Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matthew 1:verses

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This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was No consensus, so keep (18 Merge, 12 Keep, 7 Delete, 2 Keep or Merge, 1 Transwiki, 2 votes by new users, and 1 anonymous vote) --Allen3 talk July 9, 2005 15:36 (UTC)

[edit] Matthew 1:verses

This is a vfd concerning the articles Matthew 1:1, Matthew 1:2, Matthew 1:3, Matthew 1:4, Matthew 1:5, Matthew 1:6, Matthew 1:7, Matthew 1:8, Matthew 1:9, Matthew 1:10, Matthew 1:11, Matthew 1:12, Matthew 1:13, Matthew 1:14, Matthew 1:15 Matthew 1:16, Matthew 1:17, Matthew 1:18, Matthew 1:19, Matthew 1:20, Matthew 1:21, Matthew 1:22, Matthew 1:23, Matthew 1:24, Matthew 1:25

It would be useful to indicate, if you wish the articles to be kept, whether you are a christian, during this vote, to determine if this area of wikipedia has systemic bias, or it is balanced. If an indication is made, please be honest about it.

  • Delete. Articles must be noteworthy by themselves, not because they belong to a greater work. There is nothing significant about these verses. Wikipedia is not a seminary. (n.b. this counts as a vote to merge if delete is not the majority position)~~~~ 1 July 2005 18:51 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect to Matthew 1, where they can get the correct context. -R. fiend 1 July 2005 18:56 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect Cutler July 1, 2005 19:00 (UTC)
    • These pages contain only a small fraction of the information out there, and already if you add them up they come to more than 100kb in size. A merged page would be massive. - SimonP July 1, 2005 19:37 (UTC)
      • The merge is about notable information. There is plenty of non-notable information out there. E.g. there is information about how to kill a cat with a carrot whilst talking to your mother in the living room. This is not notable. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 20:19 (UTC)
        • Wikipedia does not have a notability requirement, only a verifiability requirement. The information here is all quite verifiable. See also Wikipedia talk:Fame and importance and Wikipedia talk:Importance. - SimonP July 1, 2005 20:23 (UTC)
          • If that were true, then an awful lot of articles that were deleted would have survived VfD. - check the VfD archives. They did not. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 22:05 (UTC)
  • Keep, Wikipedia is not paper. Kappa 1 July 2005 19:07 (UTC)
    • n.b. Wikipedia is not paper states that
      • Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information
    • ~~~~ 1 July 2005 19:17 (UTC)
      • I submit that this information is even more "discriminate" than Simpsons episodes. Kappa 1 July 2005 23:54 (UTC)
        • An individual Simpsons episode is not analogous to a single line from a book. Uncle G 2005-07-02 00:06:15 (UTC)
          • Indeed, they are not analogous. A single line from this book is far, far more important than an entire season of the Simpsons. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 2 03:18 (UTC)
            • According to a neutral NPOV academic standpoint held by most neutral NPOV academics across the world? Or according to a religious ideology which you espouse? ~~~~ 2 July 2005 10:18 (UTC)
              • Likely according to both. A fifteen year old cartoon pales in cultural importance compared to the most important Western work of the past 2000 years. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 2 16:26 (UTC)
                • But does a 20 minute episode of a 15 year old cartoon have less signicance than just 3 lines of a genealogy (e.g. Matthew 1:9, and if so, why? ~~~~ 2 July 2005 16:34 (UTC)
              • Well, the articles on Simpsons episodes appear not to focus on the scholarly commentary on the episode, wheras these do, which leads me to believe that the scholarly interest in Gospel verses is higher than scholarly interest in Simpsons episodes. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 2 16:47 (UTC)
                • Tell me, how much time has been given between the simpsons episodes appearance, and the articles creation? There is plenty of time for 2000 years worth of scholarly content to be added. The bible has had 2000 years already. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 17:04 (UTC)
              • Okay, in 2000 years we can compare again, and maybe it will be the Simpsons that is the scriptural basis for the world's largest religion. Until then, it appears to be the Gospel of Matthew that has attracted the preponderance of scholarly analysis and cultural interpretation. It may be a systemic bias of Wikipedia that we have to judge things based on how they are today rather than how they will be two millenia in the future, but we'll have to live with that. (I'd also point out that claims that a single Simpsons episode is not analogous to a verse of a book are somewhat misleading. There are ~300 Simpsons episodes and ~1000 verses in Matthew, and 1/1000 and 1/300 are really not that different in terms of granularity.) Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 2 19:08 (UTC)
                • Just being part of the world's largest religion does not automatically make verses individually notable. Also, please avoid false dichotomy, there may be 300 simpsons episodes, and 1000 verses in Matthew, but there are about 30,000 verses of the bible, and the simpsons is in a 1:100 ratio here, comparable only with chapters.~~~~ 2 July 2005 20:02 (UTC)
              • Read false dichotomy; that is quite clearly not it. Moreover, you have ignored my point, that the amount of scholarly research on (and cultural and historical interest in) an average Gospel verse far exceeds that on an average Simpsons episode. Nor, you will note, have I made a case that every verse in the Bible deserves an article. I will deal with that with the time comes. You have nominated 25 verses for deletion, all of which are of above average importance. In any case, I've devoted about as much time as I care to this debate (which seems headed toward an unsurprising no consensus). Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 2 20:20 (UTC)
                • False dichotomy is a situation in which one side inaccurately (i.e. false) alleges that there is a choice between two options (a dichotomy). Di-chotomy means two options. A false dichotomy is a situation in which it is not accurate to state that the two options given are the case, i.e. the dichotomy is false. I am a linguist, trust me on this. The option you give as second option is not an accurate representation of the situation, therefore it is a false dichotomy. This VfD is about whether it is right for every single Bible verse to have an article or not. If you do not think that they should, then you must vote to either merge or delete, to accurately represent that opinion. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 20:28 (UTC)
              • Yes, I understand this. I would challenge you to present the two options I presented as exclusive.
              • No, this is not a VFD on that issue, as much as you might like it to be. For one thing, assuming these articles are deleted, it would not affect, say, Matthew 2:1. Moreover, articles on these very verses could be recreated if they had different content. No vote here will set a policy against the creation of individual Bible verses. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 2 20:59 (UTC)
