Talk:Jacob

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[edit] Problems

This page needs to be wikified, and as already said, is in serious need of repair. This should also be a disambiguation page, as there are multiple people with articles known as Jacob (such as this Jacob and this Jacob. Antley 05:41, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I think you can use Jacob (disambuiguation) as the disambiguation page, since this Jacob is presumably the most famous Jacob, and have this Jacob still as Jacob (Book of Mormon) Alvinrune September 11, 2005

[edit] Need of Repair

An anonymous contributor has, in my opinion and H2O's, made a mush of this article, bloating it badly with some very off topic stuff. Can anyone come up with a solution that doesn't involve cutting most of the anon's contributions? This is in serious need of repair, and before I just start demolition on the parts that seem extraneous, I thought I'd ask for opinions. Jwrosenzweig 21:25, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • Have just tried to remedy the problem/s, hope it clears things up by removing the speculative preachy insertions. IZAK 09:37, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)


One of the biggest problems I see is w/the definition of Jacob's names. Jacob means "graps the heel", which isn't too far off, but Israel means "struggles with God", which is a far cry from what is posted.

[edit] Yaqub

Shouldn't Yaqub be merged with this?--iFaqeer 01:21, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Agree, but... You should merge it as a seperate level 2 headline, but leave out the Nation of Islam (NOI) part out. Alvinrune 4:28 EST September 11, 2005.
And why should the NOI material be left out? It is relevant to the history of interpretations of Jacob. Paul B 07:06, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, except that it seems to have no relation whatsoever to the standard understanding of Jacob. I agree that the merge should be done, with a brief explanatory section on Yakub, and a link to the main article. -- Eliyak 23:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why the {} sign/s?

Why were one or more of these sign/s: {{NPOV}}{{expansion}}{{Cleanup}} signs placed on this page without any discussion, explanation or reasoning? (And why create a redundant category Category:Bible stories that is now up for a vote for deletion at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Bible stories?) IZAK 07:33, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Not only is this entirely written from an uncritically Biblical perspective, even within this framework it attempts to rewrite the story, attempting to justify Jacob's trickery with a fairy tale about Esau's culpability at birth!

"Then, when Esau arrived to receive his blessing, the deception became known, and Esau and Isaac showed their contempt for Jacob by falsely accusing him of taking a blessing that did not rightly belong to him, and called him a supplanter, when it was Esau who had supplanted Jacob by struggling out of the womb first."

This needs a lot of reworking. - Mustafaa 01:16, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I do not believe it should be merged. Linking it gives credence to the crazy genetic theory about the creation of the white race. This Yaqub is not Jacob. When searching I wanted to find out about Yaqub and where on earth the story came from.

[edit] Nation of Islam

I hve restored this section that was removed by an anonymous user who claimed that it was "factually incorrect" and POV. If this user knows the true facts, then let him/her state what they are. If he/she thinks it is POV, then correct that problem. But since the figure of Jacob does play a role in the NOI, I think the section should be there. Improve it by all means. Please discuss the content of any changes here so we can debate what is and isn't fact in this matter. Paul B 8:56, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The anonymous user should not only state why it is incorrect, but provide citations proving his claims. Jayjg (talk) 14:55, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The anonymous user has actually made more edits on Meta criticising the Yahoo support, than actual edits in Wikipedia itself. -- user:zanimum

[edit] Proposed move

  • Oppose. There isn't a Jacob (disambiguation) page, and I don't know of any other articles for people just known as "Jacob". WP policy generally suggests to not disambiguate unless necessary, and some other Jacob _____ articles don't make it necessary. Niteowlneils 15:44, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. For now. – AxSkov (T) 07:35, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There might be a need in future, but not now. However, it should be merged with Yaqub. Paul B 15:44, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. violet/riga (t) 19:33, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What's with the NPOV notice?

Why is this article considered NPOV? The notice was added a while back by Mustafaa (talk • contribs), but they didn't put anything here explaining what they took issue with. The article has also changed a lot since then (among other things, the section on Nation of Islam has been moved to its own article, which may have been the problem Mustafaa was referring to.) Does have any POV problems with the article as it is now? Could we safely remove the NPOV tag? Personally, looking over the article I think it ought to be replaced with a cleanup tag, maybe, but I don't see anything particularly POV... Aquillion 06:02, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

(Correction: Looking up carefully, I notice that Mustafaa did add an explaination for the notice, but seems to have accidently added it under an unrelated section, which is why I missed it at first. I still think a cleanup tag would be more approprate.) Aquillion 06:04, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I massively rewrote the "Birthright blessing" section, paying more attention to the Esau's sale of his birthright (which is a famous part of this story). Unfortunately, there was a lot of stuff about Rebekah's reasoning and bits that seemed to be trying to explain Isaac's actions that had to go. None of that is laid out in the Bible; to my knowledge, it's not a universal interpretation. If someone wants it there, they'll have to find another source and cite that, or at least attribute the interpretation to some group that holds it. I suspect that other parts of this article will need similar rewriting to remove interpretation, so tell me what you think.
Also, what's with the tenses? I have a feeling that this should be written in the present tense; that seems to be how most other biblical stories are handled. I had to go back and correct myself to keep tenses constant several times. Should this whole article be rewritten to describe the events listed in the present tense, like (for instance) Laban (Bible)? I'm willing to do it, if people think it would be a good idea. Aquillion 06:59, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Ok, did the next section. Whoever wrote the old versions really didn't like Laban, for some reason... --Aquillion 01:43, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Uhh, maybe that's because he cheated Jacob and only cared about money? Might be a good reason... Also: I would think this should be writen in past tense. If most articles are present, use present, but i think you should double check this...HereToHelp 22:36, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Isn't this too long?

