Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bible/Archive 6

For those who are interested, there is a proposal to move Genesis creation narrative to Genesis creation myth. See Talk:Genesis_creation_narrative#Requested_move_22_January_2016. First Light (talk) 15:49, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Heavenly host

Heavenly host (Hebrew: צבאות‎ sabaoth, "armies") may refer to the army of Canaanite gods in the original, polytheistic religion of Canaan, Israel, and Judea or an army (Luke 2:13) of angels in the monotheistic Jewish religion that developed in the post-exilic period.

Heavenly host

Heavenly host (Hebrew: צבאות‎ sabaoth, "armies") can refer to angelic armies ^[1] or symbolically to the celestial bodies of the universe ^[2].

[Comments: That the original religion of "Israel" and "Judea" was polytheistic is an inaccurate formulation and an inaccurate statement. "Canaan" is a geographical location. "Israel" refers to the descendants of Jacob. "Judea" refers to a later geographical location. That monotheistic Jewish religion did not develop until the post-exilic period is contrary to overwhelming evidence.] 213.219.143.94 (talk) 16:49, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Good evening to everyone. I have just proposed the creation of a WikiProject Translation studies. Bible translation has long been a subfield of translation with paramount importance, so I think it would be interesting to consider the proposal. If you are interested, please, sign here. Regards, --Fadesga (talk) 02:06, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Hey, I was wondering if anyone could help me find a list of articles that are currently of a very low standard but that are "important" enough that a lot of reliable sources I already have access to (the Jewish Study Bible, the Bart Ehrman bibliography -- including the scholarly ones and ones for undergraduate students -- and the like) probably cover in enough to detail for me to write about them. I checked the list of Start- and C-class articles, but most of them seem to be on obscure minutiae that I could research, but...

Given the amount of dubously sourced material I've seen in prominent places like our Peter article('s lead!), I was wondering if anyone could tell me if we keep some kind of list of problem articles on prominent topics?

Or, better yet, some list of things that need to be done, or disputes that could use more input?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:45, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: Of Psalm articles, only one (Psalm 23) is B-class, two (Psalm 1, Psalm 45) are C-class, and the rest are Start, or worse. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:33, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: I once tried to come up with a standard format for Psalm articles: sandbox. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 08:22, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Well, yeah, but combined with what you said in the section below the standard format requires quoting out-of-date and potentially problematic translations... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:57, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm not very knowledgeable in the topic, but KJV comes up often enough. It's also one of the most popular Bible editions even today. I note that WikiProject Bible has no guideline whatsoever on what is the preferred edition to use for quotations. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 10:04, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

The KJV is "one of the worst study bibles [even if it is] a great classic of English literature" (Ehrman) and "too old" and "contains too many errors" to be allowed for use in a university course on the NT (Martin). That's a Yale professor and the guy who wrote the most widely-used undergrad NT studies textbook in North America. Another Yale professor (Christine Hayes -- more relevant to the current discussion because she is a specialist in the Hebrew Bible) dislikes using even the RSV because the JPS translations are "more accurate". I myself am not a specialist, so I don't know as yet where these problems are most concentrated, or even if the problem is relevant to Psalms at all, but I don't think we should be relying on problematic translations just because they are great classics of English literature or are popular among some Protestant groups (though certainly not Jewish or Roman Catholic groups). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:02, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Everything you say is perfectly reasonable. Which makes what I said above all the more astounding: "WikiProject Bible has no guideline whatsoever on what is the preferred edition". Personally I associate psalms with KJV based on Anglican chant of psalms. Since this is a woefully specific association, I wish there was a guideline to turn to for an unbiased position, but this project has none. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:00, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm not so much concerned with whether a translation has sectarian associations. They all do, and the one I would prefer to use is very explicitly Jewish. My defense is that I am not and never have been Jewish myself, but I have heard from reliable sources (16:14~16:30) that this is a more accurate translation than the one I grew up with (Douay-Rheims) and the one virtually everyone else in the English-speaking world grew up with (KJV). To be fair, the instance I just linked is the one time in the course where Hayes quotes from the RSV, because it will be more familiar to her (American? Christian?) students than "the more accurate translations of the Jewish Publication Society". (Note that even though the lecture was given with the intention of distributing it for free on YouTube, no concern seems to have been had for the copyright status of individual psalms in a modern translation.) Frankly I find it quite bizarre that the Bible WikiProject explicitly allows use of old, inaccurate translations. I can understand that explicitly requiring or banning the use of one translation or another has the potential to be abused by editors with sectarian views, but this also means that every time we want to remove a quotation from a problematically translated portion of, say, the KJV, we need either 100% talk page agreement or a source that specifically says that material was inaccurately translated, even though we have dozens of sources that say the KJV is not reliable if we want to know what the original text said in general. I think a reader of our article on this psalm or that wants to know what the top scholars are saying about what was meant by the Hebrew original, as well as how it has traditionally been interpreted in Anglican Communion and some other English-speaking Protestant denominations. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:43, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