                • You may like to think that, but I assure you that that is not accurate. The recreation of VfD'd articles is strongly frowned upon and such recreations can be deleted on sight. The reason for deletion in this case would explicitely be the existance of the article all-together, and not their content, which would be merged elsewhere. Consequently, creating the article would contradict such a result from this VfD, and thus be a delete-on-sight instance. There is a good reason for not putting Matthew 2:1 etc. up for deletion in this VfD - so that we can get all the silly paper-thin arguments that disguise ideological votes out of the way first. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 22:30 (UTC)
  • Keep, this coming from a person raised Jewish. This has the same purpose as having articles on any other books, to me. Seeky 1 July 2005 19:09 (UTC)
    • User has 24 prior edits ~~~~ 1 July 2005 19:19 (UTC)
    • But we don't have articles on Lord of the rings page 12 sentence 3, so by that logic, your vote should be to delete. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 19:17 (UTC)
    • These are not "articles on books". The article on the book is Bible. These are articles on individual lines from a book. If we were to go into that line-by-line level of detail on any other book, such as a Star Trek novel, editors would be positively screaming "fancruft!", note. Uncle G 2005-07-02 00:06:15 (UTC)
  • Keep, Wikipedia is not paper, and I think Biblical passages have far more cultural significance than LOTR passages. -- ????? | ? 1 July 2005 19:21 (UTC) (raised Christian, now atheist)
    • I do not dispute that some biblical passages have significance, e.g. blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth, or give unto caesar. What is dispute is whether all of them do. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 19:23 (UTC)
    • Changing vote to merge & redirect, but only because of the copyvios. — ????? | ? 2 July 2005 00:08 (UTC)
      • More specifically, merge according to the proposal by Uncle G below. — ????? | ? 2 July 2005 00:25 (UTC)
  • Keep. I'm a dedicated atheist and I created all these pages, so I think the allegations of pro-Christian bias are misplaced. - SimonP July 1, 2005 19:30 (UTC)
    • I am not accusing you of necessarily deliberate bias. Culturally ingrained bias is an issue on Wikipedia as well - see Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering Systemic Bias. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 20:15 (UTC)
      • I was one of the first to join CSB and I think you a misunderstanding the goals of that project. It is not to delete content until every subject is covered equally, rather it is to create content so that every subject is covered equally. That we have an article on Religion in the United States, but not Religion in Nigeria, is not an argument for deleting the former but for creating the later. - SimonP July 1, 2005 22:50 (UTC)
        • The Countering Systemic Bias project is for countering systemic bias, whatever method that takes for each instance of bias, thus the name. The issue you outline for 2 articles above is known as limited geographic scope. That does not apply here. The correct description of the current bias is limited awareness of the insignificance of issue in the world as a whole.
  • Keep The Bible is one of the most analysed books ever, if not the most analysed book ever. Each of these has the potential for expansion to full articles. I don't see what my religion has got to do with this - WP would benefit from having articles discussing the textual analysis of the major texts of other religions too, such as the Koran, jguk 1 July 2005 19:32 (UTC)
    • I'd have said the Qur'an was the most analysed, yet we don't have articles about the numerous different sections that that comes in. Wikipedia is about notable information, not just everything for the sake of it. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 19:46 (UTC)
      • We do, see Sura 1, etc. Adam Bishop 1 July 2005 19:49 (UTC)
        • No, we don't. Sura 1 is a chapter, not a verse. And, additionally, the Qur'an isn't split into books, so Sura 1 etc. corresponds more closely with Gospel of John, Epistle of James, Chronicles, etc., and so is as worthy of a seperate article as these. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 19:55 (UTC)
      • Additionally, the Magna Carta is extremely analysed, and influential, but all we have is one article, not one for each of the clauses in it. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 20:08 (UTC)
    • My concern is that such articles as these are created by people whose religious ideology says that the bible is so significant that even every word in it deserves an article of its own. I believe Wikipedia should consider items significant of mention only if they are academically so. I do not see people offering anywhere courses about Matthew 1:2, or standard courses containing lectures solely about Matthew 1:7. This is, in my view, because they are not notable enough.
    • Academics do find some verses important, such as Mark:16 and John:21, but I don't know of any serious scholar who thinks every single verse in the bible is worthy of note.
    • It strikes me that creating such articles is an attempt to turn a section of Wikipedia into an online bible. Wikipedia is not the bible, it is an encyclopedia. Nor should Wikipedia be a bible commentary.
    • Collectively, these articles also constitute a serious copyvio, as they would, in total, duplicate the entire King James Version, and the other text that is in them (I forget which). To avoid this copyvio, you would need to not have a significant portion of the text within wikipedia, but this is totally unavoidable if we have an article on every single verse. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 19:54 (UTC)
      • While we should respect copyright in general, a 300+ year old publication is public domain in almost every country in the world. Gamaliel 1 July 2005 23:05 (UTC)
        • "Wikipedia should consider items significant of mention only if they are academically so" is in direct contradiciton of WP:NPOV. Kappa 2 July 2005 00:01 (UTC)
          • It has nothing whatever to do with a point of view. On the contrary, moreover, it is exactly in line with the Wikipedia:no original research policy. If no-one has actually written anything about a verse, Wikipedia cannot have an article about it, as there are no sources. And in fact, the coverage of the Bible by secondary sources is uneven and patchy. Uncle G 2005-07-02 00:25:08 (UTC)
            • I don't feel it's appropriate to equate non-academics with "no-one". Kappa 2 July 2005 10:29 (UTC)
              • I don't feel it's appropriate to equate non-academics with academics. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 14:50 (UTC)
                • To repeat myself, pretending academic opinions are the only ones that matter is your POV and directly contradicts NPOV. Kappa 2 July 2005 16:52 (UTC)
