Wikipedia talk:Organisation of Bible articles

Hello, I suppose the best way to open discussion is to see roughly what the views in regards to this issue are at present; to phrase this differently: could I have a show of hands?

Clinkophonist (talk) 18:31, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Suggested modification

I like the idea here, but nearly every section of the Western World's oldest and most published and continually read book is arguable notable under our WP:N guidelines, so I don't see this rule actually meaning anything.

But WP:POVFORKs are bad. We should have a rule leaning towards keeping content in youe "second list," and having "chapter articles" and "book articles" table of content listings point readers primarily to those thematic articles, so the weight is on editors to justify the fork. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:25, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

That is why the final words in the proposal are "distinctly notable as a whole unit". Ie. chapter articles should only be permitted if the entire chapter as a unit is notable, not if it merely contains several notable narratives/subjects. Clinkophonist (talk) 20:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I guarantee you every chapter of the Bible passes WP:N: A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. I'm sure any number of study guides go chapter by chapter, for example. -- Kendrick7^talk 00:53, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

But the topic isn't the chapter. WP:NOT clearly states that wikipedia is not a guidebook / textbook, so the practice of study guides should be irrelevant; we should rely on how other Encyclopedias deal with biblical articles - and there isn't a single mainstream Encyclopedia that covers the bible on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Clinkophonist (talk) 11:32, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Articles on Events would be better

This issue needs to be addressed differently for the New Testament (where chapter and division were the work of Stephanas) from the Old Testament where generally they are ancient. My comments are thus primarily addressed to the New Testament. Some chapters are meaningful sections, but they can be a hindrance to interpretation. For example, 1 Cor. 13 (the much quoted chapter on love) is the middle of a long section 1 Cor. 12-14, which is all concerned with spiritual gifts; thus the chapter breaks are a hindrance to good exegesis.

The chapter by chapter articles on the gospels seem merely to provide a synopsis. I consider them of little value. On the other hand, sections on a particular miracle, teaching or other topic are useful. A great deal has been written by way of commentary on the scriptures. Conclusions from this or the debate (where there is disagreement) is potentially useful since it is adding something to the text.

WP discourages quotations from original sources, which are trnaswikified (provided there is no copyright issue). I think it should also discourage lengthy synopses.

Lectionaries may usefully provide evidence as to the beginning and end of an "incident", but articles should be on the incident, not the reading. A list of the conventional readings of particular traditions (in tabular form) might be encyclopedic and provide a useful navigation tool to articles in "incidents". The individual articles could conveniently mention that the passage is read on a particular day in a particular Christian tradition. Peterkingiron (talk) 19:43, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

In all honesty, I am less familiar with the chapter by chapter breakdowns of what Christians call the "Old Testament", as well as of those books which are included in the Bible by the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Latter-day Saints, and so on, so I will specifically limit my comments directly to the books of what might be called the "generic" New Testament, and then allow others to perhaps indicate whether they are also applicable elsewhere.

Personally, it seems to me the best way to organize this content would be by creating what might be called "content lists" in the main articles on each of the books, indicating which specific articles relating to a given storyline, exchange, incident, what have you, occurs where in the text, and providing a link to that article. By doing so, we can, as it were, dissuade creation of these redundant "chapter" articles. This of course presumes that those other "sub-articles" exist as well.

Whether the books in the other parts of the Bible, or in other versions of the Bible, are broken up in the same way I won't address here, but, if editors more knowledgable about those subjects indicate that they are similarly almost "randomly" broken into chapters, then I think the same could apply there as well. John Carter (talk) 20:17, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Biblical articles

In my opinion, there should be an article on the Bible and the books of the Bible, but everything else seems pointless. I am appalled that there are articles on a scant two or three verses. Merge all of those verses back into the book from which they came and have a section called notable verses. That should do the trick. - LA @ 22:06, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Oftentimes verses or even parts of verses are notable on their own right, e.g. the blind leading the blind is a common saying in the English speaking world imo. Also the phrase is in multiple Gospels, so it's not clear where you'd even redirect it. -- Kendrick7^talk 00:57, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I completely disagree

Every individual chapter--indeed, every individual verse--of the Bible and Koran and similar sources has had centuries of criticism, and I doubt there is a single chapter for which literally hundred of commentaries in RSs could not be found , from multiple points of view. The intrinsic nature of Holy Scripture and the reliance of traditional communities upon it as a basis for organization and action, as well as speculation, has provided material for this. Such discussions have normally been organised in recent centuries by chapters and verse in the Christian tradition. They have always been organised by similar units in the Muslim tradition. If I can ever get free of the debate over whether characters in notable fiction should have articles, I'll do some examples. I think enough editors could be assembled to gradually do all of at least the two scriptures I've mentioned.

