:12, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Linguistic accuracy

Near the start of the article is this:

In antiquity, in general use, the term 'lord' was a courtesy title for social superiors, but its root meaning was 'ruler'. Kings everywhere were styled 'Lord' and often considered divine beings so the word acquired a religious significance.

There is one major problem with this: "Lord" is an English word, and English in any form did not exist until at least the 8th century, long after the end of the time described as "antiquity". Rather, "Lord" is used to translate various terms in other languages (particularly Greek, but also Hebrew and others) with the same meaning. Hairy Dude (talk) 13:17, 26 August 2015 (UTC) Hairy Dude (talk) 13:17, 26 August 2015 (UTC)