Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/200 verses of Matthew

Flooding the Internet with verses articles

It strikes me that the existance of these articles is an attempt to flood the internet (via wikipedia mirrors) with articles about Jesus having a miraculous birth. It comes as no surprise that it is the first 200 verses of Matthew that are treated in this way rather than those of Luke. The UCCF/IVCF has a heavy favouritism for the Gospel of John, and of Matthew, over the others, and these articles are exactly what one of their mission weeks would seek to create.

I have seen absolutely no argument that each of these 200 articles is noteworthy in its own right, nor can I see any justification for continuing to keep the verses discussed in seperate articles. Particularly since the division into verses are an artificial construct of the mediaeval era, and have no relation to the original text, or how it was originally meant to be read. 200 seperate articles covering the first 6 chapters of a single book of the bible is frankly absurd. --Victim of signature fascism | Don't forget to vote in the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections 17:45, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I am a Christian, a regular worshipper in the Anglican communion. My view on this is that biblical verses are a construct imposed on the text late in time, and to consider each verse separately defies all sense. Very few Biblical verses are independently notable ("Jesus wept" being an exception, as the shortest verse). Many passages of the bible are notable, and would bear inclusion, especially if the Greek and various translations and transliterations were included, but I would stop short of saying that all passages be included, and I would really only support those which have particular status either through common liturgical use, through well-known musical settings (Ps. 23 etc.) and so on. Beyond that, if people genuinely want a verse-by-verse analysis I would suggest that a separate project be forked since that is in my view well beyond the remit of a general encyclopaedia. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 18:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with JzG's statement that "very few biblical verses are independently notable", plus I don't think Wikipedia is a Bible or an explination of Bible verses. I am a Christian and feel that since there is such leeway in the interpertaton of the verses I think it would be difficult to have accurate explinations of the verses, since no one knows for sure what the true meanings of them are. Mike 18:20, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I am a Christian--one of those dreaded Evangelicals. I believe the Bible is the word of God and that its message should be spread. However, that is not the purpose of Wikipedia. The text of the Bible should not be here but rather in Wikisource. I think it is fine to have articles on books of the Bible and topics in the Bible, but I don't think that even whole chapters of the Bible should be reprinted here, as the Matthew 1 article has done. I don't think that Wikipedia is the place to house the text of the entire Bible, as eventually could happen. We certainly don't need the entire Bible in multiple versions, as we would eventually have if articles are written about each verse the way they already have been. Logophile 12:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Logophile wholeheartedly. This is precisely why wikisource exists; please use it for good. +sj + 09:23, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Redirect all

• Redirect all to Gospel of Matthew or the appropriate chapter. It is a reasonable search term, but having an article of each separate verse defies common sense. Most of them just contain the verse in several different translations. All verses taken together, this would either be a copyvio or should belong on WikiSource. —Ruud 18:24, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• I agree, that these should all be redirected and merged with the main article for their chapter. The system of verses was never intended by the authors of the bible, and there is no reason to have seperate articles for all 31,240 verses of the bible. - Pureblade | ^Θ 18:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• I hate to call anything having to do with the Bible "non-notable", but a lot of these verses are, as has been pointed out above, should not be included on their own. Chapters are enough, except for the very well-known ones. --King of All the Franks 18:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• IMHO even the notable verses could be discussed in an article which covers an entier chapter. —Ruud 18:33, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah, I'm fifty-fifty on those. Might as well go all-or-nothing, and I prefer nothing in this case. --King of All the Franks 18:37, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• I think some of the verses should be merged while others like Matthew 1:9 which is 100% unnessary, Deleted --Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 18:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Or redirected, i.e., to Matthew 1. --King of All the Franks 18:40, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Definitely redirect. There is a very good chanche that somebody will look for the article Matthew 1:9, and if we delete them someone will most likely recreate them. —Ruud 18:54, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah, I vote redirect all --Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 19:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Redirect all Bible verses that are not individually notable, or can better be covered in a larger context (eg chapter or topic basis). Default assumption for any individual verse is that it is non-notable (i.e. if no-one makes a good argument specific to the verse, redirect). Redirect rather than delete, because otherwise they'll be recreated. Rd232 ^talk 20:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• I support the Redirect All proposal for the reasons that others have put more eloquently than I could. --kingboyk 21:22, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
• Fwiw, I agree with redirecting these for the reasons articulated above. It also strikes me, at a practical level, that someone looking these up is actually much better served to have a centralised discussion. Contributing editors will be able to have access to the complete canvas of verses and provide a global or comprehensive commentary that would be unavailable in a fragmented format. I think we often get derailed by the question of notability, and forget the practical aspects of writing an encyclopedia. The end product - i.e. the quality of analysis - is likely to be MUCH higher if editors contributions are consolidated into a single discussion. Given the pool of resources, a slew of fragmentary articles is likely to be of much lower quality than a single, well-sourced, well-reasoned article. Eusebeus 21:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Redirect all. —Nightstallion (?) 22:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect sounds like a good idea. It would be more constructive if someone actually DID THAT rather than discussing it all over again. Radiant_>|< 00:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
• Someone should just be bold and redirect everything. If anyone can writeup a single verse so well that it is notable, it will stand out by itself. Alex.tan 00:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Im redirecting all --Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 02:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• I redirected some, but I want more opinion on this before I redirect the rest tommorrow --Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 02:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• • I agree with the redirect all. If what we can say about any one verse is already larger than a viable stub, then split that out. If any grow from what they are now, they can be split later. Wikisource already has several different versions of the Bible - Wikisource:Religious texts#Christianity - so we don't need to duplicate it here. Thryduulf 13:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• There are very few verses that deserve individual articles; most should be included in Life of Jesus, or Book of Matthew, or something similar. I think we need to be careful not to catch up any 'real' articles that have snuck into these 200 since they were made, but the vast majority need to become redirects. -- nae'blis _(talk) 17:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Redirect all - every last one of them, even if they are notable. Just make sure the important information from the notable ones can be found in the article to which the redirect points. -Parallel or Together? 13:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Option: Redirect Most