Although I did a lot of work smoothing out the text, this article seems much longer than the one about Abraham, who is certainly deserving of as much space but uses it compactly. (Isaac is a joke—that needs to be expanded a bit.) Is it really necessary to summarize the entire biblical biography of Jacob in such detail? Or can I go ahead and use my editing shears? Yoninah 07:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


Issac does not have much because his life details are scarce, even in the Bible. He only seems to serve two purpose in Genesis--sacrificial lamb of Abraham, and father of Jacob. Rebekeh really is the more important person in the generation. I mean, the guy was sick and blind for the last twenty years of his life.

Jacob, however, is the forefather of the Israelites and a huge figure in Genesis. In fact, I believe he is the last one YHWH communicates to directly, until Moses.

I apologize for adding some more details. I mainly touched on the family feud of the Jacob' household. Some commentators feel that it is a very important aspect of Jacob, first in emphasizing his human imperfection. They also feel that it is essential in explaining the motives of his half-brothers in their attempt to kill Joseph. Saltyseaweed 02:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jacob, great article, except

To whom it may concern Jacob's ladder was an actuall ladder used by angels to go up and down from the heavens (all three Heaven's). It was made from Jacob, ask G-d, he's the only authority on it. There.s no "greater meaning". Just simple fact. It did have something to do with his worthyness

[edit] Nation of Islam?!!

The statement that muslims do believe that Jacob is villain is incorrect. It is never ever true. He is a prophet and we believe in Jacob and jozeph too. I actually have not read the holey Torah and bible but as far as I know they are very very similar to holy koran. There are some differences in some caces but our view of Jacon P.B.U.H is not the way declared in the article.

The passage refers to Yakub. I have clarified it. Paul B 12:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

no support. I read the article though still i believe it is wrong. The writer does have some idea or deal of information but as far as I know Yakub is not evil person in Islam belief in general.

No, Yakob is not evil in Islam in general, but the Nation of Islam is not "Islam in general", indeed many Muslims would deny ot is Islam at all! I have taken the liberty of deleting the section heading markers, since this is part of the same discussion Paul B 12:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jacob's sons

Should the explicit list of Jacob's sons be removed, as it contains the same information as the template table above? ChKa 23:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not conjoined twin

The mention of conjoined (Siamese) twins is not scientific. Conjoined twins are never joined with an arm connected to a leg, etc - the shared part is always the same for each one of the bodies. The second point against conjoined twins is that they are always identical - you cannot get non-identical twins that are conjoined. The description of the brothers does not support the idea of identical twins at all - on the contrary, Jacob and Esau appear vastly dissimilar, mentally and physically. Therefore it cannot be speculated that Jacob and Esau were conjoined, and I am removing the "siamese twin" speculation. --Seejyb 10:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed reference to "fearful of schizophrenic child"

The text says simply that Rebekah was fearing what was happening. Schizophrenia as a concept has not been described that early! -Seejyb 14:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rebekah/Rebeccah

"During Rebekah's pregnancy, "the children struggled together within her" (Genesis 25:22). According to Rashi, whenever Rebeccah passed a house of study..."


This name is spelt two different ways in this article, suggest standardizing it throughout to 'Rebekah', as this is the official title of her own Wikipedia article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Conrad1on (talk • contribs) 04:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Jacob-El ?

Should the article discuss the appearance of names similar to Jacob in Egyptian and Babylonian records of the 2nd millenium BC ?

And the notion that the name Jacob may be a contraction of Jacob-El, [1] [2] (both 1914), more likely meaning "May El protect", rather than "Wrestles with El" ?

It may have been quite a recurrent name amongst the inhabitants of that period.

  • Babylonian contract-tablets from a variety of sites from the 19th to the 17th century BCE, written in Akkadian, for contracts made with people called Ya'kubh-ilu / Yah-ah-qu-ub-il / Yaḫqub-el,Yaḫqub-aḫ, Yaḫqub-‘am (various transliterations found on the net).
  • There was a Hyksos chieftain Yaqub-hor / Ya'aqob-har, who set up in Avaris in Egypt at the time of Apepi I (reigned c. 1580-1540 BCE), whose name is found on various seals / scarabs.
  • A list of territories conquered by Thutmose III (reigned 1479-1425 BCE), which is inscribed at Karnak, includes Jacob-El and Joseph-El as places in Canaan.

See eg [3] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jheald (talk • contribs) 10:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC).

The sources you link to seem reliable. As long as you make sure to attribute these views to the specific sources you cite, and not present it as a roundly accepted view (as traditional interpretation would have none of it) I would have no problem with such sourced material. --DLandTALK 15:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
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