                  • Remember, Wikipedia is not fancruft. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 17:07 (UTC)
                    • Indeed not, but it does aim to be NPOV and you are getting in the way of that. Kappa 2 July 2005 20:14 (UTC)
                      • Exactly how is maintaining that Wikipedia is not a bible commentary, i.e. individual verses of the bible or gospels do not automatically merit individual and seperate articles, getting in the way of NPOV ? ~~~~ 2 July 2005 20:30 (UTC)
                      • To repeat myself, you are making it harder to provide NPOV coverage by using an argument which contradicts NPOV, ie Wikipedia should consider items significant of mention only if they are academically so". Kappa 2 July 2005 23:38 (UTC)
                        • Wikipedia should not consider items significant if it is only fancruft. ~~~~ 3 July 2005 17:57 (UTC)
            • I think you are underestimating how well covered the Bible is by scholars. My library alone has some 350 commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew. Using only a half dozen of these I have found something write about every one of the first eighty verses. I would be surprised if there are any verses that have absolutely nothing written about them. - SimonP July 2, 2005 15:11 (UTC)
              • Covered and noteworthy are not the same thing. The non-trivial content (i.e. the content when the bulking of the full text, a nice image from Renaissance Art, and the intro which goes this is passage X of chapter Y of book Z (as if you had not guessed), is removed) of Matthew 1:9 for example, consists of these were ancestors during period X. That is all. That is not enough for a whole article to itself. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 15:18 (UTC)
  • Merge. Elfguy 1 July 2005 20:12 (UTC)
  • Delete nn fancruft.  Grue  1 July 2005 20:16 (UTC)
  • Keep. Notable. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 1 20:19 (UTC)
    • Please explain why the verses are individually notable?
      • The answer to this is the great extent of scholarly work on each particular verse. Gospel verses are terrible test cases for this, due to the great extent of scholarly consideration focused on these books. As for whether the structure of this information should be one way or another, I would defer to those who are contributing it, who I would assume are the experts on the subject. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 2 03:13 (UTC)
        • Given that those contributing to it are predominantly relying on the Anchor commentaries (self-admitted), I seriously doubt expert status (an expert would have no need to rely on such introductory works). ~~~~ 2 July 2005 08:25 (UTC)
  • Keep. These are excellent articles examining the various beliefs and analyses surrounding these passages. Considering the massive influence Christianity has had on history, if these aren't encyclopedic, almost nothing is. — Gwalla | Talk 1 July 2005 20:52 (UTC)
    • Most of the articles go "this is the text, here is a picture, the text is from chapter X, verse Y". Some have exegesis, some of which goes "well, this is a verse from Q", but this is not notable in itself, a list of verses in Q should really be added to Q rather than the other way around. There is a lot of vague sermon-like exegesis filling out the remainder. But wikipedia is not an online homily. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 22:10 (UTC)
  • Keep, high-quality verse articles such as these have been kept in previous VfDs. JYolkowski // talk 1 July 2005 21:18 (UTC)
    • Others have been deleted. We are not discussing specific worthy verses, but all of them. I.e. the principle that not all verses are worthy of individual articles. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 22:01 (UTC)
      • I think the reason why some verses have been kept and others deleted is quality. Bible verses that have been deleted have often been low-quality articles (e.g. contained no real information, were too original-researchy, etc.). Bible verses of similar quality to Matthew 1:x have all been kept on three separate occasions; see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/John 20:16, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/John 20, and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 2:16. As to whether all verses are notable, I don't think that they all are. However, lack of notability is not a reason for deletion. According to Wikipedia:Deletion policy, the solution is to merge and redirect to another article (which is how I voted in the VfDs linked immediately above). Having said that, these articles are probably long enough that, for example, the first seventeen are likely better as separate articles than as a monster Matthew 1:1-17. JYolkowski // talk 2 July 2005 16:50 (UTC)
        • What about Matthew 1:9 for example?
        • The merge was never proposed to make them into Matthew 1:1-17, you are (perhaps unintentionally) implying a false dichotomy - it was to put them into the various Jesus Genealogy Jesus Birth Anunciation etc. articles. See below for Uncle's explanation of this:
        • ~~~~ 2 July 2005 16:58 (UTC)
          • Regardless of what the articles are called, the articles on the first 17 verses of Matthew are so large that I think they're better kept as separate articles instead of one enormous article. JYolkowski // talk 2 July 2005 17:05 (UTC)
            • You are forgetting that merging them would create massively redundant information, e.g. the content of the verses - which would be changed into a reference to Wikisource, content of one article partially duplicates that of another, etc. You are also still perpetuating the false dichotomy - the merge would not be to one single article, but to a set of (partly existing) articles, such as Jesus' birth, The biblical magi, etc. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 17:10 (UTC)
  • Keep religiousnutjobcruft nevertheless. Dunc|☺ 1 July 2005 21:23 (UTC)
    • ? If it is religiousnutjobcruft then why keep it? ~~~~ 1 July 2005 22:01 (UTC)
  • Delete. Wikipedia is not The Good eBook. Besides, I don't think putting it up in a form that any Tom, Dick, or Harry can edit to his liking was what the comissioner of this book had in mind. Almafeta 1 July 2005 21:29 (UTC)
  • Keep per jguk DS1953 1 July 2005 21:55 (UTC)
    • per the argument that fell apart as soon as you consider that we don't have articles Ayah 1, Ayah 2, Ayah 3, ... Ayah 6000, for the verses (Ayah) of the Qur'an ? ~~~~ 1 July 2005 22:03 (UTC)
  • Comment: since most of us can agree that some bible verses are more significant/notable/important/whatever than others, it seems it would make sense to start with those, rather than just going chronolgically here. I seriously doubt we're going to see 30,000+ articles on these (to use someone else's figures; I assume they're basically accurate) so we might as well get the important ones first. Likewise I think it would make sense to have an article on the each chapter before we start working on the verse, and see what we can cover that way. The way we're going I see us having some chapters of the Bible with an article on each word, while others have no article or a stub like Lambastatians is a book from the Bible (yes I made up my own book for an example, don't give me crap about it). Wikipedia is inconsistent, but it needn't be that inconsistent. -R. fiend 1 July 2005 22:10 (UTC)
