Talk:Spear of Destiny

A Winner of the August 2004 West Dakota Prize

This entry is one of twenty that have won the West Dakota Prize for successfully employing the expression "legend states" in a complete sentence.

Years ago I saw a nice religious T.V.program entitled"The shroud of Turin and the spear of Longines".Has anybody any idea where this film went .Even General Patton had a part in it!!

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This article has now reached 35 KB, perhaps it should be broken? What about spinning off THE SPEAR OF DESTINY IN POPULAR CULTURE as a separate page? --Jerry E. Smith 18:14, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

As always, a condensed version of the spun-off section should remain, with the customary Main article Spear of Destiny in popular culture heading.

As there were no objections after two months, I have made the cut. No material was removed. A concise heading was retained at Spear of Destiny to keep the information integrated. --Wetman 05:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

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Has the spear been forensically tested to determine its vintage? Did Herod, Constantine, Justinian, etc, actually possess the spear in Vienna?

Probably not. The piece is hedged around with believed to bes.... It is mostly superstitious tosh. Herod could have been the owner and Charlemagne was a great collector or reliquaries.... sjc

• one of the objects claimed to be the Spear of Destiny was tested in 2003. I have added info on this throughout the article. Jerry E. Smith

Contradiction on Whereabouts

First it says the Spear has been in the Vatican for the last century, then that it was at Vienna during the Anschluss. Which is it?

There were several alleged spears. Much of the text of this page was taken (without attribution) from my website, which summarizes the history. ArgentLA 23:23, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Obviously the latter is true. The spear had been in the possession of the Habsburg dynasty since the Napoleonic Wars.

• I have extensively added to the LOCATION section showing that there are several Spears, and giving a bit of the history of each. I have a bit more to add on this, regarding the "spear" in Armenia. I moved most of the text out of AUTHENTICITY and put it in LOCATION as the authenticity of each spear needs to be individually established. I haven't otherwise touched the AUTHENTICITY section yet as I am unsure just what to do with it. It needs more on the scientific testing by Dr. Feather. I think it also needs to address the question of the "authenticity" of the existence of "Jesus" and the evidence of whether or not the crucifixion ever actually happened. But perhaps we shouldn't go there. Jerry E. Smith

Get some documentation

Get some titles of documents that describe this object or various predecessors or imitators, and quote them. Even balderdash leaves interesting historical traces. See Shroud of Turin. There are no links to relics here, for a start. Too loose and lazy... Wetman 00:31, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Good point. I have added a few atributed quotes and added the BOOKS to the REFERENCE section as well as the EXTERNAL LINKS section in an effort to correct this. I have a few more quotes and documents I plan to add -- I just need time. Jerry E. Smith

The Hitler Legend

"This legend has recently been shown to be quite false. The spear was not recovered until roughly six months after Hitler's suicide, and Patton never had possession of it."

This would seem to imply that Hitler actually literally had the spear, and that the legend part was the part where it is captured by the US? - Omegatron 22:28, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Yes. Well, of course it doesn't imply Hitler had the spear in his personal possession, but it was in German hands, as the article explains. (If the spear was in Hitler's personal possession, it would arguably not have taken six months to recover it...) JRM · Talk 21:39, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

The role of Hitler in the legend of the Spear, as I've heard it, includes that as a boy he visited the location of the spear (as a child would visit a museum or famous landmark) and at that moment saw a vision of his future self uniting the German people -- which was his consistent public claim during all of his annexing leading up to England's declaration of war. Though, a record of such a "vision" would almost certainly have to be penned by Hitler himself, and would depend on the survival of such primary sources (e.g. Hitler Diaries).

There is some great information on the Spear http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0877285470/qid=1120673341/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-4938421-6107352?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 here].

"Spear of Destiny v. "Holy Lance"

The disreputable aspects of this item are supposed to be treated at Spear of Destiny while the sanctified asp[ects of the very same objet are at Holy Lance? I understand perfectly why there are separate articles, but some justificatory waffle should be presented to Wikipedia's gullible reader, no? Let's see some good blarney, because I am just not the right editor for this. --Wetman 8 July 2005 21:08 (UTC)

Repeated vandalism

Perusing diffs in the history of thids articles show repeated examples of unsubstantiated additions, vandalisms and unexplained deletions of entire sections. Perhaps there is some exceedingly subtle reasoning behind it but please then explain. How, for instance, about the bizarre "..." added at the beginning of the article?

