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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matthew 1

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This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page, if it exists; or after the end of this archived section. The result of the debate was Keep (23-10). Scimitar 6 July 2005 18:53 (UTC)

Matthew 1 and all similar articles

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I've listed this here to question the encyclopedic status of Matthew 1 (and other pages very similar to it Matthew 2, Matthew 3, etc..., including all the individual verses subpages). It is my feeling that this is not what would be expected in an encyclopedia and would likely be better at Wikisource in just fulltext without the commentary (which would likely be POV). I personally believe that this page should probably be deleted as unencyclopedic (with it's objective, textual contents already retained at Wikisource), but am quite interested in community review. -SocratesJedi | Talk 1 July 2005 05:16 (UTC)

  • Keep, historical importance, etc. No reason why commentary would necessarily be POV. If it is, change it or send to cleanup. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 1 05:50 (UTC)
  • My heart says delete, but we've already been through this with other articles on Bible chapters and even individual verses, and they always get kept so instead I'll just abstain. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 1 July 2005 06:00 (UTC)
  • Keep. Bible passages are certainly encyclopedic, and this article is certainly more than just the text of the chapter. NatusRoma 1 July 2005 06:02 (UTC)
  • Keep. We've been through this already. There is no reason why all kinds of minor things in various utterly unimportant fantasy and SF universes with a strong following among geeks should have articles, while the most influential piece of literature in the Western world for the last 2000 years should not be treated in equal detail. Practically every chapter and verse of the Bible has been extensively commented, quoted, paraphrased, illustrated or alluded to in art, music and literature many times over. Wars and major religious splits have been caused by the interpretation of some verses. Even an individual chapter such as Matthew 1 is certainly more important for Western culture and history than everything concerning Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dune put together; heck, I'll even throw in Tolkien, Star Wars and Star Trek, not to mention all the Pokemon garbage. Did Bach or Handel write oratorios based on texts from Tolkien? Did Caravaggio, Leonardo or Rubens produce paintings based on passages from Star Trek? These articles just have to be based in scholarly literature (which this clearly is) and continuously watched for NPOV to prevent fundamentalist Bible-thumpers from taking over. But that's no different from many other articles on controversial topics. Uppland 1 July 2005 06:50 (UTC)
    • Actually, there is a large number of bible verses that have not been "extensively commented, quoted, paraphrased, illustrated or alluded to in art, music and literature many times over". You're conflating New Testament and Bible. Where are the extensive quotations, allusions, and paraphrases of Esther 1:7 or 2 Chronicles 36:9? Uncle G July 1, 2005 13:24 (UTC)
  • Keep. Important Biblical text. Capitalistroadster 1 July 2005 07:41 (UTC)
  • Delete. Wikipedia is not a place for preaching or Exegesis on Biblical verse. There is nothing academically or otherwise significant about Matthew 1, unlike Mark 16 and John 21. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 07:55 (UTC)
  • Keep I have to say, I'm impressed. Good article, lots of detail and some facts about Matthew that I never knew (had not heard of a Jesse Tree before, which BTW should have an article). Nothing in the article seems to violate NPOV, but if -Ril- has some specific concerns, I'm sure he could make the appropraite changes. Disclaimer: I'm an atheist. Christians might consider everything in the article to be minor trivia, not worty of an article. To that, I'm unqualified to comment. -Harmil 1 July 2005 12:18 (UTC)
    • n.b. my reference to "preaching or Exegisis" is with regard to the existance of the article itself, rather than whatever goes within it. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 18:42 (UTC)
  • Keep. Must we go through this debate every few weeks? There have already been VfD discussions on John 20:16, John 20, Matthew 2:16, and Genesis 1:1. All of them ended with the pages being kept by a wide margin. Isn't it somewhat of a waste of everyone's time to have yet another deletion debate over Bible verses? - SimonP July 1, 2005 12:29 (UTC)
  • Delete. Wikipedia is not a church. In addition, public-domain religious texts belong on Wikisource. Very few religious verses deserve their own articles (maybe such as John 3:16). Almafeta 1 July 2005 12:45 (UTC)