In lieu of a better standard "the one virtually everyone ... in the English-speaking world grew up with (KJV)" sounds like a relevant one. If points are made on other meanings of the text, other translations can be used. The same goes for commenting possible translation errors. But for the purpose of generally introducing and identifying a text, the most identifiable should be used. As already covered in the discussion below, KJV has the additional benefit of eliminating any copyright concerns. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 09:46, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

The best thing I can think of is to consult the various extant print or now e-book versions of the better reference works, like the Anchor Bible Dictionary, Eerdman's Dictionary, etc., and see what topics they cover, either as stand-alone articles or as separately named subarticles, at basically "significant" length, which I think tends to be 1/2 or 3 paragraphs or longer. The list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible/Prospectus lists a few works, and there are others I am working on for inclusion there. The ABD unfortunately is going to be a huge one, just with the articles of 2 or more pages and their subarticles, which is all I've done to date, and that only through the first four volumes. But, in general, the longer the article in one of those sources, the more significant it is, regardless of the importance ranking we might have given here. Personally, I would include every article in one of the shorter encyclopedias on the topic as being of "Top" importance, based on their being included as articles in relevant print sources, but that is of course just my opinion. John Carter (talk) 19:09, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

There's a dispute at Talk:Lord's Prayer about a specific Greek word and its appropriate translation(s). Some additional community input could help. Huon (talk) 20:47, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

I have myself a recent edition of the NT which includes six different, copyrighted, versions of the NT in it. I have seen it said here elsewhere that many of the existing copyrights aren't for the purposes of making money, but to prevent misuse of the copyrighted material. In fact, I have reason to believe many of the copyright holders are more than willing to allow use under reasonable circumstances.

It might be possible to somehow get together at least as a starting point several of the out of copyright editions and/or paraphrases on, say, wikisource, preperatory to creating, maybe on wikibooks, a possibly collapsible multi-column parallel Bible for all the PD Bible versions. An individual reader could, presumably, choose which columns to not collapse for parallel study purposes. If the WMF might be interested in maybe creating or helping develop some other site which might include copyrighted material which the foundation is allowed to reproduce, that might be capable of hosting the more current copyrighted ones.

Such a similar arrangement might also be workable for other language editions, and, maybe, depending on whether the texts of ancient manuscripts recently discovered is potentially copyrighted by others, the original texts of some of the older manuscripts on which translations are based. Anyway, any opinions? John Carter (talk) 14:48, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

For purposes of clarification, I guess I should say that a "parallel" Bible like that I indicated above is one that includes multiple versions of the Bible in one book, with each version being printed in one column of the book in parallel to the others. We do have a page at wikisource:Wikisource:WikiProject Bible indicating all the English versions known of and potentially available for such an effort. If anyone wanted to go through the list there, and make sure that any works listed as available at Internet Archive or elsewhere are maybe available at wikimedia commons, that might help a lot. It might help even more if someone were able to figure out how to create the appropriate "Index" pages at wikisource, something I still have some trouble with, to make completion of the works easier there. I may well prove to be very generous in barnstars for anyone who might do so. John Carter (talk) 15:38, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I think I brought this up before, but for articles like Psalm 12 where we quote the entire text, is there a reason we quote the KJV? Is it because of copyright concerns that we don't quote more modern translations like NRSV or the JSB?

I brought the copyright concern up in my Japanese poetry editing days and was ignored, so I still don't know whether it's okay to quote entire translations of short poems whose original texts are not copyrighted but whose English translations are...

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:49, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

More to the point, is there any reason to quote the entire psalm? Wikipedia is not a repository of source material. StAnselm (talk) 00:37, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

If it's only a few verses long and it's far outweighed by encyclopedic coverage, I don't see the problem. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:40, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

To elaborate, in theory I see these articles as similar to the work I did on the Ariwara no Narihira article, where encyclopedic discussion was the focus but we can't realistically do that without quoting the text. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:58, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: It's not okay to quote an entire translation of a short poem whose translation is copyrighted, contingent on the fact that it's long enough to constitute a work in the copyright sense. Even the shortest of the psalms is certainly a work. In contrast, if there was a "poem" that consisted of only four words, it wouldn't count as a work. All psalms, of course, are longer than that.

