Wikipedia:Merge/Bible verses

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[edit] Description

In Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Individual Bible verses, over 100 articles on individual bible verses were mentioned. It was plain that there was no consensus to delete them, but it was also plain that there was no consensus to keep them individually. It may be useful to get consensus and discussion on what to do with them; some people have argued that they should be put in WikiBooks, or that they could be organized better by merging some of them.

See also Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 1:verses, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/John 20:16, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/John 20, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 2:16, and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Genesis 1:1.
There is a related discussion underway at Wikipedia:Bible verses

[edit] Arguments for keeping separate

  • Divisions by verses is the scholarly standard for commentaries, and has been for centuries. Virtually every detailed work of exegesis goes verse by verse. There is no need for Wikipedia to reinvent the wheel.
I agree wholeheartedly. However, can we not permit alternate citation methods, i.e. Psalm 23 for those chapters that need commentary as a chapter, and not only for those as a verse? Then we have the best of both worlds! There should be a link to the individual verses at the bottom of such a chapter page. --WiseWoman 10:04, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
  • Any division of the Bible is arbitrary, but the division by verses is an established standard and avoids the POV issues of developing our own divisions. Different groups and sects divide the Bible differently, and we will be forced to adopt one of these POVs. The only other standard division is by chapter, but there is far too much detail for such large groupings.
  • Consensus quite clearly exists that some verses deserve their own articles, but determining which articles these are will also lead to endless disputes. What makes a verse notable enough for its own article? No one puts Matthew 5:17 on billboards, but to scholars it is of much import. Neither readers nor scholars see Matthew 1:17 as very important, but it has been much discussed because of a perceived counting error. Matthew 4:16 is pretty anonymous, but one scholar felt it was worthy of devoting an entire paper to. Matthew 5:14 is quite important to American history, but is not very notable to most Christians. Matthew 3:7 is mainly famous because the cutting insult it contains has appeared frequently in literature. If we accept that religious, scholarly, historical, and literary importance are all valid reasons to give an article its own verse then the vast majority of them will get their own articles.
  • It provides for easy linking. For instance the links to verse articles at Christianity and Jewish prophecy takes the reader directly to a discussion of the verse. Section redirects do not work, and writers would be forced to link verses by writing [[Birth of Jesus#Matthew 1:23|Matthew 1:23]].
  • Merges by topic will create very long articles. The suggestion of merging John 20:1 through John 20:18 into Resurrection of Jesus would create a massive article, and would still need room for the resurrection accounts in the other three Gospels. The current verse pages are far from comprehensive. Even a long one like Matthew 1:18 barely scratches the surface.
    • Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of St John strikes me as feasible. After all, there is an entry for France, which contains pointers to such articles as History of France. Pilatus 19:02, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
  • If the very large articles are split based on length will it will produce useless pages names. For instance the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1 is unquestionably one of the least noticed and least commented upon sections of the Gospels, yet even merging verses Matthew 1:1 to Matthew 1:17 would create an article longer than 32kb. We would be forced to have pages with names like Matthew's genealogy of Jesus (Abraham to Achaz).
    • Editing by sections exists. Modern browsers exist. Pilatus 19:02, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
  • The main advantage to merging is that it is often more useful to read verses in context, then in isolation. The current structure already allows this. We have chapter articles such as Matthew 1 that give a general overview and context. Also each of the verse articles have a navigation box so that readers can read the following or preceding verse. It is just as easy, or perhaps even easier, for readers to read multiple articles in a series than it is for them to read a single long article containing a group of verses.
    • I am currently sitting behind a very thin pipe. The delay between clicking on a link and the page appearing is inconveniently long, and I would much prefer to wait longer just once to download a bigger chunk of information. Pilatus 21:45, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
  • There is a truly staggering amount of information and analysis on each of these verses. For evidence see the journal New Testament Abstracts. It is solely devoted to publishing summaries of academic works on the 7000 verses of the New Testament. Each year it summarizes an average of 1200 new journal articles and 700 new books, and it has kept up this pace for the last fifty years. It should also be remembered that New Testament scholarship has been going on for almost 2000 years.
  • Because of the categorized, numeric subdivision of the verses, and the significance many individual ones having in forming Biblical doctrine, it's wise to allow each individual verse to have its own entry.Trilemma
  • I don't see any major problems when we keep each verse as seperate article - as long as it is well written and avoid any major NPOV issues. --Hurricane111 21:17, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Arguments for merging

