Talk:Joseph's Tomb

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In the heart of Nablus, the biblical Shechem located about 40 miles north of Jerusalem, Palestinians took control of Joseph's Tomb after days of fierce fighting. Under the Oslo Accords, the tomb was considered a holy site where Jewish young men were to be allowed to pray and study the Torah. After the takeover last October, Muslims immediately converted Joseph's Tomb into a mosque, complete with a freshly painted green dome. [1]

The Muslim Public Affairs Council, while siding with the Palestinian peoples right to defend their land and Al-Aqsa Mosque, condemns the demolition of Joseph's Tomb that took place on Saturday, October 7. The destruction of any house of worship violates the principle of preserving the sanctity of synagogues, temples, mosques or churches (see Quran 22:40). [2]

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[edit] POV

The style of the initial 2005 article seems to be anti-Arab, and even anti-Israeli government. The failure to mention Nablus until a long way into the article, instead talking about Yesha was a significant indicator, but the rest of the article is still POV. --Henrygb 17:23, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Isn't this similar to complaining that an article about say, concentration camps in Germany is POV and anti-Nazi especially if it fails to refer to Germany as the Third Reich until way into the article? Kuratowski's Ghost 00:08, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • "Joseph's body was taken from Egypt during the Exodus and later reinterred in Shechem." RThat's all? Since this is the basis for identifying the site as the Tomb of Joseph, the locus should be given and even a quote, with some sensible explication... by someone who cares. --Wetman 10:14, 1 May 2005 (UTC)


_____________________

Sure a photo of Joseph's Tomb should be better if related to a Jewish source, not a Christian one.

This one, for example, http://www.tsel.org/keveryoseph/ showing how it looked for hundreds of years.

~~

[edit] Joseph, sheikh yousef & Guy Montags reverts

The article currently states:"Joseph’s Tomb is a shrine in Ancient Shechem in the West Bank. It is traditionally considered to be the burial place of the Biblical patriarch Joseph and is located in Nablus city. Joseph's body was taken from Egypt during the Exodus and later reinterred in Shechem."

The article before Guy Montags reverts stated: "Joseph’s Tomb is a shrine near Nablus city in West Bank, it is traditionally considered to be the burial place of the Biblical patriarch Joseph and is located in the Samarian city of Shechem.Many archeologists believe that the site is a few centuries old and possibly containing the remains of a Muslim sheikh named Yossef[1]. According to the Jewish texts, Joseph's body was taken from Egypt during the Exodus and later reinterred in Shechem (Joshua 24:32)."

In my edits on 4th of september, i changed the following details:

  • "is a shrine near Nablus city" instead of "in Ancient Shechem in the West Bank"
    • i did this because i dispute that it is located _IN_ Ancient Shechem, why? read further.
  • "and is located in the Samarian city of Shechem.Many archeologists believe that the site is a few centuries old and possibly containing the remains of a Muslim sheikh named Yossef" instead of "and is located in Nablus city"
    • i did that because according to the context, being located in samaria is the traditional consederation! (who's tradition, i didn't touch that topic).
    • Yousef is indeed the arabic spelling for joseph, but Sheikh Yousef is defenetly not Joseph the patriarch. in arabic texts, sheikh was never associated with Joseph, since Joseph in Arabic Christian & Islamic texts is a prophet or patriarch, not a sheikh!

So, i belive that the version that was before Guy Montag reverted is a more objective one! AFAIK no one disputes the fact that Joseph's Tomb is near the current location of nablus city! but is it in Ancient Shechem? ie is it a part of the Ancient Shechem? the jewish virtual library says that there exist a subset of archologists who belive the site is only a few centuries old :) ! and thus being the tomb of patriarch joseph and being _IN_ Ancient Shechem is disputed!