• I hope my attempts to expand this article won't be taken as vandalism. I have been wondering why people delete stuff for months. I added several pages to the HAARP page and within the hour only two sentences of my addition remained. I have tried to only add, leaving as much of what others have writen as I could, removing only a few words or phrases necessary to knit the new and old material together. Much of what was here previously I didn't like or disagreed with, but left feeling it wasn't my place to remove. Jerry E. Smith

Spear in Popular Culture

The Spear of Destiny in popular culture section needs to be trimmed way down. There doesn't need to be a mention of every single book or video game or Japanese cartoon that mentions the spear.--Cuchullain 06:10, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

• I disagree, why reduce content? Is there a rule that Wikipedia pages have to be short? I love all the references! I'd like to see more. Jerry E. Smith
• I also agree with Jerry, the whole point and driving force behind Wikipedia is to provide as much information as possible, as it is an encyclopedia.

Owners of the Spear

You've quoted Trevor Ravenscroft's book, but have you read it? Well, either way, where on earth did you get the information that Kaiser Wilhelm and Napoleon had owned the Spear? First of all, the reason why the Habsburgs came in possession of it in the first place, is because it was moved during the Napoleonic Wars, in order that it should not come under his possession. During this time, its keeper allegedly was bribed by the Habsburgs, and subsequently it was kept in the Schatzkammer at Hofburg. Concerning Kaiser Wilhelm, he attempted to gain an opportunity to steal the Spear, by asking the elderly Austrian emperor to bring the Habsburg relics to display them in Germany. Had it not been for von Moltke warning the Austrian emperor, he would have gone along with this. Either way, there can be no doubt that the Spear never came into possession of neither of these characters, and I cant understand how you have come to this conclusion. However, there are many other interesting historical characters which did possess the Spear. Such as Karl Martel, for example. Anyway.. just thought you should look into this aspect of the article.

• I just started working on this page this weekend. I gather it has been on Wikipedia for several years. I tried not to remove anything that anyone else had written, just writing around the existing text. I knew that neither Kaiser Wilhelm nor Napoleon had possessed the Spear, but it was in the article before I got here. Thanks for giving me an excuse to delete reference to them! Jerry E. Smith

This article is a mess

I added a verify tage because it isn;t enough to simply throw a long list of books (two separate lists in fact, what's up with that?) and fictional references and realllly scary looking looking websites and call them references. The article needs to say who said what about thte legend and/or the separate physical articles when it says it. Talking about Atlantis and Hitler with the spear and how it wsa a story and then supposedly all these various people had it (says who?) and then suddenly out of nowhere we are talking about an actual real life artifact without even doing a basic summary explaining what that's about beforehand, so that these separate topics are all run together in a hodge podge. It needs to start out by giving an overview of the legend, then to explain that apparently some people think they have a real spear, but like many holy relics it's unverifiable and more than one exists... what's the canonicity of this thing in the Catholic church? What do the Protestants think? Clearly spell out what's mainstream and what's wild and wooly occult conspiracy. Clear out some of the ridiculous websites and fiction references (OK, I already did some of that, but it needs a lot more). Come up with an outline and treat it as an English paper if nothing else and rewrite, expand, edit, remove and make it so it wouldn;t get an F as incoherent muddle if it was turned in to a junior high school teacher for a grade. DreamGuy 20:46, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

--DreamGuy, you are right, the article is a mess. I did not read the BE BOLD policy before attempting my rewrite, so did not know that I could just dump the old article and rewrite from scratch -- so I just wrote around what was already there, incorporating previously existing material into my version. I also tried to maintain the original tone, which included words like "superstition." Now I see that was wrong. Unfortunately I am now 2,000 miles from my source materials from when I wrote my book on the Spear, and am too busy writing two books and holding down a job to get back to correcting the errors in this. Feel free to have at it. I'll try to get back to this before summer. -- Jerry E. Smith

erm, a little farfetched?

whats with the ramble about hitler and antarctica? it has to be one of the most riduculous things i've seen about, even if hitler was into the occult Xcomradex 02:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