The use of larger units can be relevant as well, as a supplement. For parshas and lectionaries and the like they would normally be contents articles. But in most cases there would be some discussion in the literature over the basis for the divisions, which are not usually arbitrary.

How to handle thematic pericopes will obviously depend on their importance. I can see instances where it might be appropriate to use them instead of verses, or in addition. For the key example mentioned first, each individual phrase in the parable has given rise to considerable interpretation on its own. The various views on Jesus' writing in the sand alone would make a long article.

DGG (talk) 18:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

There is a substantial volume of academic criticism covering the works of Shakespeare, centuries even. I doubt there is a single manuscript page of his for which literally hundreds of commentaries couldn't be found, for multiple points of view. But that's irrelevant - its a red herring. Encyclopedias don't discuss his works on a page-by-page basis; they cover them on a subject-by-subject/scene-by-scene basis. Clinkophonist (talk) 11:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Completely disagree

As far as I can tell, every tiny snippet of the bible will be proven to be notable under the general notability guideline. Each will have been the subject of multiple non-trivial mentions in reliable secondary sources. It's been around and read by millions annually for a couple thousand years. It has been studied and entire books written analyzing it. All parts of it. There are numerous books that do nothing but take each verse of the bible and analyze it, probably in every spoken language. This is an entire field of scholarly discipline. This proposal is rediculous. My briefest look for sources yields hundreds each possible single verse of the bible, all of these sources I am referring to would be certainly be considered reliable. Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 23:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

There may be hundreds of sources for every single verse - but this is irrelevant. That doesn't mean there should be chapter-by-chapter articles any more than there should be articles on an every 5 verses-by-every 5 verses basis. And the latter is clearly ridiculous. The chapter-by-chapter division is no different. The chapters weren't there to start with - they had no significance to the authors - they are meaningless divisions, based more on "how many verses have we had so far" than "where does this bit of the story end". Clinkophonist (talk) 11:40, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Disagree

Comparing lectionary bits and chapters of the Bible (not "bible") with famous structures and their street addresses is that the street addresses aren't prominent. Although the chapters aren't always divided in the best places (look at I Corinthians 12/13), they're the basis by which virtually everyone has looked at the Bible in recent centuries. This isn't to say that we can't have separate articles on different sections, such as the woman-caught-in-adultery mentioned above, but (1) that's not a story that fits properly into any chapter, being parts of two chapters, and (2) it's well known by itself, rather than by the long "John 7:53-8:11 (?)" name. Go look at prominent modern commentaries — although they normally cover in one piece a section that spans chapters, they're generally based on chapters. What's more, almost all chapter divisions and contents (aside from minor textual questions, such as Mark 14:30) are firmly fixed; to implement a change of chapter divisions in the Bible would be harder than changing almost anything else in society, since billions of people use the Bible. There's no question of notability for individual chapters of the Bible, and abandoning the chapter-based system of articles has no real need to be changed for other reasons either. Nyttend (talk) 01:05, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The key thing about a commentary is that it is not an encyclopedia. Conversely, Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia, not a guide/textbook (see WP:NOT).

My point was that chapters aren't inherently prominent either, just like street addresses. 1 Chronicles 2, for example, is the middle third of a genealogy - there's nothing particularly significant about the third on its own, rather than elements of it or the genealogy as a whole. Isaiah 35 starts with a sentence that doesn't even make sense unless you include the previous chapter - it refers to a "them" without saying who "they" are; it begins half way through something.

And if commentaries don't 100% of the time cover the bible in a strictly chapter-by-chapter basis, and instead have a dedicated section for things that span chapters, then they too agree with my proposal - articles should be about topics not chapters. The dedicated section is a section split by topic, not by chapter. And by spanning the border between two chapters, they are agreeing that the chapter division itself is NOT an appropriate place to put the division between two articles.

