Wikipedia Theology: Reader Beware

What if you discovered that your doctor, dentist, or orthopedic surgeon graduated from an institution that chose textbooks that could be edited by anyone in the world at any moment?

What if I could go in and change the recipes at your favorite restaurant any time I wanted to?

What if anyone in the world could meddle with the interest rates at your bank at any moment?

Would you trust your family’s health with the doctors from those schools?

Would you eat the food at that restaurant again?

Would you keep your money in that bank?

I wouldn’t.

Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Why trust it? I don’t.

Once upon a time, I myself donned the mantle of ‘Corrector of Wikipedia Errors’. I changed the word ‘fundamentalist’ to ‘conservative’ on a particular page. It was changed back within the hour.

Anyone, (i.e. anyone) can 1) edit Wikipedia pages and 2) receive notices when pages have been edited. Is it possible that some people might even be paid to monitor them? According to investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, special interest groups do, in fact, ensure that certain pages are watched and ‘corrected’.  People who try to correct information on those wikipedia pages will find the article changed back to false, misleading information within seconds.

Wikipedia’s articles on religion have been a battle ground that isn’t worth fighting.

Therefore, I do not recommend using Wikipedia to find information on the authorship and dating of the Gospels. Period.

Consider the entry on the Gospel of Luke. It says what I had read & believed for most of my academic life, that is, that Luke is anonymous, and it was written after 80 A.D., after a long oral tradition. Yes, that’s what the commentaries on my bookshelf said, and, until I started really researching the subject, that’s all I knew to believe.

screen-shot-2017-03-02-at-10-05-47-am

Wikipedia: “According to Church tradition this was Luke the Evangelist, …. but while this view is still occasionally put forward, the scholarly consensus emphasises the many contradictions between Acts and the authentic Pauline letters. The most probable date for its composition is around 80-100 AD…..”

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