-- so far at least 4 non-fiction books, scores of newspaper and magazine articles and more than a dozen websites have examimed the Gernam claims to Neuschwabenland and the possibility of the spear having been hidden there, in Antarctica. As ridiculous as it sounds it is now firmly fixed as part of the Spear's legend. As I understand it, this article is not about the validity of the existence of the spear of Longinus, as that is covered separately under the heading of THE HOLY LANCE (which examines the bona fides of the spear in the Vatican, lifted almost completely from the Cathloc Encyclopedia). The article here under THE SPEAR OF DESTINY is then more about the legend, the belief in the spear, than the spear itself. As such all the ludicris nonsense that silly people have believed for the last 2,000 some years about it is legitmate material for inclusion, no? The best evidence is that there never was an historical Jesus ("The Christ Conspiracy: Greatest Stroy Ever Sold" S., Acharya; "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors: Christianity Before Christ" Graves, Kersey, et al), so all of this is fiction, why then draw the line saying one piece of nonsense is more believable than another? Whole bloody thing is "farfetched"! A spear that renders its owner invincible?! A spear that has a Spirit reaching through it to control its owner and through him the world?! The subject of this article is not an archaeological artifact but a belief system. How do you do a "dig" on a concept? I say include all, or nothing. Either say its all a hoax and go get a life, or reveal all the lurid and quirky turnings of the hoax and how the world has bought it for 20 centuries, give or take. People come to this page to learn about that legend, why short change them by saying that some editors of this page some only swallow some much of this nonsense? -- Jerry E. Smith

objective tone

I just want to point out that although the references are dubious, it is not entirely justified to use a contemptuous tone to describe the analysis. While this attitude reflects a respect for verifiable, scientific information, nonetheless it does not reflect a wholly objective attitude. I found the discussion, particularly at the end, with the words "mishmash" and "superstition", reflecting opinion more than fact.

-- Good point. As mentioned above under THIS ARTICLE IS A MESS I did not realize that I could remove material that was in the previous version of the article. The prior author used a comtemptuous tone and I tried to retain it. I was unfamiliar with the editing preferences of this community at the time. Frankly, I wrote this page, then read the policies on how to do it. The previous author called it superstition so I did too. "Mishmash" is a bit of self-depreciation, as I was reviewing my own work, and frankly between two authors who threw out about a dozen ideas as to what the animating force of the Spear might be, if any, we indeed came up with what could best be described as a mishmash. -- Jerry E. Smith

I just want to add a couple of facts that can be easily verified:

1. The "Reichskleinodien" had to be moved out of Napoleon's reach for many reasons. The spear was just one of it. 2. Vienna was "capital" of the German empire for hundreds of years, and of course the insignia ended up there and still stay there. 3. Hitler moved all the insignia to Nuremberg in 1938 for political reasons, and they were returned in 1946. 4. The spear underwent a very close metallurgic examination in the early 1900s, revealing it was ca. 1000 years old (900 AD). 5. When it was returned to Vienna in 1946, it was examined again - just to make sure it was the stuff removed in 1938.

That's it. Sorry, just another spear blade

Dr. Wolfgang J. Schneider wolfgangsoke@yahoo.com

Images?

I've read about the purported spear (or lance or whatever) for years but I've never seen a useful photograph of it. I guess I'm thinking mostly about the one in Vienna, which seems to be the one most accessible to the public. Is there perhaps a photo from Dr. Feather's researches? Could it be used on Wikipedia? --Michael K. Smith 03:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I was surprised when I didn't find an image of the spear head on wikipedia. Are all the images of it under copyright? I could probably find one fairly quickly, but I don't want to risk envoking the wrath of the sacred copyright law. User:ARBlackwood 01:37, 29 May 2006 (CT)

Merge

I didn't add the label, but I am confused... what IS supposed to be the difference between this article and Holy Lance? The heading text seems to indicate that this is supposed to be about the legend and that about the alleged relic; but even so, the legend is about the relic; and in any case about half of this article (the 'Authenticity' and 'Location' sections) is about the relic. The division into 'Spear of Destiny' and 'Holy Lance' seems artificial, as both are simply names for the same thing. Can anyone clearly explain what is happening here? TSP 03:58, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The Merge notice has now been on this article for a week without anyone objecting. Am I to understand that no-one objects to the merge? If not, can someone explain what the difference between the two articles is? TSP 21:13, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I think merging is a good idea. I agree that the seperation of the two articles is somewhat arbitrary. It would seem that the author of the HOLY LANCE page feels that the object in the Vatican IS the Holy Lance and the object in Vienna is not, and so attempted to seperate the two objects with seperate articles. I rather ruined that by bringing out that there are several objects, not just these two, and that they are probably all bogus, including the one in the Vatican. The distinction then is the the HOLY LANCE page is about something "real" and the SPEAR OF DESTINY page is about a "legend." That would work if there really were a single "real" Holy Lance. As it is the object discussed on the HOLY LANCE page is just as legendary as the objects in Vienna, Armenia, Poland and possibly hidden somewhere in Europe. This whole question of validity of the object has multiple hurdles. If Jesus was not an historical person, or if the Crucifixion never took place, of if there was never a Centurion with a Spear then none of the objects could possibly be the real one. Even granting the questionable validity of these three conditions we still have the question of did this Centurion's spear survive to present day and is it somewhere where it can be identified as such. The object in the Vatican is more-or-less permanently hidden from view. the object in Armenia is clearly not a spearhead. the object in Vienna only dates to the 6th or 7th centuries. the object in Poland is a crude copy of the one in Vienna with a sliver of the Vienese object imbedded in it. the Hungarian copy is lost. And there is the wild tale of Himmer's switching the Vienna artifact with a replica and the "real" spear going to Antarctica! No, its all legend. The two articles should be combined into one article dealing with the legend and admitting that there is little or no evidence that any of these objects are "real." -- Jerry E. Smith, co-author of the "SECRETS OF THE HOLY LANCE: The Spear of Destiny in History & Legend." 3/26/06