  • Delete Completely out of place in an encyclopedia 62.253.64.15 1 July 2005 22:35 (UTC)
  • Complex vote: I think that the Bible articles should be divided as such: for each book, write an article, merging in information on each chapter. If the article gets too long, fork out any chapters long enough to sustain their own article. If the chapter articles get too long, fork out any verses long enough to sustain their own article. — Phil Welch 1 July 2005 22:45 (UTC)
    • Oh, and I'm a semi-militant atheist agnostic. — Phil Welch 1 July 2005 22:46 (UTC)
    • That's a very good idea. -R. fiend 1 July 2005 22:56 (UTC)
      • Merge as per Philwelch. Radiant_>|< July 1, 2005 23:15 (UTC)
  • Comment. No vote yet because I want to sleep on this one, but I just wanted to say that I'm appalled at the suggestion that we should have to identify ourselves by our religious persuasion to have an opinion about how a secular encyclopedia should be organized. Gamaliel 1 July 2005 23:05 (UTC)
    • It wasn't a compulsion, I was curious as to whether there was systemic bias on VfD (in general), which would, of course, be a serious problem (i.e. VfDs leading to inappropriate decisions which would not be made in a less systemically biased environment). Indicating religious background helps to identify whether this is the case or not when the vote is finally tallied. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 23:20 (UTC)
      • It would be utterly meaningless information unless you assume bias. If a Christian votes keep or an athiest votes delete, how could you possibly know if they were for reasons of religious bias as opposed to a logical decision about how to construct an encyclopedia? Gamaliel 2 July 2005 00:21 (UTC)
        • It was for cumularive purposes, not individual, if there is a statistically significant difference between the majority (or non-Majority) of Keep votes when you include Christian votes (i.e. normal voting procedure), and the majority (or non-Majority) of Keep votes when you don't, then this would indicate a systemic bias. In a neutral environment, in a large sample size, such as here, there should be no such significant difference, I wish to know if this is the case. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 08:25 (UTC)
          • The obvious disadvantage is that it would not tell us what kind of systemic bias we're looking at. Nor is the sample likely to be large enough to meaningfully extrapolate from moderate percentage differences. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 2 16:26 (UTC)
            • That all depends on the sample size compared to the size of the difference. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 17:01 (UTC)
          • Assuming you could even get a sufficently large sample size from this vfd discussion, which I doubt, would you distinguish between practicing and non-practicing Christians? Protestants and Catholics and Eastern Orthodox? Many non or former Christians exhibit a strong anti-Christian bias, are you concerned about this as well or just the bias behind Christian votes? Gamaliel 2 July 2005 17:37 (UTC)
            • I would only be concerned if it was statistically significant. What qualifies as statistically significant is dependant on the sample size (and mean, and standard deviation, although that isn't so applicable here). ~~~~ 2 July 2005 19:59 (UTC)
              • It should also be pointed out that by asking only keep voters to indicate if they are Christian, you eliminate any chance to extrapolate statistical data from the information. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 2 20:20 (UTC)
                • No, I can extrapolate whether there is a Christian systemic bias (as opposed to hypercorrection), this is the relevant bias that Wikipedia's demographic suggests would exist if any (limited geographic scope, and political bias are not really plausibly going to make a difference to the result). ~~~~ 2 July 2005 20:49 (UTC)
              • No, the point is not that you are focusing only on the issue of Christianity, but that you are asking the question only of keep voters: "indicate, if you wish the articles to be kept, whether you are a christian." Because you would know nothing about the delete (and merge) voters, it would be difficult to extrapolate anything useful about the overall behavious without making major, probably weak assumptions about that unknown portion of the population. Such assumptions would be especially unjustified given that you had the chance to garner that data directly, but chose not to. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 3 01:31 (UTC)
                • A majority of the delete vote being Christian editors voting to attack the principle that all bible verses are intrinsically noteworthy is not a pro-Christian systemic-bias. ~~~~ 3 July 2005 17:57 (UTC)
  • Merge --Tabor 1 July 2005 23:34 (UTC)
  • keep please it seems pretty obvious who is biased here Yuckfoo 1 July 2005 23:48 (UTC)
    • Yes. But which side that is depends on which side the observer is. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 08:25 (UTC)
  • Keep em all. The Bible has had a huge cultural influence over 2,000 years apart from it being the book referenced by billions of believers around the world. As well, theology is an established subject for serious study and we should aim to cover it comprehensively as we do with all other forms of serious studies. Capitalistroadster 1 July 2005 23:55 (UTC)
    • Then do so properly, in encyclopaedic fashion, not by covertly writing an annotated book within the encyclopaedia. Uncle G 2005-07-02 00:06:15 (UTC)
    • Anatomy is an established subject for serious study, but we don't have articles on First finger, bone 3, Second finger, bone 1, etc. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 08:25 (UTC)
  • This is, as noted at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 1, is completely the wrong structure. As a general priciple, individual verses of the Bible, or any religious text, do not deserve individual encyclopaedia articles. Notes on individual lines of a religious text is not exegesis, as is claimed by some editors. It is annotation, the sort of thing that one finds in a Study Bible, where every verse has footnotes. Wikibooks has an Annotated texts bookshelf that is just crying out for an Annotated Bible, if you want to write one. Annotated versions of books do not an encyclopaedia make, however. In contrast to book annotation such as these articles, encyclopaedic coverage of the Gospels would involve writing articles such as Genealogy of Jesus, Birth of Jesus Christ, Sermon on the Mount, Lord's Prayer, Parable of the talents, Jesus at the Temple, The Good Samaritan, The Good Shepherd, The Temptation of Jesus, The Wedding Feast at Cana, and all of the other (mainly red) links at List of New Testament stories and List of Bible stories. A proper structure would continue the same, and fill in those redlinks. Treating verses by groups, dealing with specific stories and narratives, sometimes spanning multiple chapters (e.g. Sermon on the Mount) is, after all, what most secondary sources actually do, and thus what Wikipedia, the tertiary source, should do too.