[edit] POV

This page seems not to have neutral point-of-view. It does not seem to acknowledge the Arab (Chrstian/Muslim) reverence for the site nor does it provide a balanced report of the conflicting reports regarding its attack and rebuilding.

http://www.revisionisthistory.org/palestine42.html (Ismael Shamir's account) is worth a read. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.9.108.223 (talk) .

Surely neutral point-of-view does not mean add 50% whitewash. Kuratowski's Ghost 20:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Simply slapping a POV template on an article does not make it POV. It is expected that the editor detail why s/he thinks the article is POV, and/or alternatively make the article NPOV, as opposed to leaving the dirty work to others. --Shuki 20:30, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I beleive that I have made this article NPOV, however it still needs citations. --Musaabdulrashid 10:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't seem fair to contrast israeli leaniancy on access to holy places with palestinian harshness when israel frequently doesn't allow palestinians to visit Al-Aqsa mosque. --Musaabdulrashid 20:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Specifying 'Israeli citizens' is fair, but your statement 'frequently denies access' is blanketly untrue and at most exagerated for the example you brought only above. Israel rarely completely denies access to Palestinians to the Temple Mount. Occasionally, when tensions are high, it restricts access to older (40-45+) married adults since it has been proven that when tensions are high, the young ones tend to cause provocations, to put it mildly. In contrast, the Palestinians completely refuse to afford safe access to holy sites under their control, including Joseph's Tomb and other tombs as well as synagogues (Jericho and Gaza) basically relegating the Israeli government to restrict its citizens entirely from these sites and to the special rare visits under armed escort or otherwise to either sneak in in the middle of the night. --Shuki 22:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
noted. "frequently" has been changed to "on some occasions" --Musaabdulrashid 11:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Let's totally make it NPOV. --Shuki 19:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Shuki, This article should not discuss the ramifications of how much territory is acctually Israeli. Stating that the israeli government does not allow israeli jews to visit nablus hinges its presence in this article on whether Israel can legally militarily gaurentee its citizens safty in areas that are not internationally recognized as Israeli or even claimed by the Israeli government (like nablus). In addition, its heavily redundant to what you added below, as well as what was already in this article. the word "control" should probably be changed as a vast amount of middle eastern territory has at one time or another been under israeli control in the last hundred years. "Soverignty" or "Claimed national territory" would be less misleading, as its impossible to garuntee religious access to any place simply because its under military control, no matter what the law says. This being said, that law should probably be cited. Until then "law" could be changed to "policy".--Musaabdulrashid 00:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I agree. I removed the info about Israeli government and non-citizens since it is not relevant to this article about Joseph's Tomb. --Shuki 18:44, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Very good then--Musaabdulrashid 08:01, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyvio

It appears that the original article [3] was copied and pasted from the source it listed: [4]. It seems strange that we could have edited this so long without realizing that it was a copyvio so I thought I would ask here first if www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org liscences its works under GFDL. It seems doubtful to me. The normal WP:COPYVIO procedings should take place if this isn't explained soon.

I also edited the article to work more on the NPOV issue, which we now know the root of. --Musaabdulrashid 09:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