  • Keep. I don't think every chapter of the Bible deserves an individual article; but Wikipedia is not paper. I also agree with those who say that Wikipedia is not for theological exegesis. No per se rule can exist, I think; the litmus test can only be whether an informative, neutral article about the text can be written: and here we have a fait accompli. Smerdis of Tlön July 1, 2005 15:12 (UTC)
  • Delete, of no worth jamesgibbon 1 July 2005 17:23 (UTC)
  • Keep Discussion of the religious texts of all of the world's religions are appropriate for an encyclopedia. The Bible, Quaran, Gita, Tao te Ching, and many others all contain content that has had hugely significant historical and social impact. I cannot imagine an encyclopedia that did not extensively cover these. It's reasonable to organize content by the chapters and verses of these texts since this is how most people refer to them. Tobycat 1 July 2005 17:51 (UTC)
    • Organizing by verses has the unfortunate consequence of implying that every single verse of the whole text merits an article, which is the principle that some editors wish to establish, but which is simply untrue of large swathes of the text. Of course, this is the discussion of the article on the chapter, not an individual verse. However, if you support articles on individual chapters of religious texts, let alone individual verses, you should vote "keep" at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Akilam Two, which is the deletion discussion of an article on a chapter of a religious text. Currently, none of the editors who have voted "keep" here have voted "keep" in that discussion. Uncle G 2005-07-01 19:51:17 (UTC)
      • Enough has been written about the New Testament that there is something to say about pretty much every verse. So far I've worked through most of the first four chapters of Matthew. Based on only a half dozen, of the many hundreds, of sources I have been able to write two or three paragraphs of content on almost all of them. There are some verses about which there doesn't seem to be much to say, (e.g. Matthew 4:14) but these are few and far between. We might as well include them to have a well organized structure. The same does not seem to be true of Akilam Two and its cohorts, which are all very short and it has yet to be demonstrated that larger articles can be written on the subject. Since there are only a couple sentences on each verse, there is no reason they should not be merged. The same might be true of other parts of the Bible. In the discussion at John 20:16 I already noted that the verse by verse approach should perhaps only be confined to the Pentateuch and Gospels. - SimonP July 1, 2005 20:08 (UTC)
        • Enough has been written about the New Testament — I agree that there are certain specific parts of the text that have generated controversy and detailed analysis by many people. Indeed, I was the one who wrote primacy of Simon Peter describing the controversy centring upon a single word in a single verse. However, it is important to reflect the actual secondary sources, and the secondary sources do not show an even attention to all verses of all chapters of all books of both Testaments. The attention is decidedly uneven. There are verses even in the Pentateuch and Gospels that have simply drawn no attention whatever. Blanket principles that every verse, or even every chapter, deserve articles, are wrong; and structures that, on "symmetry" or "good organization" or "completeness" grounds, encourage filler articles (or, worse, original research) for the individual verses that secondary sources effectively do not touch upon, are bad ones. (I didn't call the article that I wrote Matthew 16:18, 10th word, notice. Not only is that a bad structure that encourages fillers "for symmetry", that's not the common name of the subject.) It's worth noting that most secondary sources are structured in terms of groups of verses, rather than in terms of individual verses. It's daft to treat Matthew 6:9 to Matthew 6:13 individually, for example; rather than treating it as Lord's Prayer. (Again, note that the common name of the subject is not the verse number.) The same goes for the Sermon on the Mount, the Parable of the talents, and many others. All of those are from the gospel that you are writing about, notice, and you will end up duplicating them, badly. Your individual verse-by-verse approach is wrong. Sermon on the Mount shows that even chapters need to be grouped together. Uncle G 2005-07-01 21:20:19 (UTC)
          • Most of the secondary sources I have been using go verse by verse (AB, Tyndale, NCB). Though they do sometimes group related verses or slow down and go word by word. Of course attention is not even, but I have yet to find a verse that none of the sources have anything to say about. I have also already run into the issue of duplication and found that is not much of a problem. The Biblical Magi are solely found in Matthew 2:1-18, but there is little duplication between the verses pages and that article. Similarly the Genealogy of Jesus article has little overlap with the first half of Matthew 1. I am about to start work on the Sermon on the Mount and have few concerns over duplication there. That article currently runs to some 4.2kb. Going by previous averages the total size of the series on the verses will be some 300kb. The series will no more duplicate the main page than Nancy Pelosi duplicates 109th United States Congress. - SimonP July 1, 2005 21:45 (UTC)