I agree with what Guy said earler, that most bible verses are not notable enough by themselves to merit articles. However, there are a few that do, and those should have at least a short article about them. The rest should redirect to the book in question -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 22:02, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse this, but I'm happy with the first proposal too. Stifle 14:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Possibilities

While it is possible that entire articles could be written on individual verses, it should be determined by the "resident" Wikipedia editors who are experts in the articles' subjects, in this case New Testament content, who should read and edit all the articles, and if an article about a verse is just filled with extraneous fluff and fillers and is just an attempt to create a POV for other mirror sites on the Internet that do not relate to the proven, logical and EXPLICIT meaning of the verse, then those articles that are deemed not worthy of a Wikipedia article should be put up for deletion or redirected to more central and conventional articles. IZAK 18:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The default presumption should be redirection. The vast majority of verses do not merit individual articles, and there is no need to flood AfD or rehash the same arguments for each. AfD only if there is serious debate about whether an individual verse is notable which isn't resolvable on the relevant talk page. Rd232 ^talk 20:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately that isn't an option. The articles' defenders don't address such arguments but instead produce silly reasoning like

• "its part of the bible so it must be notable"
• or "well, we have Matthew X:Y-1 and Matthew X:Y+1 so not having Matthew X:Y would look odd"
• or even just pure sophistry

--Victim of signature fascism 23:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• I don't think content beyond the explicit meaning should be a reason to reject Bible articles; there is, after all, a long tradition of allegorical interpretation that mostly predates the emphasis on literal, explicit interpretation. I also think that having these separate articles for each verse will be useful for some people: I'm sure some non-editing users would type in Matthew X:Y and be disappointed to find themselves redirected to the Gospel of Matthew article. And most if not all the articles could conceivably be expanded; surely some significant theologian or another has mentioned nearly all these verses individually. Having these articles does not lower the value of Wikipedia for those who find them irrelevant, but it raises the value of Wikipedia for some. Even if the motives of the contributor(s) are not in line with Wikipedia's goals, that doesn't mean the content doesn't enhance Wikipedia. The longer the articles remain, the more viewpoints different from the article creator's will be added. Bias regarding what gets added to Wikipedia and what gets ignored is ubiquitous... I don't see why this content should get singled out.--ragesoss 03:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Ragesoss, would you support the inclusion in Wikipedia of every verse from every holy book, then? And if we have every verse of every holy book, then what principle would we use to exclude books not considered holy? Should we have every line of every Shakespeare play? How about every stanza of every poem or song ever written? I maintain that an encyclopedia is not the place for any of those things. Can you point to any other encyclopedia that includes them? Logophile 09:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources, which explains what belongs in Wikipedia and what belongs in Wikisource. Thryduulf 10:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Thryduulf, I understand that pure primary source material doesn't belong on Wikipedia, and that as they are now, that is basically what these articles are--however, because there exists significant interpretive material from different viewpoints that could be added to pretty much every one of these articles, I don't oppose their existence.

Logophile, I would support the inclusion of an individual article for any verse from a holy book (or any other text) that a) there exists significant canonical interpretive material that could be included as well as the primary material and b) some users would likely find useful. I'm not opposed to the merging of small numbers of verse articles that are generally interpreted as a unit, but I don't think the wholesale merger of these articles is constructive in the long term. If the current state of the articles was likely to be the permanent state, it would be a different matter, but I don't think that is the case.--ragesoss 01:09, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Let me also add that I would not necessarily even consider Bible verses (in English) to be primary sources, especially when more than one different version is included. The different translations represent different interpretations of the primary source, and the significance of the differences is a valid topic for an encyclopedia, especially one make of Wiki. I won't be too broken up if these particular articles are removed, but I think it would set a bad precedent and is the wrong thing to do on principle.--ragesoss 01:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

They're all already on wikisource, having only one or two translations is inherently POV, and having every public domain translation on the page would be insane. If there's something important which can be said about a specific verse that wouldn't better be served in an article about the passage as a whole, then fine, that article can exist. However, it's been long established that most wikipedians think that such verses are few and far between. Without something other than source text in the article, why have the article? -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 04:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