Most often, individual Bible verses don't stand well on their own. With a few notable exceptions–which should retain their own articles–verses should be merged into unified articles that can provide a useful amount of context. These verses are part of larger stories and accounts. Pulling them out and presenting them individually is like trying to write an article about the Mona Lisa's right thumb. At best, a great deal of contextual information will need to be duplicated across articles; at worst, we will have hundreds of disjointed articles without useful explanation or information. I would be inclined to say that verses which commonly appear on placards at political protests clear the bar for having their own articles, and there are probably other specific cases I can't think of at the moment. I urge editors to remember that merging leaves a redirect behind so that searchers for information about specific verses will still be able to find their way to the correct place. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:23, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

  • I think Ten's hit the nail on the head. The above arguments about doing interlinks to section headers overstate the difficulty of using them. -- BD2412 talk 21:29, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • Matthew 1:9 is a ridiculous article on its own. As are the other genealogy verses. ~~~~ 17:33, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
    • A number of them are actually quite substantial. See for instance Matthew 1:3, Matthew 1:13, and Matthew 1:17. - SimonP 01:58, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
      • I do think one article on the geneology in Matthew would be sufficient. This is an encyclopedia, not a biblical commentary. -Aranel ("Sarah") 18:02, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree with previous arguments. drini ☎ 01:33, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Looking through a few, there's certainly some substance to the articles, but most seems to duplicate information somewhere else, and even useful information could never really be looked up by a particular verse -- it would be looked up, for example, under historical or legendary figures. Each verse should have to establish its own notability e.g., well known, quoted in some high-profile context, etc. We have an article for To be, or not to be, but would we do this for every single verse written by Shakespeare? Listing every article seems like an obvious attempt to artificially inflate the profile of the Bible, violating NPOV. Peter Grey 06:42, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
  • The above claim that "virtually every detailed work of exegesis goes verse by verse" is literally true, but somewhat confusing to me.
    1. First, this is an encyclopedia, not a work of exegesis. (For one thing, proper, faithful exegesis is not necessarily in keeping with the NPOV policy.)
    2. Second, most (I don't know of any exceptions but I haven't read every sample of exegesis) commentaries will group verses by passage (pericope, to use the lingo). Verse divisions are usually respected in a verse-by-verse analysis section, but overall the articles in a commentary will discuss passages, not individual verses (which a few significant exceptions). One individual verse is not necessarily deserving of its very own encylopedia article.
Perhaps we need to discuss whether exegesis and verse-by-verse analysis are even appropriate for an encylclopedia. (In some cases they may be, but I'm not convinced that this is always the case.) The claim that merging would produce enormous articles may perhaps be addressed if we consider that a lot of the information that is there may not actually belong there. -Aranel ("Sarah") 18:02, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
You are quite correct that most works of exegesis group verses by passage. The general structure of most of the works I use is to have a few sentences or paragraphs covering the passage as a whole, followed by a much more detailed verse by verse analysis. I feel that Wikipedia can, and should, try to duplicate this dual structure. We should have articles, suc as genealogy of Jesus or Biblical Magi, that cover the general themes and nature of passages as a whole. For readers looking for more detail they can turn to the articles on individual verses. Shorter works of exegesis will generally skip the verse by verse analysis entirely. We could do the same, but Wikipedia it not paper. If some readers are interested in this information, and it is verifiable and NPOV, I see no reason not to include it. - SimonP 18:56, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
I feel like faithful exegesis is inherently somewhat POV. Yes, I know that the whole point is that you are not imposing your point of view of the text, but good exegesis also reflects the interaction between the text and the reader. Your exegesis on a verse will never be the same as my exegesis on the same verse. We need to come up with some way of reporting the facts without getting into POV material. I would think that a presentation of the prevailing scholarly opinions would be more useful than simple analysis. (E.g. "This verse is often discussed by biblical scholars because it does X, Y, and Z" rather than simply "This verse does X, Y, and Z." If a verse is never discussed by biblical scholars or anyone else, then we wouldn't really need to be writing about it.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 19:46, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
I agree completely, and I have striven to, but perhaps not succeeded in, writing this way. Most paragraphs in the verse articles begin "noted scholar X believes that..." or "ancient Bible commentator Y postulate that..." Matthew 4:16 or Matthew 5:17 are decent examples of this. One of my main concerns about these articles is keeping original research out, be it my own or others. My biggest concerned is that these articles could degrade to unreferenced POV like The Bible and homosexuality. Thus exegesis is perhaps a misnomer. Rather than our own Biblical exegesis what I hope we will have is a compilation and comparison of every major view that has been expressed on each verse, sort of a meta-exegesis. - SimonP 21:22, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
One should not forget denominations; a sentence like "amongst followers of $DENOMINATION, $VERSE is taken so mean ..." is perfectly NPOV and helps to understand where someone's beliefs come from. (Talking about POV, more often than not, in Wikipedia the word Christian means "someone who follows the tradition of evangelical Protestantism". Understandable, since in the US, that group is the most vocal (not to say vociferous), but not acceptable. I'm tempted to slap POV tags on each instance of the usage.) Pilatus 18:26, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
  • It makes a lot of sense to merge verses into "clumps", according to their relationship with other verses around them. An individual verse, out of context, is often at best confusing and at worst misleading. As such, articles discussing groups of verses where these groups for one coherent idea are much more logical than creating individual articles for every verse. There is nothing to stop redirects from individual verse numbers going to the grouped verse articles - in fact, that would be a logical way to proceed. Certainly, there are some verses that are important enough to tand on their own, and even some where individual verses could have their own page and still be referred to as part of grouped articles (e.g., Matthew 5:4 individually and as part of the Sermon on the Mount). Sure, some of the articles produced will be long, but if they become too long then paring out into smaller articles on individual verses is always an option still available to us. Picking at random, here... II Chronicles 27's nine individual verses are best trated as one article on Jotham, or split into 1-2, 3-4, 5, 6-9. Some of them are pointless on their own, What is there to say about II Chron 27:6 other than to refer it to the information given in the verses on either side of it? Grutness...wha? 02:46, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm more of a mergist in this case. If an article on a verse can be expanded to contain a reasonable amount of information, keep it as is. If not, merge it with the related passage, chapter, or book. I'm against relying on any pre-defined defination stating that certain verses are not notable, however - it should be handled on a case by case basis. Oh, and you may wish to note the (relatively) new WikiProject relating to articles about the Bible at WP:BIBLE. --Blu Aardvark | (talk) | (contribs) 02:52, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Loads of little unlinked articles on verses can become a breeding ground for POV when people take it upon themselves to interpret without context, or try to make more of what a verse means than it really does, many extremist veiws claim a bible verse that alone seems to support their logic (or lack therof). The old testemant especially is full of quotes that can be misinterprted easily. →ubεr nεmo→ lóquï 04:06, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Linking

The merging option opens the question of how to make easy to use wiki-links. We should probably have a template, of the form {{bible-verse|John|3|16}}. This template would then construct a link and anchor of the form [[Bible verses - John#3:16|John 3:16]]. This link would be a disambig page, where every entry of John would be listed and:

  • would have its own link to wikisource, some other source, etc.
  • a link to any article where this verse is merged/discussed with others
  • a link to its own article, if it has one.

Of course, if a link has its own article, the author could also directly use that as well, but a standard template and disambig page would make for a nice catch-all. Currently, wikipedia templates do not allow for if/else logic, which would be nice for pointing links more directly to where they should go. In any case, creating such disambig pages would allow us to firmly direct users to the right places to look up particular verses, be they in their own articles, or where some of them might be merged in larger articles. func(talk) 16:36, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Ooh, I like. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:52, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why we shouldn't just have a redirect to the article describing the appropriate member of the List of Bible stories. ~~~~ 07:56, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

My response to this is that:
  • Not every verse nessesarily fits into a "story", per se.
  • It requires someone to read through the various members of the List of Bible stories. The nice thing about my suggestion is that one can wiki-link a bible verse without having to know anything about the christian bible. All of the other merging solutions would require the editor doing the wikifying to know everything about how Wikipedia organizes its content. Like I said, an individual could wiki-link to a direct location, if he or she happens to know of an appropriate place, (like one of the bible story articles), but having a general disambig page for each bible verse by bible book would make it easier on most editors.
func(talk) 13:15, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Oh, you said a redirect. I misread that. I thought you were saying people should just directly link to a bible story article. func(talk) 13:19, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Definitely merge into broader articles. I would prefer topical articles. I would also support articles on whole chapters of the Bible, although I think only books of the Bible and general Bible topics warrant separate encyclopedia articles. The problems with single-verse articles have already been stated above. Logophile 14:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arguments against a specific policy on biblical verses

To decide that verses always must remain separate would be a silly and unnecessary policy. In some cases it may useful, in others it is not. Neither do we need a particular policy to consistently merge articles on biblical verses – anyone can already be bold and merge articles when needed (but with consensus if the merge would be controversial). And we can not have a policy to only keep notable verses, simply because deciding which verses are notable is impossible until the articles are extant.

To expand on the last point: Any policy saying that "only notable verses should have articles" would require establishing beforehand which Bible verses are notable and which are not. How is that even possible before the articles are written? Does anyone here seriously claim to be familiar with the exegetical literature of every Jewish or Christian theological, mystical or philosophical tradition where particular verses may have some particular significance? I don't think so. Or are we only going to determine notability based on use "on placards at political protests" or other cases rooted in 21st century American or European politics or culture? That would be a clear case of systemic bias, indirectly favouring a Western Christian tradition.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If somebody can write a well-referenced article on a verse, showing its individual importance in any context or tradition (religious, historical, political or literary) it should be kept. If it is well-written and referenced, but ends up too short or lacking context, a merge should be considered. There will no doubt be many cases where a particular verse may be merged with neighbouring verses or with a related passage somewhere else, but merges should be discussed and decided on a case-by-case basis. Any more detailed policy is instruction creep. Uppland 17:23, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with this, and have long stated that every verse does not need its own article. However, I feel it would be better to decide on a chapter by chapter or book by book level, rather than verse by verse basis as it is important to avoid a checkerboard arrangement. For instance there isn't much worth saying about John 20:10, but both John 20:9 and John 20:11 are quite notable verses. It is important to preserve the ability of a reader to read those three in order. If the middle one was a redirect to a section of Resurrection of Jesus, John 20, or some other related article, it would break the series. A better solution is to say that since there is something important to say about some 90% of the verses in the resurrection account, we should have articles on all of them. By contrast there is much less to say about the first half of 1 Chronicles, and going chapter by chapter would more appropriate. - SimonP 17:49, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
I disagree with the idea that "deciding which verses are notable is impossible". Many verses of the Bible are often referenced like the Lord's Prayer. A simple survey of Google hits could discover which is which. Others that have specific value only to biblical scholars are likely not Encyclopedic, they belong in a religious dissertation. --Outlander 20:25, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • It should be noted that this is not a policy proposal. It is simply a discussion to see if there's consensus on what to do in this case. (Unsigned comment by User:Radiant!. Signature added by Uppland 21:54, 21 July 2005 (UTC))
    • It says above that "This page is part of Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Policy consensus", it is included in the box on the VfD page saying "Policy consensus discussions", and it seems difficult not to assume that whatever the result will be, it will be a precedent for later similar cases. If it walks and quacks and all that... It is at the very least a de facto policy proposal, whatever you like to call it. If it was truly just about some specific verses, that discussion should take place on the talk pages of those articles. That was actually part of my point above: deal with these articles on a case-by-case basis, and judge each article or set of articles on its own merits. There is no reason to try to discuss a hundred articles at the same time. Uppland 21:54, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
  • "only notable verses should have articles" would require establishing beforehand which Bible verses are notable. This simply isn't true. "Only notable people should have biographical articles", which already exists, doesn't require establishing which people are notable beforehand. It is just a statement that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not a mindless collection of 100% of information about anything. "Wikipedia should conform to NPOV about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict" does not require establishing beforehand what the NPOV situation is. "Wikipedians should not make personal attacks" does not require establishing beforehand exactly which insults are personal attacks - e.g.
    • twat is an insult
    • incorrect is not an insult
    • fool is an insult
    • dog is an insult
    • nice is not an insult (no consensus on this one)
    • really lovely is not an insult
  • To suggest otherwise is really to set up a false dichotomy. ~~~~ 07:18, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
  • "Only notable people should have biographical articles" - yes, but we establish notablity in contested biographical cases through individual VfD's (unless no notability is asserted). So, if we follow the same logic, we need to send each verse article to VfD seperately to establish its notability. But since that is what we do with non-notable articles anyway, your 'policy' adds nothing. I agree that 'non-notable Bible verses don't deserve articles' - but I think quite a lot are notable (all be it probably a minority), and when I think that I want to be able to make the case to others - so there is no way round VfD - which is already the current policy (so no need for any change). Proposing and discussing merges is already governed by other rules. --Doc (?) 08:20, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Bible verses pose a peculiar problem. In one sense, all verses in the Bible are notable. On the other hand, there just isn't that much to say about certain verses that is appropriate to a general-reference work. I think it might be appropriate to add a paragraph to the article on notability to cover heavily-studied texts in general, and the Bible in particular, as an aid to judgment, not a substitute for it.Robert A West 15:32, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
We should also remember that Wikipedia has no policy on notability. There are enough people who want notability to be a reason for deletion that sometimes articles are deleted for lack of fame, but adopting a notability policy was reject some time ago at Wikipedia talk:Fame and importance. Notability as a reason for deletion is opposed by a significant minority that includes Jimbo and several members of the arbcom. One policy that is official is that every article must be verifiable, and as long as these pages are well referenced they are. - SimonP 15:53, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
We should also remember that wikipedia is not a dictatorship, and operates on consensus. If a tiny minority whether it includes Jimbo and the ArbCom or not think that X should occur, but the consensus is against them, then X simply should not occur. Appeals to authority figures simply demonstrate the weakness of an argument on its own merits. ~~~~ 17:38, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Yes, and the Fame and importance policy failed to win consensus. - SimonP 01:59, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
It still feels wrong to write articles that will never be more than stubs. Most single verses fall under that category. Some don't. I see no policy saying that an editor cannot take importance into account in deciding whether to write one article or several. On the other hand, there are editors who insist on consistency, even where it is foolish. Can anyone suggest a better place to point this out? Robert A West 08:27, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
I agree that in areas that will only produce stubs we should not have an article per verse. I have mentioned this idea at Wikipedia talk:Bible verses. It should be noted, however, that of the 127 articles we currently have on Bible verses only a small minority could be classed as stubs, and that is after only a few months of existence and, in most cases, content from only one editor. - SimonP 12:36, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

My choice is to wait and see. As of the present, there are only a handful of individual Bible verses that have articles of their own. The majority of those articles are not stubs now; many are pretty good. On the other hand, writing an article for each verse of the Bible is a pretty daunting undertaking, and "that's enough, Brother Maynard, let us skip ahead a bit" may well hit at some point, making any attempt at formulating a policy unnecessary. I agree that a WikiBible commentary might be a good idea, and if it ever exists most of these articles should be transwikied there. Smerdis of Tlön 17:00, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there's a big problem with the way things are right now. The VfD results for these are quite similar to those for schools, recipes, and a lot of other things for which there isn't consensus on notability: Bad articles get deleted, good articles get kept, and the occasional article in the middle gets merged and/or redirected. I'm okay with this, because we aren't getting rid of any high-quality articles or any useful information. Furthermore, I'm not concerned about what would happen if we had an article on every single bible verse because it would be a colossal undertaking to create a good article on every verse, one that I doubt anyone's going to attempt anytime soon. JYolkowski // talk 00:08, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

  • So, are we developing a consensus against a policy, referring the matter to editorial judgment in specific cases? Robert A West 02:53, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
    • To a degree, but I think there also needs to be some balance between the two ideas. Treating all Bible verses identically is wrong, but at the same time some consistency is needed. It would be silly if Matthew 1:5 was merged into genealogy of Jesus, Matthew 1:6 was transwikied, Matthew 1:7 was deleted outright, Matthew 1:8 was merged in Matthew 1, and Matthew 1:9 was kept. Better would be considering specific groups of verses. - SimonP 13:27, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • I absolutely agree that we don't need a policy on specific bible verses, except the obvious one that the bible is of such inherent importance--I speak as an atheist--that well written articles on biblical subjects are always welcome on Wikipedia. --Tony SidawayTalk 02:00, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I dont see it as a good plan to exclude articles on bible verses from the encyclopedia and consign them all to an alternative wiki. Some would make a long enough article to stand alone while others would not really have anything to say. Others logically belong together. So unless someone can codify a policy which allows them to be ranked uncontroversially, then I don't see that they are much different from ordinary articles. It might be possible to have a policy that they should be 'clumped' (either by set of verses talking about the same thing or chapter) untill an article gets too big?Sandpiper 08:26, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I have to agree with some of the arguments put forth here. My personal belief is that some verses may or may not be notable or expandable enough for their own article, in which case I feel they'd be better off to be merged into an article on the passage, chapter, or book (Please note: I am against merging into Bible stories or any other arbitrary subdivisions besides passages, chapters, and books). In other cases, they may be notable or expandable enough to warrant their own article. I don't feel a specific policy is needed. --Blu Aardvark | (talk) | (contribs) 20:08, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Note that Chapters and verses of the Bible are also arbitrary divisions: When first written down, the books that were later chosen as part of the Biblical canon contained no verse indications. Nabla 20:41:36, 2005-08-10 (UTC)
      • True, but such divisions have been common for quite some time. They did not originally contain chapter and verse references, but these references provide a simple way for breaking up and referencing the biblical text. There are several reasons I object to dividing by stories. First of all, not all bible verses fit in the context of a story. Second of all, several "Bible stories" are repeated in different places, which would make it hard to determine which verse should merge where. And finally, restricting the verse to a story could potentially prevent elaboration on alternative interpretations of the verse. --Blu Aardvark | (talk) | (contribs) 23:22, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
        • I agree with you that verses can not simply be merged. They should be refereces to articles on subjects. They may end up being a reference to multiple subjects or eventually none. Let me ephasize that I suggest an organization by 'subject' (which includes 'stories') not by 'story' (which would exclude a lot of 'subjets' as Lord's Prayer) Please see Wikipedia_talk:Bible_verses#My_(Nabla)_opinion, as I do not want to repeat myself. Nabla 13:20:10, 2005-08-11 (UTC)
          • I still disagree. As before, some subjects are repeated in several locations, and some verses may fit under multiple subjects. And, again, it still restricts alternative interpretations of verses, etc. My view is that, if a quality, encyclopedic, NPOV, and thourough article can be written on a verse, than that article should remain. If the article does not meet all of these criteria, and cannot be expanded to do so, I feel that the article should be merged with an article on the chapter, or perhaps on a passage (series of verses). However, this should be decided on a case by case basis. --06:20, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
      • speaking as an atheist from a non-christian background - if there is a scholarly article for any given verse it should stay. 1)Wikipedia is not paper, 2)and I don't think there's going to be too many scholarly/worthwhile articles on too many sects of too many religions; but if it does happen: 3) I can't see why it should be a problem, but 4) if we reach such a bridge, suppose we cross it then. 61.2.6.36 04:06, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
  • In VfD (which is now AfD), I had originally argued against separate articles, preferring a merge. However, in reflection, I have come to realize that this was based on my own selfish personal preference rooted in my own belief system. These individuals are doing us a favor by contributing valuable content, and we should accomodate them. As long as the articles are supported with cited sources, NPOV, etc.; it should be left at the discretion of those who are actually writing these articles. Left to their own devices, and with a few suggestions for guidance, editors acting in good faith will produce quality content. Leave it to the programmers to help sort and present the data. Unfocused 14:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
  • A flat ban won't work: Perhaps it might be best to wait a while and see, unless you're getting hundreds of verses as basically stubs. I mean, if a policy against this practice were adopted, does anyone want to have to keep deleting John 3:16 every couple of weeks? In which case we'd be saying, "For Wikipedians so loved this verse, that they recreated it on a regular basis, and whosoever demanded its expulsion, would find it would not perish, but have eternal life." :) Paul Robinson 21:54, 4 September 2005 (UTC) (talk)

[edit] Arguments for transwikiing

On the other hand, there is scholarship concerning virtually every verse in the Bible. Would a Wikibible project be of interest? Could it be done without degenerating hopelessly into POV-wars? Would there be sufficient support? Robert A West 15:34, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

  • That is a worthy suggestion, but bear in mind that this opens the door to such a project for every religious text. Not that that's a bad thing, but something to keep in mind. -- BD2412 talk 21:24, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

It would have to be WikiBible not part of Wikipedia itself. ~~~~ 17:39, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