@StAnselm: I agree with Hijiri 88; quoting the entire text of a short text makes encyclopedic sense. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 08:19, 4 March 2016 (UTC) (modified by 15:06, 4 March 2016 (UTC))

But in the example given (Psalm 12), it's certainly not "outweighed by encyclopedic coverage". StAnselm (talk) 09:09, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

@StAnselm: But if it were on any subject other than a biblical psalm it might have been speedied as a poorly-written stub that didn't clearly establish notability. It will contain an overwhelming amount of encyclopedic coverage some day, hopefully sooner rather than later.

@Finnusertop: What do you mean by a "poem" of four words? All of the poems quoted in the above article are complete works regularly treated as such in the literature, but the translations were given as part of a literary and historical analysis in a much larger work. And surely fair use comes into play if we are selectively quoting a portion of text in an article on that text. (I don't actually know. It's just a guess.)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:10, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Rephrased. On fair use and quotations, see: WP:NFC#Text and WP:NFCC#Policy (the paragraph before the criteria). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:06, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

See, I would think that individual psalms from modern translations already are "brief quotations of copyrighted text". The New Jewish Publication Society of America Tanakh has as far as I know never been marketed as anything other than the New Jewish Publication Society of America Tanakh, and was translated by a single committee; individual psalms make up only a tiny portion of this copyrighted text, and they were not translated by entities other than the same committee that translated the entire text. Therefore, while from a textual-critical point of view the psalms are separate texts that were later incorporated into the bible, for copyright purposes I don't think each of them counts as an entire text that cannot be used under fair use. But I don't think we can form a consensus on that point here, unless we all happened to agree and didn't tell anyone. Should I take this point to WP:CQ? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:20, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I think individual psalms constitute works. The Bible is compendium work that holds many individual works. You can ask at WP:CQ, but it's not a terribly active or expert forum (we mostly get "can I use this image I found on a random blog?" type of questions). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:42, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

But we are not talking about whether the Bible is a compendium work, or even whether the New Jewish Publication Society of America Tanakh or the original Hebrew Book of Psalms are compendium works. We are talking about whether recent translations of individual psalms, which the translators have never put into publication outside the context of a translation of the entire Bible, count as unique copyrighted works, and then, if the answer is "yes", whether we are not allowed to quote them in their entirety on Wikipedia under fair use. I think a fair test is to see if reliable sources such as universities have distributed, free of charge, material in which these translations are quoted in their entirety and the copyright owners are not thanked for granting permission to do so. Christine Hayes' Introduction to the Old Testament is (or was at some point) the most widely viewed of all of Yale's free online lecture series, so I think if there were serious copyright concerns with one of the videos we could quite easily find out about it. (With Psalms, she quotes the also non-free RSV, but the point works the same.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:33, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

I would vociferously oppose use of modern copyrighted translations. The Bible has plenty of time-honored public domain translations that can be used if we should decide to include psalms verbatim. However, it has been claimed on Talk:Psalms#Psalm texts and Talk:Psalm 23#Drop text that there was consensus (six years ago) to drop the full-text from all articles on individual psalms (e.g. Psalm 23 did not have the text for a long time. Then someone added a horrible and unattributed translation. In my attempt to remove it, I was met with resistance and an alleged consensus against removing it.) So we need to hammer this out. Is there consensus to include or exclude Psalm texts from the individual articles, and if there is not consensus to exclude, which public domain translations will we be using? Elizium23 (talk) 02:12, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Would someone please look at the latest edits on Lord's Prayer and at the discussion at Talk:Lord's Prayer#"Daily". There is nothing more I can do. Theodoxa (talk) 20:52, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

I see now, too late, that Huon, to whom I am grateful, has already drawn attention to the problem. Theodoxa (talk) 20:54, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

G

The problem persists, also on Matthew 6:11. I hope that in Talk:Matthew 6:11 SimonP has better success than I had. Theodoxa (talk) 19:34, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Several hundred people have looked at the edits and found them to have merit. That may be because they know what 'original research' (which is the pox that Theodoxa is trying without success to create here, without stating as much) really is. I've used only secondary sources in the good number of cites provided. There is no reasonable correspondence between epiousios and daily...and that is just a fact...but nonetheless I have referenced it time and again, and without disrespect, as being part of tradition. And while SimonP has been drawn in, he states clearly and consistently that he does not have a mastery of the topic. Perhaps much like Theodoxa, he is operating mainly on emotion, which is not a basis for editing. Seek the Truth. --2602:306:BC24:8C00:85D7:3570:8067:DC2F (talk) 19:16, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

