Wikipedia:Organisation of Bible articles

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✘ This proposal has failed to attain consensus within the Wikipedia community. A failed proposal is one for which a consensus to accept is not present after a reasonable amount of time, and seems unlikely to form, regardless of continuing discussion.
This page in a nutshell: Regardless of their content, articles about certain divisions (whether chapters, lections, or verses) of the bible should only exist if the chapter/lection/verse is distinctly notable as a whole unit.

Contents

[edit] The argument

The Pericope Adulterae is famous for being that, not for being John 7:53-8:11. It isn't John 7 that's famous and John 8 independently so, its the passage that spans them.

Just because the Pericope Adulterae is very notable, and consequently can be very well sourced, that doesn't justify having articles about John 7 and John 8 independently.

Indeed, creating John 7 and John 8 is effectually creating a POV fork of the Pericope Adulterae article.

How is it justified to have

when there also exists

which cover the same material, in a more encyclopedia-like way?

One of the many things which Wikipedia is not is a mere collection of public domain or other source material. And yet the chapter-by-chapter articles are just that - simply summaries of chapters of the bible, and summaries of other wikipedia articles (the articles in the list immediately above).

Another thing which wikipedia is not is a an indiscriminate collection of information:Plot summaries. And yet the chapter-by-chapter articles, and lection-by-lection articles are just plot summaries.

[edit] An example : Articles about Drury Lane

For example, Drury Lane is a notable place and is an appropriate article. As are certain items connected to it:

all of which are located within Drury Lane

but

  • 1-9 Drury Lane
  • 10-19 Drury Lane
  • 20-29 Drury Lane
  • 30-39 Drury Lane
  • 40-49 Drury Lane
  • 50-59 Drury Lane
  • 60-69 Drury Lane

are not inherently appropriate articles, even though they would cover the items in the first list, which are themselves notable, and would consequently be very well sourced. Even if everything vaguely connected to Drury Lane had an article. It would be particularly lacking in appropriety to have the articles in the second list if the address of one of the items in the first list was 15-23 Drury Lane.

So it is with the Bible, Temptation of Jesus, Baptism of Jesus, Sermon on the Mount, etc. might be notable, and well sourced, and appropriate for articles themselves, but that doesn't make it appropriate to create Matthew 1, Matthew 2, Matthew 3, Matthew 4, Matthew 5, ....

[edit] The Lectionary Issue

Even if you wanted to have a single article for each and every single chapter in the bible, there would still be problems.

Chapters are not the only way the bible is divided up. There are several lectionary divisions, and many have already been turned into series of articles. How is it more appropriate to have articles on a chapter-by-chapter basis, than on a lection-by-lection basis, whose POV about this gets the upper hand?

Which lectionaries count?

Should we have

  • Byzantine Gospel Lection for Bright Monday (John 1:18-28)
  • Byzantine Gospel Lection for Bright Tuesday (Luke 24:12-35)
  • Byzantine Gospel Lection for Bright Wednesday (John 1:35-51)
  • Byzantine Gospel Lection for Bright Thursday (John 3:1-15)
  • Byzantine Gospel Lection for Bright Friday (John 2:12-22)
  • Byzantine Gospel Lection for Bright Saturday (John 3:22-33)
  • Byzantine Gospel Lection for Thomas Sunday (John 20:19-31)

as well as

and

  • Roman Catholic Matins Lection for Second Monday of Lent (John 1:1-28)
  • Roman Catholic Matins Lection for Easter Sunday (Luke 24:12-35)
  • Roman Catholic Matins Lection for Second Tuesday of Lent (John 1:29-61)
  • Roman Catholic Matins Lection for Second Thursday of Lent (John 3:1-21)
  • Roman Catholic Matins Lection for Second Wednesday of Lent (John 2)
  • Roman Catholic Matins Lection for Second Friday of Lent (John 3:22-33)
  • Roman Catholic Vespers Lection for Easter Sunday (John 20:24-31)

and if not, if we still have one group rather than none, which religious group gets the upper hand?

And if you think that lections should be excluded completely, why haven't you voted to delete the following?:

[edit] The existence of exceptions

Clearly there are a few divisions that are significant. Some chapters are notable, rather than just happening to contain notable passages. For example, there is much academic discussion about the textual existence of John 21, and the textual non-existence of the final part of Mark 16. Psalm 51 was often used in law trials to avoid death. Similarly John 3:16 has become a marketing slogan among evangelicals.

Jesus wept, is notable as being the shortest verse - in the modern english chapter & verse division - but even then its notable only as Jesus wept, not as John 11:35.

This proposed guideline would continue to allow these, and similar, exceptions to be articles.

[edit] background

Essentially a certain group of editors has created, and continues to create, articles on a division-by-division basis. Centralised discussion (Wikipedia:Bible verses and Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/200_verses_of_Matthew) concluded that articles based on this principle were a bad thing.

In Spring 2006, someone left a note at Wikipedia:Wikiproject Bible requesting help to re-organise many of these articles in an encyclopedic manner, rather than on a chapter-by-chapter basis. As a member of the Wikiproject, I (User:Clinkophonist) agreed to help. However, there was a degree of resistence by the creators of the articles, in that they utterly opposed the removal of the chapter-by-chapter articles, regardless of whether the content was preserved in other articles.

At some point in late 2007, a comment was made on the wikiproject discussion page to the effect that division-by-division articles were still being created. One of the particular articles mentioned - 1 Corinthians 14 - was subsequently placed on AfD, with the result being that it was deleted.

Upon returning to Wikipedia in early 2008, I read the comment on the wikiproject discussion page, and discovered that the division-by-division articles were continuing to be made. So I raised an AfD (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/non-notable bible-division articles) against all of them on the basis that they violated the previous consensus, WP:NOT, and WP:POVFORK.

The AfD failed. But, reading the comments placed at that AfD, it is clear that most of them missed the point of the AfD entirely, despite it being mentioned out in the introduction. Many of the comments there primarily express the view that the bible is notable, and yet they do not address whether the chapters are notable by themselves, as distinct units, which was the entire point of the AfD. The other comments there express the view that the chapter-by-chapter articles should be split up/merged into appropriate topics, but still say "keep".

Hence this guideline proposal.