  • Just out of curiosity, could we make it a part of Wikibooks? I mena, the Bible is a book after all... Sasquatch′↔T↔C 22:07, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
    • Wikibooks is for the creation of textbooks. In theory we could have a text book on the Biblical scholarship, but it would look very different from a series of encyclopedia articles. - SimonP 02:01, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
      • A commentary IS a textbook. ~~~~ 07:02, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Of course, WikiBible is what I meant: I was being insufficiently careful. As to a project for every religious text, I don't see that my (for example) working on WikiBible obliges me to work on WikiKoran any more than my working on Democratic Peace Theory obliges me to work on Communism and World Peace. If there is enough interest to actually do WikiKoran, why not? Robert A West 07:58, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
  • The articles I've seen do look an awful lot like they belong in a biblical commentary, not an encyclopedia. And hey, if there can be a Star Trek wiki, why not one for a major religious text? -Aranel ("Sarah") 18:06, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
  • It's not a bad idea, but I think that it's a better idea to have these articles as part of this encyclopedia, where we can enforce encyclopedic standards such as NPOV, than to have them in another project that may or may not keep such standards. JYolkowski // talk 23:54, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
  • This makes the most sense, because I believe the authors will be able to be more purpose-driven in their discussion of the verses than an encyclopedic perspective will allow. NPOV and notability won't be issues at all. This could remove a possibly large burden from VfD in the future, and allow interested authors to craft a complete, annotated Bible project, without the problems that hundreds of individual articles here could bring. Of course, a few verses or books will remain as individual WP articles; nothing in this proposal would prevent that. DavidH 01:20, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't see why we can have a Simpsons episode guide and a Pokemon Pokedex on wikipedia but not a biblical commentary. Wikipedia is NOT a paper.Borisblue 09:14, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with Borisblue. I'm not a Christian, but the Bible has had tremendous historical impact and some of these verses articles are pretty good. Wikipedia is not paper CanadianCaesar 23:27, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I am against a WikiBible, for reasons discussed on Wikipedia:Bible verses. I feel it simply invites PoV edits. I am not, however, against these articles being transwikied to Wikibooks, especially if common templates for linking were created. --Blu Aardvark | (talk) | (contribs) 20:12, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with BorisBlue. Wikipedia isn't paper. --Celestianpower hab 21:25, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I also agree with BorisBlue. The Bible has been subject to intense scholarly activity, and there is no reason that when a quality article can be written about interpretation of a single verse, that article should not be written. That said, I would be supportive of such articles being written on passages of longer-than-verse length until such articles become long enough to warrant verse-level breakout. The only problem with this approach is that there is that aside from fairly compartmentalized passages that have acquired names for themselves (e.g., Parable of the Good Samaritan) there is little consensus as to where to break the Bible into passages, or what to call the resulting passages. The next sensible larger unit is the chapter, which is a very large chunk of text, and sometimes not even fit to the purpose as chapter breaks do not always fall at topical breaks in the text. Shimmin 03:29, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Can we bring this discussion to a close?

This discussion has been dormant for some weeks now - have we reached any conclusions? Any consensus? Any policy proposals to have a straw poll on? -- BD2412 talk 00:29, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm probably not the right one to try and read conclusions into this, but could we please not have another poll on this subject. - SimonP 02:06, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
I'd just like us to do whatever must be done to call this discussion concluded and move it off the list of active discussions, as it is clearly not active. -- BD2412 talk 02:08, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, I took it off the template, so we'll see if anyone opposes that. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:28, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

By the way, to summarize as I read it, the major conclusion of this and the related discussion seems to be that articles on Bible verses should demonstrate the individual notability of the verse; what specifically constitutes notability is undecided. There is no consensus to move this material away from Wikipedia, and that there is no consensus to delete the material en bloc. The main advice I would take away from this is that filling out large portions of the Bible with bare-bones verse articles is a bad idea. A lot of the support for the existing articles is based on the fact that Simon's work is well-referenced, well-considered, etc. Making 15,000 verse articles that contain no real content would be a good way to make a lot of people very angry. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:38, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, we've had this, and -Ril-'s silly poll, and I think we've concluded what we could have said at the begining. Articles on notable Bible verses are encyclopedic - and we can only judge what's worth keeping intact when we see the article. Good, full, well-referenced articles should stay. Stubs and bare-bones may be merged. But since all that goes for any other article, we've really said nothing at all. I think this debate is now sterile and should be closed forthwith. --Doc (?) 01:08, 4 October 2005 (UTC)