- - -

To conclude this particular topic, Theodoxa was found to be a blocked editor that was employing a sockpuppet to edit Wikipedia. He/she is now indefinitely blocked (again). For clarity's sake, I absolutely take no particular joy from this turn of events, but at the same time I didn't want to leave this topic just hanging. For anyone interested, SimonP's edits to Epiousios, while wildly uninformed and badly constructed in every way (grammatically, syntax, spelling, punctuation, use of vague references, pushing POV, etc.), were backed up by a vandal-seeking robot. This subsequently resulted in a great deal of re-work which has a very dubious outcome in terms of merit. While Wikipedia seems to have gotten this whole vandal thing down, it doesn't really have a recourse for preventing bad editors who are not subject-matter experts but nonetheless cause a great deal of work for other editors. All-in-all...a tremendous waste of time, and entirely Wikipedia's fault for not stopping such nonsense at the outset. --2602:306:BC24:8C00:7C9E:3940:E204:4980 (talk) 19:50, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

See Talk:Antisemitism and the New Testament#Move to Antisemitism in early Christian literature?. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:05, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

There is an edit warrior active on Saint Peter. Please keep an eye on his changes. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:21, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

The ANE list received this from Russell Gmirkin

Routledge Press (New York–London) has now officially released my new book for publication, Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible, as part of the Copenhagen International Seminar series. Its abstract reads as follows:

Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible compares the ancient law collections of the Ancient Near East, the Greeks and the Pentateuch to determine the legal antecedents for the biblical laws. Constitutional features in biblical law are shown to contain striking agreement with those found at Athens and described in Plato’s Laws of ca. 350 BCE. Similarly, biblical statutes contain many striking parallels with Athenian laws, and specifically with those found in Plato’s Laws. The literary structure and legal force of biblical law collections are also shown to correspond closely with Greek rather than Ancient Near Eastern law collections. The Pentateuchal presentation of legal content within a narrative context is also found in a variety of Greek literary forms, especially Greek foundation stories, which closely conform in outline to the biblical story of the exodus, wilderness wanderings, and conquest of the Promised land under Moses and Joshua. The legal and narrative content of the Pentateuch thus reflect substantial Greek influences, especially from Plato’s Laws. Finally, this book argues that the creation of the Hebrew Bible took place according to the program for creating a national ethical literature found in Plato's Laws, reinforcing the importance of this specific text to the authors of the Torah and Hebrew Bible in the early Hellenistic Era.

Although the book concludes that the Hebrew Bible is largely a product of Greek legal and literary influences in the early Hellenistic Era, readers on this list may find much of interest that is relevant to Ancient Near Eastern studies, highlighted below.

Chapter 1 (Introduction) argues that, since the first external evidence for the Hebrew Bible appears in the Hellenistic Era, it is appropriate to take both Greek and Ancient Near Eastern laws fully into account in seeking to identify the antecedents for biblical legal materials.

Although Chapter 2 (Athenian and Pentateuchal Legal Institutions) is primarily concerned with extensive parallels between Greek constitutions and Pentateuchal governmental institutions and other sometimes explicitly constitutional content, it has an important discussion on the complete absence of the genre of constitutional law in the Ancient Near East down to the end of the Persian Era.

Chapter 3 (Biblical, Ancient Near Eastern and Greek Laws) contains the first systematic comparison of biblical, Greek and Ancient Near Eastern laws, including laws on homicide, assault, theft, marriage, inheritance, sexual offenses, slavery, economic relief, livestock, property crimes, commerce, the military, magic, treason, religion, and ethics. While a few Pentateuchal laws derive from Old Babylonian and Assyrian collections, many have striking parallels with Greek and Athenian laws, and especially with Plato’s Laws.

Chapter 4 (Greek and Ancient Near Eastern Law Collections) compares Ancient Near Eastern, Greek and biblical law collections as literary forms. It is shown that the biblical law collections correspond to Greek law collections rather than either Ancient Near Eastern law collections or the Vassal Treaty of Esarhaddon with respect to sources, purpose, framing structure, divine promulgation, public recitation, ratification, educational utility and prescriptive force.

Chapter 5 (Greek and Biblical Legal Narratives) discusses the integration of legal content with narrative found in both the Pentateuch and Greek writings, but not in the Ancient Near East.

Chapter 6 (The Creation of the Hebrew Bible) argues that the closest comparison to the Hebrew Bible is the approved ethical national literature proposed in Plato’s Laws of ca. 350 bce, and that both the Torah and the earliest Hebrew Bible were created in ca. 270 bce in accordance with the literary program laid out in Plato’s Laws. The model of literary production by educated elites under governmental sponsorship, direction and authorization as found in Plato’s Laws contrasts with the usual Ancient Near Eastern model of the organic growth of the Hebrew Bible in palace, temple and hypothetical prophetic scribal circles. The upshot is that the Torah and Hebrew Bible are substantially Greek in their conception and major literary influences, a conclusion that is likely to impact Ancient Near Eastern studies in the future vis a vis the biblical text.

A separate abstract for each chapter may be found at http://russellgmirkin.com/newest-plato-book, and Chapter 1 may be found either online on the Routledge site or downloadable (with permission from Routledge) at my page on Academia.edu.

Doug Weller talk 16:22, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello! I looked at this article today, and the lead had changed considerably since I last saw it, so I changed it back to an earlier version . The lead stated a lot of things it shouldn´t in WP:s voice, and in my opinion articles like these should generally have leads more like David. If there is someone who knows the subject better than I do (wouldn´t take much), please check the article and see what you think. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:39, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Greetings WikiProject Bible/Archive 6 Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

• Fix and improve Mr.Z-bot's popular pages report

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

Further, there are over 260 proposals in all to review and vote for, across many aspects of wikis.

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 17:54, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

A change to Template:Bibleverse is being proposed. Please comment at Template talk:Bibleverse#Replacing the tool with a Lua module. --JFH (talk) 01:52, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Greetings! I have recently relisted a requested move discussion at Talk:General epistles#Requested move 24 December 2016, regarding a page relating to this WikiProject. Discussion and opinions are invited. Thanks, JudgeRM (talk to me) 20:51, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

On the main page for WikiProject Bible , there's a chart of "Article Assessments," which I've been using in order to find articles that need work. Recently, I started working on some stubs, specifically stub articles of "mid" importance. When I click on the relevant part of the chart, I go to this page , which contains a list of mid-class importance articles that are (allegedly) stubs. However, "Battle of Siddim," a large article, is still listed as a stub. Am I misunderstanding something here, or is it wrongly on the list? And if it is wrongly on the list of stubs, is there some way I can remove it myself, or do I need to get ahold of an administrator? Alephb (talk) 01:28, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

The bot which generates the list runs regularly, but there can be a lag in the results showing there I think. John Carter (talk) 16:35, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Ah, OK. If the bots are handling it, I won't worry about it. There's enough work for us humans to do anyhow. Thanks! Alephb (talk) 00:45, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Why doesn't this exist? Anyone up for remedying that? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:50, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Why should it? What does MOS:BIBLE refer to?Alephb (talk) 11:59, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

We have hundreds of articles on biblical topics. Probably more than on Muslim topics or LDS topics. Biblical topics also have several characteristic style problems, and Wikipedia has norms for addressing these problems that are not apparently formalized anywhere at present. See the examples I mentioned here (which could actually have been just about any of our articles on biblical topics). And like I mentioned there, it would be nice to have a specific MOS page that could be cited to justify our articles on biblical topics technically all being in violation of other MOS pages that were apparently written without biblical topics in mind. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:16, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I think that making any sort of MOS for this specific a field is probably less than productive. There are a number of other works, many of them religious in a sense, which have many if not most of the same problems of different translations, different historical versions, etc. A broader MOS on all such works, maybe, but maybe not on exclusively the Bible. John Carter (talk) 15:30, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

@John Carter: Could you give a few examples of other works, many of them religious in a sense that don't already have MOS pages covering them? Of the major religious traditions that were recognized as "world religions" when I first heard the term in the 90s, Islam has its own MOS page, Hinduism and its texts are covered under MOS:INDIA, Buddhism and its texts are covered under MOS:INDIA, MOS:CHINA, MOS:KOREA and MOS:JAPAN. Jainism and Sikhism are also covered under MOS:INDIA, and Confucianism and Taoism are covered under MOS:CHINA (and to a much lesser extent MOS:KOREA and MOS:JAPAN). Judaism and Christianity are the only ones not specifically covered by any current MOS page. I would suggest a Judaism MOS page (since most of the pages that concern me are not related to the NT and there are a lot of articles on Christian topics that don't fall under "bible") but someone would then probably try to claim that articles on Second Temple Jewish texts are not covered under "Judaism" as opposed to "Christianity" because the texts are not canonical for rabbinic Judaism but are canonical for various Christian groups. "MOS:BIBLE" catches all of these (except for the aforementioned NT apocrypha, which probably should be covered by such an MOS anyway and this could be clarified therein). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:26, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Homer's Odyssey comes to mind almost instantly, along with many other Egyptian, Greco-Roman, maybe Zoroastrian, Norse, and other stories. John Carter (talk) 01:33, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

So ... you think it would be better to make MOS:Ancient texts? The examples you give don't have an awful lot else in common (although actually Norse would be more "medieval" than "ancient" -- MOS:Pre-modern texts?), and such a page would also have a lot more overlap with the aforementioned MOS pages than would my proposal. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:21, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

First, I think the works I mentioned are possibly/probably all relevant to one or more neopagan groups, which basically puts them at the same, basic, level as the Bible itself, and, if anything, there might be even more problems with some of them than with the various Biblical texts, broadly construed. That being the case, I would think that maybe the better way to go would be to establish MOS of some sort for the various relevant groups in question, including their texts, rather than single out one text for special consideration. This is particularly true given the wide diversity of opinion among even just modern Christian groups about the Bible, about which more is said elsewhere below. John Carter (talk) 20:21, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

MOS:BIBLE would belong in Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style (religion).

—Wavelength (talk) 01:46, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

We absolutely should not create a topic specific MOS to legitimize styles that are "in violation of other MOS pages". Rather, we should follow those existing MOS pages. (That being said, we could still use a MOS:BIBLE to provide guidance on those things for which existing MOS pages give options, or give no instructions). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:51, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

One of the great disadvantages of a possibly overspecific MOS as this might be would be the fact that I think it would be unlikely to necessarily take into account all the possible matters with which it would reasonably have to deal. The Mormons, for instance, have broadly approved the King James Version as their "official" text (with some amendments, I guess, from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible), and the Jehovah's Witnesses have their own New World Translation which is their "official" version, which would, presumably, be important in considering what quotes to use regarding content relating to either of those groups and the Bible. Those are just two such instances I know of - there are very likely several more amid the 20,000 or so Christian denominations that are said to exist. There are also questions regarding texts of the Ethiopian extended Bible, some of which haven't yet necessarily even been translated into readily available English versions yet. I have no doubt that there may well be some smallish Christian groups in the non-English speaking world who use "official" texts which do not particularly closely resemble any English language texts, which would probably increase the problems even more. Personally, I would think any such MOS on the Bible if it were to be functional would have to be subordinate to that of any Christian or Jewish groups, and on that basis I have to wonder at the utility of it at this time. John Carter (talk) 16:16, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Dear WikiProject Bible, this is the published version of the Genesis from 2016 1 (amazon.com), first book of the BHC (Biblia Hebraica Quinta) by Avraham Tal from Tel-Aviv. I would like to ask that this is version of the Genesis have accurate translation all Hebrew words? E.g. this is the Genesis from the Leningrad Codex: professional and useful translation. Avraham Tal's Genesis (2016) have this professional translation for the Hebrew words? Doncsecz^talk 14:40, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

@Doncsecz~enwiki: You're referring to Biblia Hebraica Quinta. It is not a translation, but an edition of the Hebrew text based on multiple manuscripts and up to date scholarship. – Fayenatic London 17:01, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but this edition just translated the Hebrew words, as this digital edition of the Leningrad codex? Genesis Doncsecz^talk 17:07, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh yeah that's an awful interlinear. The transliteration is, to an incredible degree, just wrong over and over. The translation is also garbled on a regular basis. This is nowhere near what the academic community would consider a reliable source. Whoever made it is a very eccentric person.Alephb (talk) 02:11, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

@Alephb: And what is the content of the Avraham Tal's Genesis? Doncsecz^talk 07:58, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Avraham Tal published a fascicle of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta, which contains a Hebrew text of Genesis plus extensive notes on variant readings. He is an accomplished scholar, and his work should not be confused with the PDF interlinear. His work constitutes scholarship that can be cited in Wikipedia pages on related topics. The PDF interlinear does not.Alephb (talk) 02:26, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Alephb: Thank you. This me interested. Doncsecz^talk 10:46, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I mentioned this above, but are these supposed to fall within the scope of this project? They are definitely related to the biblical texts and are usually studied alongside them in universities (see for example here). I have noticed that several such pages are currently covered by a variety of WikiProjects but WP:BIBLE is noticeably absent. Talk:Acts of Paul and Thecla is included in the WikiProjects for "Saints", "Religious Texts", "Christianity" and "Women's History"; it seems fairly likely someone thought to add it to WikiProject Bible and decided not to, or did add it and was reverted for some reason. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:32, 17 January 2017 (UTC) (Edited for clarity that it doesn't matter to me what the this page currently says, and that I am not so incompetent as to ask a question about what the page says rather than just reading the page, because how people have actually dealt with the issue is more important to me. 23:55, 21 January 2017 (UTC))

