Talk:Biblical manuscript

Things to do

There needs to be a paragraph about scribes and how the books were physically transmitted. It would also be nice to have a sentence about Nomina sacra and a sentence about punctuation, breathing marks. I think the illuminated manuscript paragraph could be expanded, and so could the section on title/chapter/verse development. Looking at the cataloging section, it seems like I added too much detail. What do others think? -Andrew c 18:14, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I love a man who is willing to do the work he thinks needs to be done! I'll try to make an effort to flesh out the Tanakh section, especially as you've provided nice images for it. ;) We're going to need someone else to come in and assess this, this article should be pushed to FA. It's got to be top importance for WikiProject Bible, and deserves some priority, especially with so much done already. Alastair Haines 23:53, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

PS 220 biblical mss from Qumran at a more recent count ... arggh, guess I'm going to be compiling that list at some point too. lol. Alastair Haines 00:05, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I like your subheadings better than mine. The more descriptive headings make it clearer that they are SUB headings. The eye picks up the slightly smaller font size better too. Sorry about the edit conflict! ;) Alastair Haines 02:05, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

There is no need to apologize. I'm glad you picked up some of my errors, and your work has already improved the article greatly. Thanks for all your help.-Andrew c 02:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Tanakh 220 manuscripts

In the Biblical manuscript article, it is mentioned that 220 manuscripts of the 800 dead sea scroll manuscripts are from the Tanakh. I was looking at the list of Tanakh portions from Qumran in the Tanakh at Qumran article and the list of portions add up to be 207, if I did the math write. Is the list of Tanakh portions from Qumran the list of the 220 tanakh manuscripts? If so then where are the other 13? please clearify the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdgeist84 (talk • contribs) 01:21, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Improper header capitalization, but more—improper capitalization throughout article as well

Moved from User talk:Gene Nygaard
"von Soden" was correct, lide de Muralt in French or "van den Berg" in Dutch. You can not write De Muralt (rather Monsieur de Muralt). In English you can write Mac Coy, Mac Donald, but "von" you cannot write with capital letter. It is German, not English. With regards. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 18:37, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
End of moved part

This is, of course, English Wikipedia, and you should show some respect for the English language and its rules. In this particular case, however, it isn't even anything peculiar to the English language.

Von Soden should always have an initial capital V when it starts a sentence, just like anything else. (Not only in English, but in French, German, Dutch, and many other languages.) We don't capitalize copper all the time, but we do when it starts a sentence. We don't capitalize the SI unit newton all the time, but we do when it starts a sentence.

Von Soden should always have an initial capital V when that V is the first letter of a Wikipedia header, just like anything else.

But in this case it is also much more than that. Von Soden should start with a V when it starts a sentence, but also it should be Von Soden with a capital V any time this surname is not preceded by a given name or a title.

See, for example, United States Government Printing Office Style Manual, Chapter 3, Capitalization rules:[1]

• 3.13. In foreign names such particles as d', da, de, della, den, du, van, and von are capitalized unless preceded by a forename or title. Individual usage, if ascertainable, should be followed.

Da Ponte; Cardinal da Ponte

Den Uyl; Johannes den Uyl; Prime Minister den Uyl

Du Pont; E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.

Van Rensselaer; Stephen van Rensselaer

Von Braun; Wernher von Braun

but d'Orbigny; Alcide d'Orbigny; de la Madrid; Miguel de la Madrid

Gene Nygaard (talk) 00:36, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

There are about 200 articles linked to this section. We should change links. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 16:07, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Before we do a whole lot of that (I've done some), somebody better look into it a little more. Judging by some of those already existing links (e.g., at Minuscule 2815, picking one I haven't edited), it appears that Baron Hermann von Soden may be like Ludwig van Beethoven, who is referred to by surname alone as "Beethoven" and not "Van Beethoven", with the Baron and his numbering scheme referred to as "Soden" numbering. So maybe what should happen is that the section header here should be first changed to either "Soden" or "Hermann von Soden" or "Soden numbering" before the links to the section are changed, and we should figure out the best text to use in the visible display on those pages.