Please merge. It's all legend. Some legends may actually be true, only we don't know which ones. Singling out one as more true than the others violates WP:NPOV. --Lambiam^Talk 11:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Factual Errors

I have removed the supposed quotation from Einhard's Life of Charlemagne - I read through my Penguin Classics translation of the Vita Caroli Magni and could find no reference to any such spear or lance. Please feel free to reinsert the quotation if it can be cited (chapter and verse) in another source. I should like to read about any documentation that deals with Charlemagne's possession of the relic of the holy lance. --Iacobus 02:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I have also removed the quotation from Eusebius' Life of Constantine. The passage quoted (I, xxxi) does not refer to a relic of the holy lance, but to the new military standard called the labarum that Constantine devised. Although miraculous powers are attributed to it (II, vii-ix, xvi), it is because it incorporated the chi-rho symbol which Constantine had seen in a vision (I, xxviii-xxix). No reference is made to any relic contained in the standard.

(See Eusebius, Life of Constantine, at [1])

In my humble opinion, this article should be removed from Wikipedia unless it is reduced to the indicated subject matter (the legend of the Spear of Destiny), merged as a section of the Holy Lance article, and is properly researched and documented. It probably contains other errors of fact (I have removed two) and does not meet the standards of an encyclopedia article. --Iacobus 06:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Generalities

The following special pleading and generalities have been moved here: "As told in the Holy Bible, a spear was used during the crucifixion of Christ. Because it was the dawn of the sabbath, the legs of those crucified were broken to hasten death, but Christ was dead already. The spear was used by the one called Longinus to pierce Christ's side and from the wound came blood and water. As such weapons were commonly issued to Roman infantry (see: pilum), the contemporary relic known as the Holy Lance is commonly considered to be a different artifact. " All confidently reported as fact, without any reference to the sources. --Wetman 09:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The meaning of mythology

Regarding this edit: [2]: The core meaning of myth is not "a fictional story", but: "a story that has mythical status", that is, it symbolizes or illustrates aspects of a belief system. It comes from Greek muthos, which basically means: "story". Assigning mythical status to a story is done regardless of an assessment as to its potential literal truth. See our article on mythology. If we were to require that, in order to consider a story part of some mythology, it be proved false, well... then nothing could be called mythology. After all, can you prove that Zeus did not really exist, and that Athena did not literally leap forth from Zeus's split skull? --Lambiam^Talk 18:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

entries found for myth.

myth ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mth)

n.

A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology.

A fictitious story, person, or thing: “German artillery superiority on the Western Front was a myth” (Leon Wolff).

Looks like the meaning has morphed overtime as is custom with language to mean other things as well, in this case, "Fiction". H

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.116.191.146 (talk) 01:47, June 29, 2006 (UTC)

The word "myth" as such was not used, only "mythology". Please see the article Mythology, which clearly states: "In common usage, myth often means a falsehood — a story which many believe to be based on fact, but which on closer examination proves fictional. The field of mythology does not use this definition." [my emphasis]. --Lambiam^Talk 06:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Should we merge Holy Lance with Spear of Destiny?

It's been suggested at the top of the page for as long as I can remember that the articles should be merged. I think we should finally agree whether or not the articles should be merged. Put your three ~s in the appropriate line.

Yes:

• ARBlackwood
• Lambiam
• Alexvickers
• Drew1369
• Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 07:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

No:

Comments:

• I think the articles should be merged, but it should be made clear between what the Bible says about its origins and speculations regarding its mysterious powers as an artifact. The Bible only mentions it in one sentence, in which it is an ordinary lance. ARBlackwood 15:16, 05 July 2006.

See also section Merge above. --Lambiam^Talk 20:49, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

• It should be merged, unless the "Spear of Destiny" is restricted to the Ravenscroft book. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 07:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and did the merge. Some of the things I removed from the article are on the talk page. Tocharianne 03:05, 1 January 2007 (UTC)