    And need I mention Wikipedia:naming conventions (common names)? These parts of the Bible are not commonly known by their chapter and verse numbers. Most of the people who know them probably couldn't even tell you the chapter and verse numbers. They are commonly known by their story names, such as the "Parable of the lost sheep".

    Therefore (using the New International Study Bible and the existing links in List of New Testament stories as guides to the story titles):

  • And encourage no further annotated book articles on individual verses, and more work instead on the redlinks in List of New Testament stories.

    There is no need to include the text of the verses (which makes up the bulk of many articles and the entirety of articles such as John 20:19, note) in the mergers, moreover. Several translations of the Bible are already at Wikisource, and can simply be linked to. See Wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources. Uncle G 2005-07-02 00:06:15 (UTC)

    • An even better idea than my own. Merge per Uncle G. — Phil Welch 2 July 2005 00:18 (UTC)
    • Merge the lot of them using one of these great proposals. These articles are terribly worthless as a whole (look at matthew 1:2, there's no content). This is coming from a christian, so no bias talks, please. humblefool® 2 July 2005 00:30 (UTC)
    • I disagree with this scheme. You may not realize it, but there is actually a fair bit of controversy over how the text should be divided. For instance some, such as W.F. Albright, and Alexander Jones contend that Matthew 4:17 is the end of the introduction to the ministry, and thus a summary of his entire preaching. Others, such as David Hill and T.S. France, see it as the beginning of the section about the disciples, and thus a far more focused piece of text. We discussed making arbitrary divisions when the project was begun at Talk:John 20:16 but it was decided that we should avoid making up our own divisions because of the inevitable conflict and confusion that would result. Also many of these pages would be huge. Genealogy of Jesus is already quite lengthy and the section in Matthew 1 is over 50kb, not to mention that there is another genealogy in Luke that is about twice as long that also needs to be covered in the article. Also I have so far only included a small fraction of the total information that should be given on each verse, e.g. I have virtually nothing on pre-modern, Eastern Orthodox, Feminist, LDS, or Islamic biblical criticism. Since I do not known Greek or Hebrew there is virtually nothing on the translation issues, about which there is a vast literature. Moreover almost every other reference work goes verse by verse, so I see no reason why we shouldn't. - SimonP July 2, 2005 01:14 (UTC)
      • The controversy with Matthew 4:17 that you describe is not the problem that you purport it to be. Beginning of Jesus' Ministry can simply state that some people think that it includes Matthew 4:17 whilst others do not, and explain the arguments. Problem solved.

        Genealogy of Jesus is not quite lengthy. It's quite short (7 paragraphs plus a table). There's more than enough room for the text of the articles listed above to be merged into it, especially if the inclusion of primary source material in the originals is done away with by the merge, as it should be. (And note that the references, being identical, would not contribute to the size of a merged article as much as they contribute to the size of a collection of individual verse articles.) The series of Michelangelo paintings would also make much more sense.

        The argument that "many of the pages would be huge" is belied by the fact that, as several editors have noted here, several of these articles have no content at all apart from primary source material.

        The size of Matthew 1 is irrelevant. I didn't suggest merging into Matthew 1.

        (Also note that Matthew 1 also includes primary source material, which it shouldn't. If you had followed Wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources, but simply linked to Wikisource where the primary source material belongs and is, Matthew 1 would not be "over 50KiB". You've created that problem by not following the guideline. It also includes text that would have been a start to The Birth of Jesus, which would have re-coloured a redlink blue at List of Bible stories and fleshed out the existing encyclopaedic structure instead of creating more annotated book content.)

        almost every other reference work goes verse by verse — If that were true, which it isn't, there wouldn't be the "controversy over how the text should be divided" that you state that there is, as no-one would be dividing the text up into groups of verses. People do group verses. It would be daft not to. Treating the verses that form the Genealogy of Jesus as just individual verses without referring to one another for context would make little sense. Uncle G 2005-07-02 01:57:14 (UTC)

        • The universal standard in scholarly works is to go verse by verse when doing a detailed commentary. The current chapter divisions of the Bible were not added until the 13th century, and attempting to show how the author of Matthew intended his narrative to be divided is an important area of study. Going verse by verse does not preclude positing methods of grouping them. These groupings can also get quite complicated. Raymond E. Brown, for instance argues that John 20:2-10 is one section inserted in the middle of John 20:1,11-19. Of course many other scholars reject Brown's view and there are several other schemes for dividing John 20.

          I was not stating that the Matthew 1 article is over 50kb, I was stating that the verse articles on the genealogy when added together are over 50kb. I'm sorry for not being should have been clearer. The merged pages you are proposing would be huge, especially since a number of the topics you thought were uncovered actually do have substantial articles. Resurrection of Jesus is already 29kb and could no accommodate the content in the commentary on John, much less the unwritten information on the three other Gospels. Also your statement that "several of these articles have no content at all apart from primary source material" is totally false.

          I fully agree that topics like the Temptation of Jesus and Baptism of Jesus are deserving of articles, but the content of them would be quite distinct from the verse pages. For instance, St. Jerome's mistranslation of Matthew 3:2 has pretty much nothing to do with the Baptism, but is still hugely important to Christian history. Similarly that Matthew 2:11 mentions that Mary and Joseph were living in a house has nothing to do with the Magi, but is again important information. The general articles should, and those that exist generally do, give a summary of the verse articles and an indication of which verses in each Gospel cover the subject, the extra-scriptural information on the subject; and the differences and disagreements between the various Gospel accounts. - SimonP July 2, 2005 06:38 (UTC)

          • I agree that the universal standard in scholarly works is to go verse by verse when doing a detailed commentary. But Wikipedia is not a bible commentary, it is an encyclopedia, so this is irrelevant. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 08:25 (UTC)
  • Delete Agree with Grue. Fancruft (I have no affiliations to any religion/cult, other than this). A merge would encourage meaningless redirects for every bloody verse. Hopefully if x.x.x returned no results, then a user would be bright enought to conduct a less speciifc search. The JPS 2 July 2005 00:27 (UTC)
    • On the other hand, a merge would re-colour several of the above long-redlinked story articles (e.g. The Temptation of Jesus and Jesus' Appearances) to blue with comparatively little effort. Moreover, a merge would make it clear that all of those Michelangelo paintings are actually part of a single coherent series. Furthermore, a redirect from the individual verse to the overall story that it forms a single line of prevents more book annotations, and duplicate coverage of the same text (once without context as a single verse on its own and once as all of the verses together as a coherent story), breaking out in future. Redirects from Matthew 6:9, Matthew 6:10, Matthew 6:11, Matthew 6:12, and Matthew 6:13 to Lord's Prayer are reasonably good ideas, for example. For one thing, the latter not only analyses all of the verses as a group but also in its turn links to Wikisource, which currently has the whole prayer, and thus those verses, translated into 77 languages. ☺ Uncle G 2005-07-02 01:24:28 (UTC)
  • Merge per Uncle G - great thinking! Note - I voted merge above - (affiliation - not Chistian but sympathetic to Christianity) Cutler July 2, 2005 00:32 (UTC)
  • M/R to Matthew 1. Gazpacho 2 July 2005 01:56 (UTC)
  • Uncle G's proposal, or something like it, seems a sensible solution. Thus: merge and redirect.
-- Hoary July 2, 2005 02:10 (UTC)
  • Keep. On the whole this is finer granularity than I like, but having read four or five of them I'd say they speak for themselves as being reasonable short articles. The articles themselves make the case for having articles about individual not-particularly-notable Bible verses. Has User:Simonp been reading Donald Knuth's 3:16: Bible texts illuminated? Dpbsmith (talk) 2 July 2005 02:41 (UTC) P. S. The question of whether, if continued, this would eventually create a copyright problem with the World English Bible does need to be addressed. Dpbsmith (talk) 2 July 2005 02:42 (UTC)
    • The World English Bible is public domain so copyright is not a concern, it is also the only reason we use it since it is a pretty hopeless translation. I hadn't heard of Knuth's book, but next time I'm at the library I'll try and see what he has on Matthew 3:16. - SimonP July 2, 2005 06:38 (UTC)
      • Duh. I yam stoopid. My apologies for not checking on the status of the World English Bible. Knuth's book is NOT about Matthew 3:16. It's about 3:16. He decided to study the Bible by using a sort of "stratified random sample" technique. He decided to make a close personal study of every verse in the Bible that is numbered 3:16. He acknowledged choosing 3:16 in order to be certain that his sample would contain at least one highly significant verse. He also (somehow) got the cooperation of many talented and famous calligraphers, and every verse is accompanied by a rendering in beautifully artistic calligraphy. Dpbsmith (talk) 2 July 2005 21:06 (UTC)
      • Why are we using a pretty hopeless translation ? this is inaccurate, Wikipedia is not a place to put poor quality work. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 08:25 (UTC)
  • I alrady voted merge above, but I now wish to specify that Uncle G's proposal is probably the best. -R. fiend 2 July 2005 03:41 (UTC)
  • Delete as per Grue. JamesBurns 2 July 2005 04:23 (UTC)
  • Keep (or merge in some reasonable way). Uppland 2 July 2005 05:51 (UTC)
  • Keep as per Capitalistroadster. David Sneek 2 July 2005 10:52 (UTC)
    • per the argument that falls apart as soon as you consider that we don't have articles Ayah 1, Ayah 2, Ayah 3, ... Ayah 6000, for the verses (Ayah) of the Qur'an, or on First finger, bone 3, Second finger, bone 1 for anatomy? ~~~~ 2 July 2005 11:43 (UTC)
I'd vote keep for decent articles on Ayah 1,2,3,...,6000. The Qur'an is an important cultural influence, and if such articles would point out contradictions or present different interpretations that could be useful. The finger bones analogy doesn't work very well, I think. Knowledge about phalanges can be described in general terms, which is not true for, say, Matthew 1:16. David Sneek 2 July 2005 12:59 (UTC)
That is because phalanges is a general term already. Knowledge specifically about the 3rd phalange of the 3rd finger, for example, is more comparative to Matthew 1:16, in that there is nothing that merits a seperate article for that subject alone. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 14:48 (UTC)
  • Merge any useful material. Granularity at the level of Bible verses is both unnecessary and distorting: verses are not units of meaning, but a means of making convenient reference: verse-by-verse analysis destroys context and obscures meaning: verses were first regularly added to Bibles in the 15th century, hundreds or thousands of years after the various source documents were written. - Nunh-huh 2 July 2005 11:01 (UTC)
  • After thinking about this for a while, I end up with Transwiki to Wikibooks:The_New_Testament. This is not to disparage the quality of these articles, which I think is high. But, that is simply where any book annotations should go. Dcarrano July 2, 2005 17:05 (UTC)
