Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yahweh and Allah

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Tone 11:11, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yahweh and Allah

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This article presents a fringe view. At most the view could be presented in a small section in God, Monotheism, or some related article. The mainstream view is that there is one God, the creator of the Universe, and He was Jewish before He was Christian or Muslim. Borock (talk) 06:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge and Delete You are right. In any case, joining Yahweh and Allah as in the title doesn't make much sense. I think this should be merged but not into God but rather in existing Yahweh and Allah articles. I also doubt very much it will add much to the very well developed articles that exist under Yahweh and Allah. In God, a referral to Yahwen and to Allah pages is enough actually. werldwayd (talk) 07:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- We don't "merge and delete". See Wikipedia:Merge and delete. Fences&Windows 17:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Islam-related deletion discussions. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 07:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 07:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but improve....andycjp (talk) 07:59, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge into Monotheism There is information here that is not in the monotheism article, and a comparison of the monotheistic religions' concepts of the supreme being clearly fits in the monotheism article. This Afd also addresses an important issue/dispute that has been discussed by RSs - namely - does the fact that the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions have different concepts of the one, supreme being mean they are worshiping different gods? It also discusses the interesting fact that Arabic speaking Christians refer to God as "Allah". I will check and improve the refs. KeptSouth (talk) 09:17, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, because Allah means the one God. So what else are they going to call Him? Also Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet of Allah, so how could his God and theirs be different ones? Borock (talk) 13:35, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge into Monotheism As it as been sad, there is information here that is not in the monotheism article. This article also makes it look like there is one concept of God in the Bible(there by one concept of God for all Christians and Jews), that being that Yahweh is the Holy Trinity. Something that not all Christian hold too and the Jews do not hold too at all.--Lord Don-Jam (talk) 10:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This is a sub-article of Christianity and Islam.--478jjjz (talk) 11:49, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Any useful material into Monotheism, I don't see any justification as a separate article. Dougweller (talk) 12:54, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I honestly do not like the way that this article is written, tossing off generalizations about what the Bible says and what the Quran says. However, I think that the topic that it raises is legitimate encyclopedic material. Regarding the Supreme Being that monotheists believe in, there is, as parts of the article point out, a strong disagreement among theologians about whether Allah and God/Yahweh are the same, or whether it's a case of hundreds of millions of heathens/unbelievers worshipping something different than what the person who holds the opinion worships. Perhaps this can be repackaged into something that doesn't sound like a Wikipedia editor's POV. Mandsford (talk) 16:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment -- despite being relatively well referenced this article seems to be written to express the POV of a Catholic. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:28, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I had the exactly opposite impression. The pope is quoted in an off-hand way after several Protestants had had their say, when really his statement is 1,000 times more important since he is the spokesperson for the largest Christian body. Kitfoxxe (talk) 18:56, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep -- it is a notable topic about religious disputes in general. There are literally billions of people who argue about this subject, with very little who acknowledge that Arab Christians also use the term Allah. ADM (talk) 18:31, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete This is original research and, as the nom said, a fringe view. However a good article should be written about the identity of God in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I also noticed that the Jewish view (which is closer to the Islamic view) is left out of the article. This has the effect of making the differences between Islam and Christianity more pronounced. Kitfoxxe (talk) 19:00, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, possibly rename. I am for an article comparing and contrasting Yahwek and Allah, but I think it may need to be renamed to something like "comparisons between Yahweh and Allah" or something like that. The current title doesn't really give an excellent synopsis of what the article's topic is. Backtable _{Speak to me}^{concerning my deeds.} 20:50, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, rename, and cleanup Yes, it needs to cover Jewish thought, too--in fact, calling Yahweh the uniquely Christian name for God is.... dissonant at best. Really, per Backtable, we need a good article discussing the three great monotheisms' take on God. This current article is at best two legs of a three-legged stool, but deleting it won't really improve the encyclopedia. I specifically disagree with the OR assertion--I just went through it and only found the need to add one fact tag. Jclemens (talk) 00:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Neither Christian nor Jewish tradition uses the name Yahweh. It's used by scholars, the (New) Jerusalem Bible, some small sects &c. Peter jackson (talk) 11:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, someone needs to research the tetragramaton....Strong Keep this is a well sourced article. I'd suggest anyone not familiar with the theology take a few minutes and review. Just make sure you understand the background...,.Hell In A Bucket (talk) 02:57, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually there is an article on Yahweh already. This article Yahweh and Allah doesn't add anything about the Yahweh information there.

