Andy4675
Welcome!
editHello, Andy4675, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
- Introduction and Getting started
- Contributing to Wikipedia
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- How to edit a page and How to develop articles
- How to create your first article
- Simplified Manual of Style
You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.
Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or , and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Haploidavey (talk) 12:59, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Primary and secondary sources as evidence
editHello, Andy4567. I noticed your post at User talk:TimONeill, where you offered various primary sources as evidence for the alleged destruction of the Temple of Artemis at the instigation of St John Chrysostom. It might help you to read through our policies regarding sources, and the generation of Wikipedia article content. In particular, Wikipedia ideally takes a critical but overall neutral point of view regarding disputed material, and doesn't take sides either way. It relies instead on highly regarded, peer-reviewed, well-informed, secondary sources. Primary sources of the period in question tend to repeat, parrot and reinvent each other, a kind of "round robin" of accumulated misinformation. The evaluation and interpretation of primary sources are core to the historical method. Articles should represent what can be established or verified through reliable scholarly sources. By the way, although James Grout (to whose article you linked) is an academic, his work at the university website is not peer-reviewed. He's actually an enthusiastic amateur, not a specialist in the field. He'd be the first to admit that he's not an authority on the subject. I hope this helps. Best wishes. Haploidavey (talk) 13:42, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Hello, mr Haploidavey. I am sorry, but I do not see how the fact that mr James Grout is not a scholar can help. In fact I don't believe it matters in view of what mr TimO'Neill said. Mr TimO'Neill said that he do not know any PRIMARY source that state clearly that John Chrysostom destroyed the place of Artemis temple at Ephesus - he knew only of Proclus statement, which he do not find as a particularly clear evidence. So, I gave him a link to the reference of some more primary sources on this subject.
--Andy4675 (talk) 15:11, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Hello again. In secondary scholarly sources this fact also exists. For example:
"The Ephesians began reconstruction in the city soon after these blows. However, although we know that Artemis’s cult was actively supported both at the site of the Artemision and within the city until about A.D. 401, when her home allegedly was despoiled by John Chrysostom (according to Cyril of Alexandria), the Artemision was not rebuilt after the disaster of 262".
("THE MYSTERIES OF ARTEMIS OF EPHESOS: Cult, Polis, and Change in the Graeco-Roman World", Guy MacLean Rogers, publisher: Yale University Press, 2013)
So, maybe it was not the temple of Artemis that John Chr. destroyed (because it was not rebuilt after 262), but the fact of vandalism he commits is generally accepted by scholars, as far as I can say. At least I do not know scholars who doubts Cyril's mention.
--Andy4675 (talk) 15:02, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
I found also this somewhat dubious article in Greek:
http://ellinikahoaxes.gr/2017/02/25/ephesos-katastrofi-tou-naou-apo-ton-chrisostomo-mythos/
This article insists that we must not trust the XI-th Homily of Cyril of Alexandria because it is "proofed that it belongs to 10th century, not 5th", as one would expect. No mentions of on which proofs and sources the author bases his statement. It is just words of somebody who is not very clear who is he to claim anything without showing the proofs. Another statement of the author, equally without any strong proofs, is that Proclus (who was from Lycia - a place really near Ephesos - and also lived only few decades from the time of John Chrysostom) misunderstood something, and do not write correct things.