  • Merge it is useful to have commentary on the bible (quran, magna carta and so on), especially if something NPOV can be put together, and I think it can. The bible is a very significant book in terms of cultural and literary reference and bears some close analysis in an encylopedia. However individual verses should not form subjects of articles unless those verses are particularly notable in their own right to the extent that they have had a separate existance, such as the Neck verse (NB I am not a notability follower normally, here it is appropriate). An article on Mathew 1 is fine and useful, a verse makes little sense on its own. Some transclusion or direction at the original texts on wikisource would help too. Francis Davey 2 July 2005 17:31 (UTC)
    • N.b. There is already an article concerning Psalm 51 and it's use as in Benefit of clergy (and I was the one that created the redirect from Psalm 51 to it). ~~~~ 2 July 2005 20:07 (UTC)
  • Merge per Uncle G. BlankVerse ∅ 2 July 2005 17:49 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia doesn't need articles about every single verse in the Bible. Merge any useful content, as per above. - Mike Rosoft 2 July 2005 21:19 (UTC)
  • Weak merge per UncleG's remarkable suggestion. Express extreme distaste of the nominator challenging every keep vote and deep concern at the request for religious affiliation indication regardless of the reason; VfD is emphatically not the place for such things. That request should have been removed at the beginning as highly POV. -Splash July 2, 2005 21:50 (UTC)
  • Stong Keep Culturally, historically, and academically relevant. Highly encyclopedic content. Comment 1: I find the nominator's request for religious affiliation extremely inappropriate and hope that we do not see such requests in the future. Comment 2: Much of the discussion above appears to be about organizing Bible-related content while others seem to be commenting on whether or not it belongs in the wikipedia at all. I agree that a discussion of how to best organize the content is a worthy one, but suggest that VfD is not the place to do that. A wiki-project on organizing Bible content would seem a more productive place to have that conversation.Tobycat 3 July 2005 00:30 (UTC)
    • Every single verse is Culturally, historically, and academically relevant? even ones which are just a list of 3 not terribly significant names? ~~~~ 3 July 2005 17:57 (UTC)
    • See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible. ~~~~ 3 July 2005 17:57 (UTC)
  • Delete I don't expect any Bible commentary can be constructed that will be NPOV; wikipedia would do better to steer clear. I tried to help balance a few of these at some point, but I predict that this verse by verse approach will be generally dominated by atheist 'academics' (note how many of them want this kept in), with an occasional pendulum swing in the other direction. Failing a delete, better to merge the material. But to give an example of bias, I would take exception to an article about David's prayer of repentance being at Psalm 51 rather than Psalm 50, because the Psalm 51 chapter numbering is based on the Jewish Hebrew Masoretic texts, rather than the Greek Septuagint text upon which Orthodox Christians have been relying since the first century. So a simple thing like chapter numbering is a clear indicator of religious bias, or if atheist of the religious heritage you most allow to inform your studies. Wesley 3 July 2005 03:20 (UTC)
    • As for the first part of your argument, the "atheist", as you put it, but more correctly agnostic academic approach is the only one based in rational discussion and actual historical evidence, rather than the irrational beliefs of any single group. As for the rest, if we can't have an article on Psalm 51 at Psalm 51, because that is the Jewish numbering and you (or some other people) disagree, we would never be able to have any articles on religious topics where Judaism and Christianity disagree, or for that matter topics where different branches of Christianity disagree. Uppland 3 July 2005 08:14 (UTC)
      • Yes we could, we would just choose a neutral title, e.g. The Miserere (the first word of the latin version of the text, and the title by which the psalm is commonly known - due to its use in music - e.g. Allegri's Miserere). ~~~~ 3 July 2005 17:57 (UTC)
        • Biblical passages and other religious topics may be be the object of articles whether or not it may be difficult to find a title that is acceptable to different religious groups. But that you claim Miserere to be a "neutral title" clearly reveals your own cultural bias. Uppland 4 July 2005 05:34 (UTC)
          • I never claimed Miserere was a neutral title, I merely said that it might be, giving it as potential example (thus the preceeding e.g.). ~~~~ 4 July 2005 21:00 (UTC)
    • N.b. Psalm 51/Psalm 50 is currently dealt with at Benefit of clergy.~~~~ 3 July 2005 17:57 (UTC)
  • Delete all and redirect to Matthew 1. Same goes for all other individual Bible verses. No verse is notable on its own outside of the context of the book it is a part of, and the verse and chapter divisions were entirely arbitrary anyhow. Having a separate article for each verse lends undeserved credence to the peculiar fundamentalist POV that quoting or studying individual verses is an appropriate method of Bible study (as opposed to studying each book of the Bible as a whole taken in context). Kaibabsquirrel 3 July 2005 07:52 (UTC)
    • That's not quite right. Some bible verses (as some single quotations from many other sources) achieve such notoriety that they have an existence on their own. "The wages of sin is death" is sufficiently famous to have been widely used in literature and alluded to in discourse. Indeed it forms part of the song Money by Pink Floyd I heard at Live8 yesterday. Only a very small fraction of verses are in that position. Francis Davey 3 July 2005 11:23 (UTC)
      • Okay, point conceded, but only the relatively small number of verses that have established noteriety in their own right would rate a Wikipedia article. Kaibabsquirrel 3 July 2005 18:17 (UTC)
  • Just to give voters an idea of the level of detail of the scholarship in this area here is a sample of articles from the last two years of New Testament Studies, one of more than a dozen journals that cover this subject. - SimonP July 3, 2005 21:21 (UTC)