Acknowledging that there is some degree of question regarding what works should and should not be included in that grouping, I think the content of the main WikiProject page, specifically Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible/Goals makes it rather clear that such works are to be included. John Carter (talk) 18:04, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but no one really focuses on the Apocrapha. The closest thing I've done to help with this particular subject is create Christian text related to the New Testament Apocrapha. It's not really a true goal. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 18:11, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Part of the problem, of course, is determining what exactly is and is not "apocryphal", given the large number of works accepted by only a few groups. But I agree that articles exclusively about the works which are not counted as canonical by any extant groups are probably in general of less than top importance to this project. John Carter (talk) 18:14, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Please note that my question was based on the various articles I have seen in the relevant topic area, not on the theoretical statements included on WP:BIBLE. In the past I have tried making mass changes to articles based on what the theoretical policy was in the relevant WikiProject, and been mass-reverted. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:55, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I do note the remarkable changes made after the fact in the opening statement here. I would suggest individuals in the future perhaps not try to make such apparent efforts to engage in conduct which could very easily be seen as an attempt to alter things after the fact. And considering that pretty much all WikiProject standards are purely theoretical, I fail to see the differentiation between those standards and any other standards that you are referring to. Wikipedia:WikiProject indicates that there isn't anything "official" about WikiProjects, and have no particular "rights" to do anything, even, yes, tag articles.

For purposes such as these, probably the best way to go would be to would be to perhaps do what I've done in the past, include in the edit summary something to the effect that the article is being tagged based on substantial coverage in one or more encyclopedias on the Bible, perhaps as per Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible/Prospectus. If that doesn't work, then go ahead and tag them for Wikipedia:WikiProject Religious texts, which is much less arguable.

Finally, it would be extremely useful to know more of the relevant data. If you were attempting to tag a volume of clearly Christian apocrypha with the specific Bible banner, it would not be at all unusual for someone of the Jewish faith to object, seeing as they are much less inherently knowledgeable about New Testament apocrypha and could certainly object to having stuff even less credible than the canonical New Testament tagged by a project of importance to them. And it might be particularly useful to know whether you were using the Christianity banner or the separate Bible banner. I can reasonably see several individuals objecting perhaps to the adding of a clearly redundant banner when the Christianity banner has the same functionality. It is worth noting that banner application is not, and never has been, about "marking territory," but indicating that a group can help. Edit summaries indicating that would be very useful. John Carter (talk) 22:49, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I did suggest WikiProject Gnosticism (2nd nomination) (thnx for your support John Carter), its still open for support. It won't cover all of the New Testament Apocrypha, but it will be focused on other Abrahamic Judeo-Christian texts. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 00:01, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Looking at the bibliography at Gospel of John, it seems to me to be longer than might be best for an article. What would the rest of you think of starting separate articles on bibliographies of the various books of the Bible? I am going to assume, at least in the beginning, that maybe we might limit ourselves to starting such pages for those works included one or more of the widely-discussed and -available English canons, although it could be expanded later as warranted. John Carter (talk) 17:03, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Alternately, particularly for those works where over the years better texts have been discovered later, maybe articles on "Historiography of (work x)" or "History of study of (work x)" might be useful. John Carter (talk) 21:32, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