This all seems very unnecessariy. I didn't write the article but I edited some things in, and I'm sure many people did too, thus changing it since then (I guess part of the destruction of the tomb was copied and remained). I doubt there's any copyright violation anyway. Amoruso 22:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
The article on the Jewish Virtual Library is copyright 2006 yet the Wikipedia article was created in 2005!!! I did use public domain text at the time. The JVL article looks like it used the same text or an earlier version of the wikipedia article! Kuratowski's Ghost 23:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Besides, it doesnt matter what the copyright status of the piece was back then. In it's current form the aritcvle bears little or no resemblance - hence it not being a copyvio! --Errant Tmorton166(Talk)(Review me) 00:15, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
It does matter, you can't just change copyrighted material to make it not copyrighted. If the original version was a copyvio then the entire thing is a copyvio (excluding the paragraph on the destruction of the tomb, which appears to be original). This is explained clearly on the Template:Copyvio. More than half of this article could be a direct cut and paste anyway. The matching source was first cited in the article in the September 4, 2005 revision, before 2006. The date and copyright notice on the article doesn't matter anyway because all works are automatically protected under copyright the moment they are created in the United States (where wikimedia's servers are). Also, the JVL article cites sources from 2000 that this article never did cite, ever, indicating that if they copied this material that they completely fabricated those sources, which is a stretch. If this text was copied from public domain, kuratowski hasn't said where it was copied from under public domain yet. Until we have this established do not remove the copyvio tag again. --Musaabdulrashid 01:22, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok er, copyrighting is a difficult business. However the law does not cover text that resembles copyrighted material unless the material is printed (I think it's all a bit hazy). Anyway only if sections of the text are word for word can it be a copyvio - if the meaning and tone is the same but with different words then it isn'y copyvio it is sourced. As you can see from the copyscape page the wiki article does not copy infringe the first part of the text, however the second part is all taken vewrbatime and needs rewording. Also were killed in fighting around the tomb. The Israeli army subsequently section is a littele bit too close for comfort as it crosses 2 sentences so probably needs changing. It is easy done... --Errant Tmorton166(Talk)(Review me) 19:43, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I was asked to look at this. If that text at JVL isn't free, or isn't from a PD source, then the article as it stands today is still a copyvio -- significant sections are close to identical. The claim that the text was originally from a public domain source needs to be documented; until it is, having the page replaced with the Possible Copyvio tag is appropriate. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The Internet Archive has a copy of this page from 2002, [5], which predates this article. —Centrx→talk • 02:27, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Also note the JVL's copyright page: "Generally, unless an entry specifically lists a source at the bottom of the page the copyright belongs to AICE." —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:35, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

So, some of the article needs to be rewritten, getting rid of the text from that website, some of which remains in the current article. It is clear in comparing the current article with the website, which parts need to be rewritten and which parts are fine where you can just use what you already have in the article. Do the rewrite at Talk:Joseph's Tomb/Temp, but do not copy any of the copyrighted parts to there. This is also an opportunity to make it more neutral, if that was an issue. —Centrx→talk • 02:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Started the rewrite. I did leave the copyvio ttext on the page but commented it out - its goign to be the reference so it may as well be easy to look at when rewriting. Ive just been deleting sections that I rewrite as Ive been going along :D --Errant Tmorton166(Talk)(Review me) 20:01, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok the rewrite is finised with all the copyvio gone. I redid other sections of it too and added some more references / sources (as well as sorting out the footnotes structure) Still needs more formatting work and there is some content still to add (mostly about the 2003 vandalism - from the WND article). Still it's a start and should save the article. --Errant Tmorton166(Talk)(Review me) 10:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Done: Moved rewritten article over deleted copyright infringement. Looks good. —Centrx→talk • 22:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] nice work on the rewrite and question

I would like to congratulate the effort made in the speedy re-write. excellent work. I have a question - does anyone know if after Israel took control of the site during the present intifada, was the green paint washed off ? Or is it going to be left that way ? It seems astonishing... imagine someone painting the top of the Al Aqsa mosque, wonder if that's all right. Amoruso 22:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Palestinians' gun-fire

From the entry: "On May, 2007, the Breselov hasidim visited the site for the first time in two years and prayed under gun-fire from the Palestinians." From the source: "A Palestinian gunman opened fire at the escorting troops during the service and soldiers fired back, hitting the gunman."

[edit] Written from Jewish point of view

The article is clearly written from a very Jewish point of view. It lists Jewish casualties and suggests that all violence was one-sided, as nothing is mentioned of Palestinian casualties or violence towards them. The article also doesn't mention the sites holiness to Muslims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Petruspennanen (talk • contribs) 13:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you have something citable and relevant to add to the article? Tomertalk 10:01, 9 March 2008 (UTC)