    • Paul's Quotation of Isaiah 54.1 in Galatians 4.27
    • Where is the Promise of his Coming?’ The Complaint of the Scoffers in 2 Peter 3.4
    • A Re-examination of Romans 16.7 in Light of Primary Source Materials
    • Authority and Right of Disposal in Luke 4.6
    • The Canticle of the Heavenly Host (Luke 2.14) in History and Culture
    • Self-Help or Deus ex Machina in Mark 12.9?
    • From Faith to Faith: Romans 1.17 in the Light of Greek Idiom
    • Who are ‘The Dead’ and When was the Gospel Preached to Them?: The Interpretation of 1 Pet 4.6
    • What does 1 Thess 1.9–10 say over the addressees of the 1 Thess?
    • Paul in the ‘Between Condition' : Phil 1.23 and the ambivalence of the Dying as a Provocation
    • The Justification of Wisdom (Matt 11.19b/Luke 7.35)
    • Of Cherubim and the Divine Throne: Rev 5.6 in Context
    • Evangelical directions in Letters as a Means of the Formation of Relations (1 Thess 5.27)
    • What did Paul mean by ‘Those Who Know the Law’? (Rom 7.1)
    • Did Jesus Really see Satan Fall from the Sky in Lk 10.18?
    • Philippians 4:4-7: statements and situational background
      • These are religious speculations not academic research. People write about all sorts of things, e.g. Homosexuality in the Lord of the Rings.
        • Why did Frodo use the ring to hide when he knew its dangers (page X1, line Y1).
        • Why did Winston (in 1984 (novel)) have sex with the prostitute even though she was an ugly old woman (page X2, line Y2).
        • What happened to the inside of the tardis (series 27, episode 7, minute 10).
        • Does the behaviour of the blind man indicate frankenstien is about racism not unrestrained science (page X3, line Y3).
        • Did Augustus Gloop suffocate (page X4, line Y4)?
      • Just because they were written about, sometimes substantially, does not actually make them intrinsically noteworthy. Sometimes people write about things because they need to to get their degrees, and its the only bit left that no-one else has done. ~~~~ 4 July 2005 20:41 (UTC)
  • Comment. Due to the size of this discussion, and the division on the topic, I think we need to move this out of a normal VfD and start up a discussion somewhere on how to treat verses from holy books (somewhat like Wikipedia:Poképrosal discussed the Pokémon articles). This needs to be rather well thought out before we act on something on this. Almafeta 3 July 2005 23:49 (UTC)
  • I created this VfD. I disagree. It continues. ~~~~ 4 July 2005 20:23 (UTC)
    • If people genuinely wanted to discuss this outside of VfD then they should do so at Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible. It is highly notable that they have not, and that the Wikiproject has only about 5 members and is virtually inactive. ~~~~ 4 July 2005 20:25 (UTC)
      • Indeed, some people might say that by attempting to move this from VfD is an attempt to circumvent VfD to avoid an apparant result that one does not wish to occur. ~~~~ 4 July 2005 20:50 (UTC)
  • Keep or Merge per Uncle G. This Buddhist understands and acknowledges the importance and vastness of biblical scholarship to world history, including scholarship on individual lines of text and even single words. I also agree that schemes of classification do vary, so that any attempt to systematize passages into catagories as "stories" might be problematic. I agree with those who feel this discussion is large enough that should it take place outside VfD. My vote represents my view that these passages are significant even to non-Christians (who, in many cases, have been persecuted because of single lines) and that, until a deeper policy be reached, they should not be deleted. Xoloz 4 July 2005 03:42 (UTC)
    • As a buddhist, following such a principle, could you add to
      • One Hand Clapping
      • Twirling a Daisy
      • Gift of a scolding coal
      • Wind is moving
      • Kill Buddha
      • etc....
      • ? It would only be adhering to such a principle. ~~~~ 4 July 2005 21:00 (UTC)
        • I cannot claim to speak for all Buddhists, or to possess the most extraordinarily scholarly knowledge myself. Your principle is correct, however; the teachings of major religions deserve extensive coverage, wherever scholarly exegesis exists. For Buddhism, it is perhaps better to begin by cataloging the myriad schools and traditions of thought -- adherence to a sacred Word is a foreign, inappropriate concept. Xoloz 5 July 2005 05:34 (UTC)
          • Indeed, but the whole thing about koans is that they are not individually noteworthy, they contain no knowledge individually, but merely are different styles of encoding the same enlightenment. It would be like having an individual article for each type of handwriting. ~~~~ 5 July 2005 08:36 (UTC)
            • If we have already got articles on Mr A Mr B and [[Mr C]], and we have an article on Genealogy of Mr F (Mr F being descended from Mr C, the son of Mr B, the son of Mr A) there is no point in an article about Mr A is the father of Mr B who is the father of Mr C, as per Matthew 1:9 etc. This information is much better covered elsewhere, not each sentence individually, which is absurd. ~~~~ 5 July 2005 08:39 (UTC)
  • I voted merge above. I think Uncle G's plan is a good way to proceed. I also think that Almafeta's suggestion of creating a discussion page is a good one; there are a lot of biblical articles on WP and they should be well structured. Radiant_>|< July 4, 2005 08:59 (UTC)
    • There is already such a discussion page, and has been for some time. It is Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible. Hardly anyone has cared about it, despite its being advertised in articles such as Bible. ~~~~ 5 July 2005 19:17 (UTC)
  • Merge as per Uncle G. --Dvyost 5 July 2005 17:38 (UTC)
  • Merge as per Uncle G. Jayjg (talk) 5 July 2005 21:42 (UTC)
  • Merge as per Uncle G. with the caveat that the new articles should have subsections on the differences between the Gospels. Thus Matthew's geneaology is different than Luke's, while John has none - each of these could have sections written on them in a Genealogy of Jesus article. Ruhrfisch 8 July 2005 20:28 (UTC)
Note: This vote is this users only edit --Allen3 talk July 9, 2005 15:36 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.