Comment - Jehovah's Witnesses have their take on Yahweh as well as distinct from either Judaism or Christianity. The name of the religious group is also based on a variant of Yahweh, namely Jehovah. So its not strictly the three monotheistic religions as such. The article doesn't reflect on this. werldwayd (talk) 15:00, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge into Monotheism or Abrahamic religions, where there's already similar, better written material. The current name doesn't work at all, and presupposes that Yahweh and Allah are different deities. If the article isn't merged, it needs a name that doesn't have this POV. -Mairi (talk) 16:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see this article pushing a point of view any more than Conceptions of God which seems to argue that there all gods (true and false) are different ways of looking at the same supreme being.--478jjjz (talk) 16:58, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is the first sentence of the article: "Yahweh and Allah are the personal names of the Gods of the Bible and Qur’an, respectively." This is a fringe point of view. The mainstream view is that Jews, Christians, and Muslims all believe in the same God. Note that it doesn't matter if God really exists or not for this discussion since it is about what people believe and/or what religions teach. (joke...If you are an atheist you should vote delete since that would mean that there is only one God that you need to disbelieve in not three.... joke.)Borock (talk) 01:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It also doesn't make much sense. If Allah is a personal name, why not Elohim, Adonai, Ho Theos ...? Ask someone who knows Arabic. They'll tell you that Allah is just a contraction of al ilah. Al is the Arabic definite article & ilah is a general term for god(s). Thus Allah corresponds literally to the New Testament's ho theos. Peter jackson (talk) 11:17, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The title already implies a counterfactual and ahistoric distinction. I cannot find much merge-worthy in the article, either. Yes, a discussion of the identity of the Abrahamic god in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is a worthy topic for an article, but Yahweh and Allah is not that article. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:48, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. There are already articles on Yahweh and Allah. Any similarities or differences should be apparent in those articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jzeise (talk • contribs) 21:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I am truly baffled that there are those arguing that original research concerns are unfounded or that this article is well-referenced. This article is clearly a pile of original research with deficient referencing and inaccuracies. The presence of a ref tag does not mean something is appropriately or sufficiently referenced, and it certainly doesn't exclude original research. If all of the original research and inaccuracies were removed from the article, the vast majority of material left would be radical evangelicals espousing the fringe belief that Allah and Yahweh are distinct gods, almost exclusively referenced to the evangelicals themselves. There is nothing to merge or preserve in this article. Any similar points that might be appropriate in another article need to be referenced to quality independent reliable sources and written according to such sources. Preserving original research, inaccurate information, and fringe assertions sourced to primary sources is not helpful to the encyclopedia. Vassyana (talk) 18:47, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not that I want to rescue the article, but "it's bad" is not a good reason for deletion - that's a good reason for a rewrite. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:23, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The validity of the topic, especially as framed, is quite disputable. That is a substantive deletion rationale. POV forks, such as this article, have been subject to deletion as such as long as I've been on the project. If there is little to no salvageable content, as in this instance, preservative reasons against deletion are not operative. Vassyana (talk) 20:58, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete As WP:OR and WP:Fringe. On the other hand an article on the fact that some Protestant figures have made this assertion could be written. Steve Dufour (talk) 08:13, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure that an article asserting that "Jesus was not Jewish" (another fringe view that is out there) would be quickly deleted. Steve Dufour (talk) 09:17, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete As OR and synth. --Shuki (talk) 00:19, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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 a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.