As for "changes" in the chapter divisions, they already exist. There are subtle differences in the arrangement of chapters between the Roman Catholic and Protestant bible translations - the psalms are numbered quite differently, for example (what the Roman Catholics call Psalm 113 is actually Psalm 114 AND Psalm 115 to the Protestants). Clinkophonist (talk) 11:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Inclined to agree (but on the other hand ...)

Many chapter divisions are pretty random, and quite apart from the textual issues (and Nyttend's example of Mark 14:30 is far from unique) there is very little commentary that actually addresses chapters as whole and discrete elements: people write books, dissertations and papers about books and pericopes (and events, individuals and themes), but not about individual chapters as such.

Rigorous application of policy, as DGG and Jerry point out, would give grounds for individual articles on each verse, and even on each word (in a variety of languages, at that), but this is an argument for having articles by verse and word, not for having articles by chapter.

I can see that it would make a great deal of sense to have individual articles by book and by pericope, with chapter and lectionary divisions as sets of lists, linking to the articles on individual pericopes where appropriate. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a Bible commentary or a devotional resource.

The only problem is that this would be entirely impractical, given how wikipedia works - random editors would soon be boldly chipping away at the structure imposed, sapping the hard-won consensus (hypothetically hard-won: in actual fact it isn't likely to be won at all by the looks of things).

In light of this, and by analogy with WP:CLS, I don't see that it shouldn't be possible to keep chapters, lections and pericopes (WP:CLP?), as long as there isn't too much content overlap and there's plenty of interlinking between general summaries and comments (by chapter), traditional interpretations and homiletic uses (by lection), and textual and other scholarly issues (by pericope). --Paularblaster (talk) 22:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC) --Paularblaster (talk) 10:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

There are clearly elements of practicality with bold editors, but there are with all policies and guidelines - every now and then, there are transgressions. But the thing about having a policy/guideline is that it is a lot easier to clean up the mess afterwards, than it is without them. Clinkophonist (talk) 11:59, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Every word in the Bible is notable

Something to be re-established, in light of the continuing "every bit of the Bible is notable" is that the issue here isn't the notability of parts of the Bible below the level of individual books: the question at issue is how best to reflect the notability of smaller sections in an encyclopedic way. --Paularblaster (talk) 20:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Well there is a now-standard arrangement of the Bible, and it would make sense to follow it. That's he general point of the objection. The other reason is that the proposed change would lead to much less detailed coverage. Such deletions have been requested from time to time by those who think these topics not very important anymore, and I think we all want to try to stand against that. DGG (talk) 23:16, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't be in favour of deleting anything that doesn't have a full replacement, and as I said I think lists of chapters could be a useful navigational aid, but I don't see how having articles on, say, Acts 3:1-11 (the healing of the lame man in the gate) and 3:12-26 (Peter's sermon), rather than a single article on all the issues arising in Acts 3, would mean a loss of detail. --Paularblaster (talk) 15:38, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

well, that;'s an excellent example of when we need more detail than a single chapter,and why we need overage of the individual verse or group of verses. It would not always have to be individual verse--groups might in some cases be appropriate; but in some cases it could be smaller than individual verses, where particular words or phrases in particular cases have themselves been the subject of elaborate comment, and are of religious significance. DGG (talk) 21:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

That's my understanding of the suggestion here: it's not about cutting back, it's about organizing and presenting information encyclopedically. This will involve pruning some of what currently exists as separate articles, but not diminishing the over-all coverage. (I would appreciate a word from User:Clinkophonist if I've misunderstood.) --Paularblaster (talk) 09:13, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

That is a correct perception of my proposal. Clinkophonist (talk) 12:57, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, the divisions aren't notable

The individual books of the bible are notable, because as far as anyone knows (and modulo the synoptic problem) these divisions have always existed. The chapter/verse division, however, is a later and somewhat arbitrary reference scheme. Writing an article on the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah is like writing an article on the 28th parallel of latitude: we need these markers to find our way around, but they don't have any other intrinsic significance.