(reduce indent) Basically every verse article currently has significant material besides the text of the verse; most include multiple references that are explicitly invoked in the text. And we're basically looking at only material that fits SimonP's point of view; once other (i.e., non-Evangelical) viewpoints are added, there will be even more. These articles fulfill a different purpose than wikisource, and in the long term they will diverge even more. The POV problem is not a reason to remove the articles, it's a reason to improve them. And while indiscriminantly including every PD translation is not appropriate, discussing significant differences between influential translations may provide added value to many the articles.--ragesoss 04:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

This is my impression as well. The chief problem I see with deleting the Bible verse articles en masse is that the useful information that the creator of these articles has volunteered to provide would be lost. At least some of the Bible verse articles are fairly good, and stand up well in comparison to other articles. Now, incompleteness is going to be a perennial problem here; we are incomplete to the extent that no one steps up to the plate to finish a vast project once started. There are large tracts in the Bible where "skip a bit, Brother Maynard" will come into play. At least in the interim, I'd prefer to see the verse articals somehow topicalized and merged into articles such as Genealogy of Jesus, The Sermon on the Mount, Parables of Jesus. I realize that topicalizing Bible verses may ultimately become a contentious process. So it goes. Whatever else happens, I do not wish to see information lost. Smerdis of Tlön 15:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Bible

I would like to point out that there is a WikiProject that was set up to deal with articles relating to the bible (actually, I think it's been expanded to include other religious writings as well). From what I can tell, it's been inactive for a while, but someone is more than free to revive discussion if interested. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 04:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

A Commentary of sorts, not the verses themselves?

It seems to me that the articles are discussions/commentaries on the verses, and not the text of the verses themselves, and are citing biblical historians, etc. While I think the discussion should probably be divided by chapter instead of verse (each verse seems overkill) I don't see the major problem with having encyclopedic articles on bible chapters. A new wiki project might be a better place, however--B.ellis 21:55, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

This really is what Wikisource is for. Please put it to good use. There is no better work than the Bible to serve as an exemplar of how to make proper use of Wikisource. +sj + 09:24, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Each chapter is overkill, too - at least at Wikipedia. Individual chapters are no more encyclopedic than individual verses. Individual books, on the other hand, I could see as being encyclopedic. Particularly noteworthy chapters or verses, like John 3:16, I could also see as being included. You are right that a new wiki (or perhaps an existing Bible Wiki that I don't know about) is the logical place for a verse by verse or chapter by chapter analysis. -Parallel or Together? 04:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

This content is no less encyclopedic than, say, the pages for each edition and expansion of Magic:The Gathering, or the Final Fantasy bestiary. If the merger was going to preserve the content from each individual article it would be a different story, but the type of merge we are discussing means deletion. If this content isn't appropriate for Wikipedia, then so much other content is also inappropriate that we should require a consensus vote to create any new article, and spend the next year just pruning before we even think about expanding any more. Maybe two years... it takes longer for a consensus to delete articles than for individuals to create them. Wikipedia has evolved into something where these vary narrow niche topics have a place, and the Bible verse articles have a place as well.--ragesoss 05:25, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

If I had my druthers, those would be gone too -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 00:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the necessary policy would be "Wikipedia is NOT a detailed commmentary on religious texts". Emphasis on the word detailed. Having said that, MediaWiki/WikiCities is a beautiful framework for WikiBible, WikiVedas, WikiQuRan, WikiWritingsOnTheFlyingSpaghettiMonster... Man, those edit wars could get feisty :) -- GWO

Unnecessary detail. Wikipedia is not detailed textual commentary; that is the point of Wikisource. +sj + 09:24, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Thats a ridiculous level of detail, and badly organised - you know the verses are a modern invention and were not there originally? Its completely artificial, and there is nothing significant about them on their own; I don't know a single self respecting encyclopedia that treats the bible like this, not even the Catholic Encyclopedia or Jewish Encyclopedia that specialise in covering the bible (and related things). Of course there are loads of books written for bible study groups that go into this much detail, but last time I checked wikipedia wasn't a church. Clinkophonist 20:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Content forking with Chapters

Ive started a discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible#Content forking and the Bible about whether having articles about John 20, Matthew 27, Luke 23, and Mark 15, as well as articles about the Passion and the Death of Jesus, constitutes content forking, or is otherwise a bad idea.

I was hoping some people might join the discussion there and tell me whether you agree with my stance or not. Clinkophonist 13:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh no, more verse articles

It appears that Rich Farmbrough has created blank (redirected) articles for all the verses of Matthew. While this isn't problematic in itself (though it seems pointless), Rich has also started wikilinking to redirects (which I thought was to be avoided in the first place) as opposed to using one of the bibleverse templates. Because this issue has come up in the past, I am announcing it to those who are concerned either for or against these moves. I'd like to hear anyones imput on this matter. Thanks!--Andrew c 20:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

200 verses restored

Anyone notice a few months ago the 200 verse articles were restored (see Category:Gospel of Matthew verses) by the same user at the center of the arbcom case way back when? Anyone still even watching this page?? -Andrew c ^[talk] 02:44, 25 June 2010 (UTC)