How would you propose stopping this from becoming a "catchall " with everyone adding their favourites? Including books we wouldn't use as sources. Doug Weller talk 06:52, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, any list, and a bibliography is a list, has to have every item sourced, doesn't it? And, ideally, most list items should also have separate articles, or at least the possibility of separate articles based on notability and such. I acknowledge part of my thinking is based on having seen a lot of such books listed in the Who's Who in Religion book I still haven't gotten all the way through, and it may well be that some of them are of the kind we wouldn't use either, even if they might be among the proudest achievements of the individual author. If nothing else, though, requesting at least at the beginning that only those sources listed in bibliographies of reference works' articles relative to the books in question, preferably encyclopedia type articles on the works themselves in question or spinout articles of same, because they tend to have shorter bibliographies. Also, I think that there are out there some general surveys of at least some of the books and their reception, and using those sources to write any "historiography" articles would also I think be reasonable. John Carter (talk) 15:36, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Just found this version being used at Cain and Abel. Is it the best for this? Doug Weller talk 14:29, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Recently I've discovered that there's a lot of Wikipedia articles about individual chapters of the Bible. They often need a lot of work, and there's some issues on them with copy-pasting of material from unreliable sources. If anyone is interested in helping with this issue, I've drawn up a list of individual chapter articles here: . Note that a Wikipedia article with a name like, for example, Isaiah 4 will generally be in more pressing need of attention than a Wikipedia article like Hannah (biblical figure) which is still really about the contents of an individual chapter but isn't named after that chapter. These individual-chapter articles are often less significant than the more noteworthy Bible-related articles on Wikipedia, but they are also the ones which tend to be most obviously in need of revision. Alephb (talk) 18:33, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Bringing this here as I'm concerned that there may be original spresearch here. @JohnThorne: I'm also concerned with what seems to be over reliance on very old sources, e.g. 17th and 19th century. Doug Weller talk 20:18, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

I think it's good the article was created - there should be an article on every chapter in the Bible. But I don't think verse-by-verse exposition is appropriate here. StAnselm (talk) 20:25, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Among other things, I'm concerned about the copy-pasting of material from John Gill directly into the body of the Wikipedia article. If John Gill were alive today, there's no doubt he'd be categorized as a WP:FRINGE source for his treatment of material involving chronologies of the ancient world, and probably other issues as well. I would assume that the spirit of the wp:fringe policy, or some other policy along the same lines, applies to old writers as well, at least when their material is being copy-pasted directly into the text itself of Wikipedia articles. Alephb (talk) 20:46, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree with both comments. I also reverted him here, was that reasonable? Doug Weller talk 21:05, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

(With regard to your revert on Book of Ezekiel) For me, the issue with Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, the one non-ancient source cited to "debate" against the Walther Zimmerli, isn't so much the century their work was written in. Its that J-F-B holds to views that are now fringe: like the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. That makes them unciteable, from a Wikipedia standpoint, to establish anything about the authorship of any biblical book.Alephb (talk) 21:16, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Very appreciate the comments. @Doug Weller:: Each statement is carefully referenced, thus ought not be an original research. The old sources are still respected, although naturally not all parts are up-to-date, but those selected should correspond to the current opinions (many of which cannot be quoted due to copyright issues). Chronological order of reference will be given more attention in the future. Thanks. @StAnselm:: No intention to do verse-by-verse exposition, other than listing the most representative verses for the particular chapter and the much cited ones. @Alephb:: Please provide assistance to add better sources that can be accepted universally. Some materials from the "old sources" are recycled by later authors, but credits should be given to the earlier ones, I presume. For all: Hope to see more positive contributions to the new articles. They are severely lacking due to the inexperience of the starting user. JohnThorne (talk) 21:55, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the gracious response, User:JohnThorne. When it comes to Ezekiel 1, I've posted relevant information on the Talk Page with respect to the use of John Gill and Jamieson-Fausset-Brown. Unfortunately, neither of those two sources meets Wikipedia's reliability standards, so their content cannot simply be copy-pasted into a Wikipedia page even if they are properly cited. Alephb (talk) 22:01, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

The division of the Bible into chapters and verses dates only from the Middle Ages - originally the books were just long slabs of prose. So a discussion of individual chapters and verses is a discussion of an artificial and fairly recent phenomenon.PiCo (talk) 22:36, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

The Middle Ages ended in the 15th century. If by "recent" you mean the last 6 centuries, I would consider it long-established and even traditional. And anything concerning the Bible is "artificial", as it is a disparate collection of texts which has been constantly rewritten, edited, and otherwise modified over a period of millennia. While I would consider most chapters of the Bible to fail the notability criteria, if there are enough secular sources discussing a particular chapter, by all means create an article about it. To mention a fairly inconsequential chapter, Book of Hosea, Chapter 3: Gomer purchases a woman for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer of barley, and a half-homer of barley. He commands the woman to stop playing the prostitute, and to stop sleeping with other men. He also promises to not sleep with other women. This sounds like a fairly personal transaction, that concerns the sexual preferences of Hosea. It is not exactly a fascinating chapter for analysis, nor does it stand out from any other forgettable chapter. Dimadick (talk) 00:00, 26 February 2017 (UTC)