As far as the lectionary is concerned, the driving issue is the days to which the readings are assigned. In both the west and the east there are certain "ordinary" Sundays which are named and have specific subjects (e.g. the "gismas"), but the lectionary is far from a fixed or commonly agreed upon thing. We are at this time going through the introduction of a new lectionary in the west which substitutes not only different readings for the Sundays after Pentecost, but which offers two sets of readings for each Sunday in the three year cycle. As far as I know, it's going to be impossible to write properly cited articles on each of the six possibilities (plus the three possibilities from the predecessor lectionary, and so forth); an article on the 15th Sunday after Pentecost (which isn't even named that way in all traditions) is going to be a structureless assemblage of unrelated traditions.

The third problem is that as the level of detail increases in these articles, the level of disagreement also increases. We already have the problem that articles even on the big subjects are biased towards Catholic and Orthodox expositions, even though in English-speaking lands Catholics are a minority (though admittedly large) and the Orthodox are a statistical blip; the American evangelical majority is poorly expressed. When we get to individual chapters and verses, opinions tend to devolve into preacher-by-preacher exegesis. There is something to be said for keeping the Jewish lectionary articles, especially since the divisions have names rather than numbers. For the Christians, the divisions are just mileposts, and nothing more. Mangoe (talk) 15:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The slant is in the other direction on theological articles, AFAICT. For example, the article on irresistible grace is entirely the Calvinist view, and just mixes in the Thomist/Catholic view as if it were exactly the same based purely on phraseology. It would be ironic if articles on scriptures were slanted the other way. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:37, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a problem that has more to do with the kinds of editors who would be interested in editing those particular subjects - its difficult to get an American Evangelical to talk about Metousiosis, and its difficult to get a Greek Orthodox to talk about the Chicago Statement. Its a problem called Systemic Bias, which Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias is trying to address. Clinkophonist (talk) 13:06, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps so, but nonetheless, the chapter/verse divisions aren't notable. Mangoe (talk) 02:02, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

But thats the way the last few hundred years of theological discussion has been organized, in particular all of the bible commentaries. To not make use of them is as if we decidedto alphabetize articles omitting the j and w. We follow the modern secondary sources. DGG (talk) 03:01, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

If you take the lectionaries as those sources, they do not pay the slightest attention to these divisions. Mangoe (talk) 03:53, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Which is why the chapters should be kept, but in list form as navigational aids. The modern sources we should be looking to as examples of how to structure these articles encyclopedically are things like The Oxford Companion to the Bible, not commentaries. --Paularblaster (talk) 11:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The last few hundred years of theological discussion hasn't been organised as a commentary though, only commentaries have been organised like that, just as much as commentaries on Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings, or Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's fantasy works, are organised in that way; commentaries are by definition comments placed alongside the text, but encyclopedias are not. This is an encyclopedia. Clinkophonist (talk) 13:06, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Lexionary segments

1. I'm puzzled how anyone can argue that a parsha segment (weekly Torah reading) is not notable, given the shear volume of commentary on the reading as a unit, dating back nearly a millenium, if not longer. Yes, it may be duplicative of other ways of dividing the text, and other divisions may also be notable, but that doesn't change the notability of those articles.
2. I'm concerned that there does not seem to have been any attempt to contact WikiProject Judaism (among others) for input into a discussion about articles within its pervue. This gives an appearence of systematic bias and does not bode well for the chances of getting consensus agreement about these guidelines.

Two points that occur to me, reading the guidelines and discussion. —Quasirandom (talk) 20:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough; I've dropped a note there. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Completely disagree

The proposal is essentially a massive AfD. The main argument for the AfD is that all of the usual policy arguments Wikipedia normally accepts in AfDs -- notability, reliability and depth of sourcing, etc. -- should not be permitted to prevail, for the sole reason that "other encyclopedias don't include" articles of the disputed type.

So what? Why is what other encyclopedias do a good argument? Wikipedia is different from other encyclopedias. And it's supposed to be that way. Wikipedia is not paper. Wikipedia routinely covers topics in depth not covered in other encyclopedias. The Wikipedia community has repeatedly affirmed that it wants to keep articles on hundreds of thousands of topics from individual Pokeman and Star Trek characters to in-depth families of articles on television series. In doing so, the community has regularly rejected arguments that because other encyclopedias don't have these things Wikipedia shouldn't either. If you want to make a general argument that Wikipedia's deletion policy should be changed to make Wikipedia more like other encyclopedias, you're welcome, but if you can't get the community to change its general philosophy of what Wikipedia should be like, it doesn't seem appropriate to argue for such a repeately rejected approach here, and present it as if it should trump arguments that the Wikipedia community has said are the ones that are supposed to be used in AfD-type discussions. One of the arguments given for deletion was that while Bible commentators typically organize their commentaries by chapter, "encyclopedias don't". But Wikipedia's sourced-based approach and emphasis on "sticking to the sources" encourages organizing articles in a way that makes it easy to link them to supporting reliable sources. Because unlike other encyclopedias, Wikipedia doesn't depend on experts writing articles who are in a position to totally reorganize things in a way different from the underlying sources, sticking to the sources on organization matters makes both article-writing and enforcing verification and related policies easier. Why shouldn't it be acceptable?

As was said at the AfDs for these articles, standard Wikipedia inclusion criteria are easily satisfied here because the fact of the matter is, both individual Bible chapters and the lectionaries of major denominations are virtually all notable and their notability is generally very easy to establish. Other encyclopedias have their criteria, but Wikipedia has its. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 02:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It isn't in any way a massive AfD because it would not lead to any content being lost or articles being deleted. A number of current article titles would become redirects, or sets of disambiguation links, and the information would be merged elsewhere. It is entirely appropriate, given the scale of the proposed merge/redirects, that they should be put forward for discussion in a general way, instead of on each talkpage, with the underlying reasons for the reorganisation explained. --Paularblaster (talk) 07:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment

Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible exists for discussions about how to oganize Bible articles. There is no need to create an entire new page just make and discuss a single proposal about a single aspect of Bible article organization. I would urge the author of this proposal to discuss it through regular channels. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 02:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I've proposed this page for MfD. I strongly object to the creation of guidelines to address individual, fact-specific edit disputes, even if the disputes weren't previously discussed on both the relevant WikiProject and at AfD, and even if the proposer's views had prevailed in previous discussions in legitimate forums (as this proposal didn't). Guidelines should not be proposed to address individual edit disputes. This is so completely independently of whatever merit there may be to what is being proposed. Using policy and guideline space to address issues like this would quickly make Wikipedia's guidelines an unreadable mess and drown general guidelines in a sea of details addressing specific cases. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 02:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

• Agreed. IZAK (talk) 05:43, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Could we reformulate this proposal as a notability guideline?

Several editors in the previous AfD proposed creating a notability guideline for Bible articles, something like Wikipedia:Notability (Bible articles). The current proposal doesn't seem to be a notability guideline. But a notability guideline would definitely be a legitimate policy-space proposal. Right now, if this proposal were reformulated as a notability guideline, it would seem to consist of a single sentence:

Individual Bible chapters and verses are not notable.

I think this sentence summarizes the entire proposal and also makes it clear that the proposal is an override of rather than a supplement to standard notability criteria, prohibiting the fallback to default criteria that other notability criteria generally permit. One might also want a notability to guideline to address various other issues.

Is this what's intended? Would it be possible to rewrite this proposal in the form of a proposed notability guideline? If so I'll withdraw the MfD whether I agree with the proposal or not. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 03:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

That's about how I see it, modulo the Psalms (which are individual works and invariably studied as such) and a very small set of verses (e.g. John 3:16) which are almost invariably referred to in chapter/verse terms. I'd also like to say that I think trying to rope the Jewish Torah portions into this is a mistake. Mangoe (talk) 03:56, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

That's about it. I might add modify it to say something to the effect that some specific verses, John 3:16 among them, which have been regularly referenced in outside sources might be notable. However, where wikipedia content relating to individual parts of the Bible can be reasonably added to other articles, perhaps based on the specific "storyline" in a given book or books, it would be counterproductive and unnecessary to create separate content based on the chapters. Long, I know, but a bit more specific. John Carter (talk) 21:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Lets not get into notability if we can think of any other way to handle it--notability is a quagmire, a it has no defined meaning except what is considered suitable for wikipedia--which isnt that much of a help. A MOS guideline would make more sense,. But I do not think we have any consensus on that either. There is at somewhere been a sizable minority and a reasonable majority who think every individual chapter intrinsically notable, and I dont think there will be consensus otherwise. But if we actually have a peaceful resolution of ficition articles, maybe I'll have time to start my long desired project of dinging unquestioably reliable sources discussing every individual verse of the bible. there are many tens of thouands of good printed commentaries in detail, and n immense periodical literature. DGG (talk) 06:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)