  • Keep. If there's encyclopedic stuff to say about each of them, and merging them all together would create unworkably large articles, I don't see why they should not be kept. — Ливай | ☺ 1 July 2005 19:26 (UTC)
    • The important part of that is if there is encyclopedic stuff to say. ~~~~
      • All right, if there are multiple consecutive chapters that don't seem to have much to say about them, I suppose they could be merged together into single articles. But I don't see what's unencyclopedic about providing summaries of a Biblical chapters if people are willing to write them. After all, Wikipedia is not paper. — Ливай | Ⓣ 1 July 2005 23:57 (UTC)
  • Comment The KJV is crown copyright. I have therefore had to add a copyvio notice to the article because someone duplicated an entire chapter of it within the article. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 20:25 (UTC)
    • And I have reverted you. Wikipedia falls under American law, UK crown copyright rules do not apply. - SimonP July 1, 2005 20:31 (UTC)
      • Actually someone else reverted you before I got there. - SimonP July 1, 2005 20:33 (UTC)
        • (two edit conflicts later) That was me. The KJV was written before copyright laws existed, so I don't see how it could be copyrighted. Oh, and keep, there's enough to write on bible chapters. JYolkowski // talk 1 July 2005 20:35 (UTC)
          • I recommend that editors take a long, hard look at King James Version of the Bible, which describes the copyright status. (Wikisource, which takes public domain and GFDL works, has the full KJV text, notice.) KJV is a special case in copyright law, and superficial arguments both about it being "crown copyright" and about it "preceding copyright laws" are flawed, as the situation is more complex than either. Uncle G 2005-07-01 21:20:19 (UTC)
            • Agreed, in the UK the status of the KJV is a mix of confusing crown copyright regulations that are also almost certainly incompatible with EU law and the international treaties that the UK has signed. Fortunately, Wikipedia is based in the United States and is only beholden to U.S. copyright rules, so the legal status of the KJV in the UK should matter no more than the legal status of a fair use image there. - SimonP July 1, 2005 21:45 (UTC)
              • English law is quite simple to understand in this respect. EU law only applies because it is turned into UK acts of parliament as an uncontested semi-automatic process (involving an army of civil servants, quite often turning a 2 page EU law into a 50 page UK act). It is the crown which is sovereign, not parliament, and so crown copyright has absolute precedence. ~~~~ 1 July 2005 22:51 (UTC)
  • Keep per Livajo. Many chapters of the Bible are deserving of individual encyclopedic articles. Many are not. Those with verifiable NPOV information should be kept. Others can be merged into their respective books until such information is contributed. Those concerned about "systemic bias" are advised to contribute articles about whatever they feel has been slighted. The importance of the Bible and its notable passages to an English-speaking audience need not be questioned. Dystopos 1 July 2005 21:59 (UTC)
    • This VfD is not about notable chapters, but about whether all of them are worthy of seperate articles each. In which case your vote appears to be to merge and/or delete the (non-zero) number of articles which do not constitute worthyness. Could you clarify this?
      • That's not entirely true. I got here from John 15 which has sufficient notability and has already survived VfD. If there are articles qualifying for deletion, put them up individually for discussion here. If you want to create a policy, do so elsewhere. My vote remains "keep". Dystopos 1 July 2005 23:55 (UTC)
  • Let's not make too much of this discussion. We are indeed talking about Matthew 1 here. While comparisons to other articles and discussions are important to this discussion, we're still talking primarily about the article that was nominated for deletion. If you would like to work out a comprehensive deletion policy on religious texts in general, or even on the Bible in general, then let's talk about it in a separate discussion, and not in a single VfD discussion. NatusRoma 2 July 2005 02:10 (UTC)
  • If that is the case, I think the Matthew 1 article stands as a pretty good example of a notable passage with verifiable context. It focuses on inter-scriptural references and could benefit from more about how this passage has influenced history ("calculations" of the age of the earth, etc). Much could be done with it and it certainly does not qualify for deletion. If this discussion is indeed about one article, can we ask SocratesJedi to remove the tag from all the other chapters that currently bear the Vfd notice pending this vote? Dystopos 2 July 2005 05:16 (UTC)
  • No, this VfD is explicitely Matthew 1 and all similar articles - it says that as the section header. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 09:29 (UTC)
  • In my opinion it is inappropriate to make policy about article structure on VfD. Many of the chapters grouped under "and all similar articles" are very good articles, some have survived VfD already, and their qualifications for deletion need not be discussed again. The only thing "similar" about them are their names. If you want to propose a policy about how to rename, merge or restructure the articles, do it elsewhere. Dystopos 2 July 2005 14:38 (UTC)
  • Actually I (SocratesJedi) didn't post the VFD notice to all other similar articles, just to Matthew 1. Someone else added them. I didn't quite mean to question EVERY biblical chapter/quote page (that is, if we had one on John 3:16, It'd likely be appropriate), but the majority of them that do not have incredibly focused significance. -SocratesJedi | Talk 3 July 2005 01:04 (UTC)
  • Keep, but the full text has to be in wikisource. mikka (t) 1 July 2005 22:04 (UTC)
    • You are saying that even articles about verses such as And Ozias begat Joatham, and Joatham begat Achaz, and Achaz begat Ezekias are noteworthy, even though there is not much more that you can say other than that these are the verses? ~~~~ 1 July 2005 23:01 (UTC)
      • The articles I see not about single verses. Right now the voting if such article must be here at all. Surely, very small articles about very small pieces must be mercilessly merged. But what wrong with larger ones? They are not better, nor worse of Dungeons and Dragons articles in that they serve certain categories of people. mikka (t) 2 July 2005 03:35 (UTC)
  • Delete Wikipedia is not a Bible-study session. --StoatBringer 1 July 2005 22:46 (UTC)
    • Comment I don't understand the explanation of your vote. Could you clarify? Are you saying that all articles related to the Bible are inherently aimed at gaining new adherents to Christianity? I am truly baffled by the strength of the "no Bible articles" proponents. Although I am an athiest who generally bristles at the nonsense imposed upon our culture by religion, I find the existence of religion a legitimate academic and scholarly interest. Its impact on our culture cannot be understated. To ignore the substantial content of global religions makes no sense to me.Tobycat 2 July 2005 04:22 (UTC)
      • There are dozens of versions of the Bible, and dozens of Holy Books of other religions. Should Wikipedia host commentaries on all possible permutations? Also, scriptures are almost by definition open to interpretation, so any article is bound to be hopelessly subjective and controversial. If people wish to study the endless meanings that can be attributed to any Bible verse, there are plenty of churches willing to accomodate them. An encyclopedia should give the whole thing a wide berth. --StoatBringer 00:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • COMMENT note that if these are kept, then articles on passages of the Chinese classics should always be kept, since they are more heavily referenced than any Bible passage ever written. (the Confucian classics are referenced everywhere for thousands of years, in billions of documents, as are other classics, and things such as "Spring and Autumn", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "The Art of War", etc) 67.68.64.213 2 July 2005 00:22 (UTC)
    • These aren't articles on Bible passages. They're articles on Bible chapters. Factitious July 2, 2005 18:49 (UTC)
  • Delete all, wikipedia is not a soapbox or a church. JamesBurns 2 July 2005 03:27 (UTC)
    • I'd like to think an encyclopedia can discuss religion without being a soapbox or a church. Factitious July 2, 2005 18:49 (UTC)
  • Keep, culturally significant. Personal loathing of religion is not a reason to delete articles. Gazpacho 2 July 2005 03:42 (UTC)
    • They are not at VfD because someone has personal loathing of religion, indeed such a claim is a violation of Wikipedia:No personal attacks. They are here because the division into chapters is semi-arbitrary, and what is objected to is the fact that the chapters are not in themselves individually noteworthy, as opposed to the stories within, and across them. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 09:35 (UTC)
      I'm not naming names, but some of the votes here do seem to use personal aversion to religion as a basis for deleting. I don't see anything wrong with pointing it out. Gazpacho 3 July 2005 04:01 (UTC)
  • Keep the most commonly quoted ones and merge/delete the chapters to a bigger heading. --Penwhale | Blast the Penwhale 2 July 2005 04:13 (UTC)
  • Delete why not just reference the history of the text here as any encyclopedia would do, then direct readers to actual text in some other library. Wikipedia is not such a library. If it is, why is there not a full text of Finnegans Wake, the Sears Catalogue, or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxay? It seems that entire books of the Bible are posted here to make some other sort of underhanded NPOV statement.

--ColoradoZ July 2, 2005 04:27 (UTC)

  • Delete It's hard to believe that every single bible chapter deserves an entry any more than every single movie or every single musical group. Entries should certainly be created for the stories of creation, the great flood, the story of Job, etc. but not by mechanically describing the contents of every chapter. Such detailed analysis is only asking for original research. --Tysto 2005 July 2 04:46 (UTC)
    • comment the body of existing theological exegesis, historical and literary analysis, and cultural influence of every scrap of biblical literature is sufficient to eliminate the invitation for original research. I agree that articles should only be created when sufficient verifiable NPOV material is contributed. There's no reason to expect that it couldn't, however. Dystopos 2 July 2005 05:16 (UTC)
      • comment but people don't do research on a single chapter, they do research on topics such as "the genealogy", "birth of Jesus", etc. not on "Matthew 3". The only people who approach it as "Matthew 4" etc. are bible-study-groups and bible-commentaries, which is not what Wikipedia is.~~~~ 2 July 2005 09:27 (UTC)
  • Keep this content out of the principle that it is notable and can be encyclopedic. I'm less happy with the execution though, because the division into verses (and, to a lesser extent, chapters) is arbitrary in many cases. A treatment of passages would make more sense to me. — mark ✎ 2 July 2005 08:04 (UTC)
    • But this VfD is about the execution, it is not about the treatment of areas, such as Magi, or Birth of Jesus. It is explicitely about articles for each chapter - about the semi-arbitrary division. ~~~~ 2 July 2005 09:32 (UTC)
      • My vote is about the content, which is encyclopedic. I'm not saying that we should treat one passage and not another one, I only wanted to say that I would cut it up differently. — mark ✎ 3 July 2005 18:33 (UTC)
  • Keep. There's plenty to say about individual chapters of the books of the Bible. Matthew 1 has encyclopedic content and good references. Factitious July 2, 2005 18:49 (UTC)
  • Keep; in the last two thousand years there has been a massive amount of commentary on bible chapters, much of which is of encyclopedic value, and I see no reason why we can't have articles on individual chapters in this book, one of the most influential--like it or not--in the history of civilization. Antandrus (talk) 3 July 2005 03:35 (UTC)
  • Keep; the bible and all of its elements do indeed belong in an encylocpedia because they are works of historical importance. regardless of the veracity of the claims within the bible, the history of the book alone and its different books belong to history and should at least be acknowledged as such
  • Keep. Not even a legit vote as I see it. Wait until 2006 and then try again. We can't do this every month. Everyking 3 July 2005 04:07 (UTC)
  • It has become more clear to me that this sort of thing has been voted on before, but I had no knowledge that this was the case before I listed it for VfD. Just as someone put notices on all relevant articles that they were all being questioned via Matthew 1, we should record their survival of this VfD (which I presume will be the case at this point) when it becomes official to prevent this from happening again. -SocratesJedi | Talk 3 July 2005 04:19 (UTC)
  • Delete. Too much detail. There could be tens of thousands of these things if you think of the whole Bible. What if all other holy books of various religions were next, like the Koran? Now you are looking at millions of articles like this. - Preaky 3 July 2005 06:44 (UTC)
    • comment For reference, the KJV(AV) Bible has 1,189 chapters. [1] and the Koran has 114. If we use Matthew 1 as an example, it's using about 12KB of server space. An article that size on every chapter of the Bible and the Koran would add up to less than 16MB. I don't see anything to be afraid of. Dystopos 3 July 2005 19:01 (UTC)
  • Keep David Sneek 3 July 2005 17:47 (UTC)
  • Keep Encyclopedic topic (there's no question about verifiability or notability here) I'm quite sure the editors in question have the good sense to merge the verse analysis for the "less important" chapters. Well-referenced. Sam Vimes 3 July 2005 21:25 (UTC)
  • Keep. Well documented articles about notable subjects should be encouraged. --Allen3 talk July 4, 2005 03:50 (UTC)
  • Keep but merge to Matthew (bible), go by chapter rather than by verse. Radiant_>|< July 4, 2005 08:52 (UTC)
  • keep It is in Wikipedia's hope that we become ridiculously comprehensive. High volume arguments have no standing. Compare with the current development of an entire Simpson's episode guide. lots of issues | leave me a message 4 July 2005 14:01 (UTC)
  • Keep. The only argument I can see for removal is that Wikipedia is not a soapbox; however, given the Bible's (or the Qu'ran, or holy book of your choice rom a major religion) historical relevence and importance, this seems like a no-brainer. Most Bible chapters have something unique about them, and each one has probably affected more people over time than, say, individual pokemon. --Scimitar 4 July 2005 15:06 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be placed on a related article talk page, if one exists; in an undeletion request, if it does not; or below this section.
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