Can you find anything more about usage in that regard? What do you think it should be? Gene Nygaard (talk) 17:10, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I do not think, I have ever seen "Van Beethoven" in texts, only "Ludvig van Beethoven" or "Beethoven", but "von Soden" is used by many texts. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 06:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Where These Documents are Held

It would be really nice to have the museums, libraries, etc. that contain these fragments and manuscripts listed alongside their names so that one can get a feel for where the research takes place. Does anyone have this information and want to add it? 205.170.134.65 (talk) 22:33, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

If you click on any of the "Listings" pages, there is a column for where the manuscript is housed. This is only for the NT manuscripts though.-Andrew c ^[talk] 22:49, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Error = variations

"Ancient Jewish scribes developed many practices to protect copies of their scriptures from error. Their methods resulted in significant variations among texts arising at an average rate of just under one consonant in every 1,500."

The second sentence seems to contradict the first. Unless you interpolate a middle sentence: "unfortunately, these practices backfired specatcularly." jnestorius^(talk) 18:23, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Featurization?

I'm not really familiar with the featured-article criteria, but it seems that it wouldn't take an awful amount of work to turn this into an FA (I see that such was being discussed in 2007, above). What do others think? Deor (talk) 03:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization

I have been perusing religion articles, and see Biblical and biblical. I lean towards Biblical if it refers to the Bible, as in the heading of this talk page: "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Biblical manuscript article." Please leave your opinion so we can reach a consensus for a consistency for all the articles. R/T-รัก-ไทย (talk) 09:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

These quotes are from United States Government Printing Office Style Manual

"Proper names 3.2. Proper names are capitalized.

        Rome                  John Macadam             Italy  
        Brussels              Macadam family           Anglo-Saxon  

Derivatives of proper names 3.3. Derivatives of proper names used with a proper meaning are capitalized.

        Roman (of Rome)       Johannean                Italian" 

Also:

"Religious terms 3.33. Words denoting the Deity except who, whose, and whom; names for

       the Bible and other sacred writings and their parts; names of 
       confessions of faith and of religious bodies and their 
       adherents; and words specifically denoting Satan are all 
       capitalized. 

       Heavenly Father; the Almighty; Lord; Th ee; Thou; He; Him; but 
           himself; You, Your; Thy, Thine; [God's] fatherhood 
       Mass; red Mass; Communion 
       Divine Father; but divine providence; divine guidance; divine 
           service 
       Son of Man; Jesus' sonship; the Messiah; but a messiah; 
           messiahship; messianic; messianize; christology; 
           christological 
       Bible, Holy Scriptures, Scriptures, Word; Koran; also Biblical; 
           Scriptural; Koranic 
       New Testament; Ten Commandments 
       Gospel (memoir of Christ); but gospel music 
       Apostles' Creed; Augsburg Confession; Thirty-nine Articles 
       Episcopal Church; an Episcopalian; Catholicism; a Protestant 
       Christian; also Christendom; Christianity; Christianize"

So it appears that one should use Biblical and Scriptural. R/T-รัก-ไทย (talk) 09:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

See WP:MOS#Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents, which says "normally biblical". Deor (talk) 16:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Note also that there are several instances of lowercase biblical in the article that you didn't capitalize. The Manual of Style clearly says "be consistent within an article", so I'm returning the article to consistency. Deor (talk) 17:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Consensus needed

Please leave your vote regarding this issue. Biblical can be used either way. When it merely refers to books, it is not capitalzed, but when referring to the Bible, it is, in my opinion. Please leave my last edit intact until we reach a consensus. This issue affects many articles, and should be resolved by a consensus. Thank you R/T-รัก-ไทย (talk) 17:59, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, this is not the place to make changes to Wikipedia's Manual of Style. These issues should be discussed on the Manual of Style's talk page. Ltwin (talk) 05:43, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Hebrew Bible?

Listed under the "Hebrew Bible" section are the Vulgate and Septuagint manuscripts whose Old Testament contains rather more than just the Tanakh. Describing these contents as "Hebrew" is quite a stretch. I propose changing the name of the section to "Old Testament". Rwflammang (talk) 23:07, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Rwflammang. Either have a different section for each type (ie, Hebrew Tanakh, Syriac Peshitta, Greek Old Testament), or just have a title "Old Testament" instead. (Stephen Walch (talk) 13:38, 18 January 2010 (UTC))

Flip side of that, I don't feel comfortable calling the Aleppo Codex and Leningrad Codex, "Old Testaments". -Andrew c ^[talk] 15:05, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Then have two sections: Old Testament and Hebrew Tanakh - don't have to clump them altogether, especially when it doesn't work that way (Stephen Walch (talk) 10:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC))