Wikipedia talk:Bible verses

My stance

Keeping the discussion over here, to not clutter up the project page...

I feel that if we allow every bible verse, we'll have set a precedent for BookOfMormonBot, KoranBot, PrincipiaDiscordiaBot, etc., to create articles for every verse for every holy book for every extant religion -- basically turning Wikipedia into the 200s section of the local library. Almafeta 18:35, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I pity poor GesarBot. ~~~~ 18:51, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Notability

If consensus is reached that only notable verses should have their own articles, will we be able to define "notable" as it applies to Bible verses? There's a long spectrum of notability between John 3:16 and Matthew 1:9; how do we decide where the bar is? --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 19:06, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Ah, now that is more subjective. It really has to be done on a case-by-case basis. I suppose one criteria is whether the appropriate article from List of Bible stories is sufficient. ~~~~ 19:42, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

My personal view is that anything that has been written about in detail by scholars in peer reviewed journals and publications is "notable." This covers most, but not all Bible verses. - SimonP 22:13, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

How were these options determined prior to opening the vote?

I find that nothing close to my own position on this is even offered as an option. Can we add options to the list? Also, while I'm at it, where on earth did the option come from of saying that the New Testament would be covered in exhaustive detail, but not the Old? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:07, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

Basically, the currently existing articles-for-every-verse are from only the gospels of Matthew and John. It struck me that this might be because someone felt, for religious reasons, that the gospel verses were somehow special and worthy of individual note, but would not intend to create similar articles for other sections. Likewise similar religious reasons might favour the verses of the New Testament but not the Old - e.g. there is a religious text producing group, particularly popular amongst evangelical UK protestants, which produces a text containing only the New Testament and Psalms.

I appreciate that Judaism would obviously favour the Old Testament above the New, but Jewish tradition is far less inclined to consider the words themselves fundamentally important, preferring to dwell on interpretation of what they mean (though there is a sect, Karaite Judaism, that does dwell on the words themselves, reading them more literally), so it strikes me that there are likely to be very few, if any, voters considering the Old Testament verses to be individually noteworthy but not those of the New. Go ahead and add the section if you think that there might be.

If your own option is not this (Old Testament but not necessarily New), can you explain it here, so I can see what I have missed out? ~~~~ 22:29, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Note that this survey does not discuss what should happen to the articles if it is decided that they should not exist individually This survey is purely about whether they should exist individually or whether they shouldn't and something else (which is not specified and is to be decided outside of this survey) should occur to them, be it merge, in whatever fashion that may take, transwiki to wherever, or simply delete ~~~~ 22:43, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

My own proposal would be roughly this:

• Each individual chapter and each individual verse should be allowed to exist as at least a redirect, so that one can readily search on verses and find the relevant reference; also so that articles can always link to chapter and verse and know that will go somewhere reasonable.
• Verses which do not merit an article should be redirects, typically to the chapter level; where that also is not substantial enough to merit an article, they may redirect to the book level.
• I would be quite open to giving a comparable level of coverage to the Qu'ran and other comparably important religious works, if anyone wants to take the time to do the legwork. However, we should be careful that the apparatus doesn't outstrip the content: that is, if we end up with a bunch of verse-by-verse redirects to stubs, that is useless.

The mere fact that something is a verse of the Bible does not mean there is anything useful to say about it. However, as I've written before, it is very hard to determine a priori which Bible verses merit articles. For example, a seemingly trivial verse might merit an article on the basis of controversy over its translation, or Kabbalistic significance, or for being the sole occurrence of particular Hebrew or Greek words in the Bible, or for alluding to a person or event for which we have non-biblical evidence. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:14, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Whether an article should be a redirect or not is not really being discussed. It would count as a secondary issue - "what should be done with the articles IF it is deemed that they should not exist individually". This survey is really discussing the simple question "should these articles exist individually or should something else be done". The "something else" could include redirecting, merging, transwikiing, or deleting, but it is a secondary question as to what it is. This is merely establishing whether 100% of verses should exist seperately or not. ~~~~ 08:51, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• That's my view as well. If there is a well-written and encyclopedic article that can be created about a verse while maintaining an NPoV, I am entirely in favor of letting the article remain. On the other hand, just because a verse is in the Bible doesn't mean it deserves inclusion. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 01:17, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• This is surely the basis of a sensible proposal. I'm also concerned that we've rushed into a vote. Even though it's called a non-binding survey, there are all kinds of rules about how many edits you need, and the blurb at the top talks about determining consensus, as if the result of the poll will be used as a stick to beat those trying to put forward alternative proposals ("consensus on Biblical articles has already been determined, haven't you heard?"). Rather than setting to work on 31,173 useless boilerplate stubs for each and every verse, people who want to write about the Bible should start by making the articles on each book comprehensive, then splitting books up into spin-off articles about sensibly divided passages (the point at which chapters begin and end often looks a little arbitrary to me). Look at Category:Psalms, for example. It appears that we only have articles on five out of 150 Psalms so far. Surely people can see that it would be madness to start writing about every verse when our coverage is this patchy. When we have extensive articles on every Psalm, and every story or passage or parable of every book of the Bible, and Wikipedia's Biblical scholars feel the need to break out into verse articles to continue the expansion of our coverage, then we can revisit the question. Isn't this common sense? — Trilobite (Talk) 05:53, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree it would be madness to start writing about every verse at this stage, but this survey exists because someone already has, c/o a series of Anchor Bible commentaries they have bought. This survey is really dealing with what should be done about these already existing individual articles (there are about 100+ of them), and about whether the creation of any more should be encouraged/discouraged. N.b. Category:Psalms was created by the same individual to imply that there should be articles for each and every psalm. ~~~~ 08:51, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

N.b. The articles that I know to be already existing from this attempt to write about every single verse are listed at Wikipedia:Bible verses/existing ~~~~ 08:54, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• I would support J. Mabel's position as the natural way such articles should be organized, though I don't think people should be encouraged to create thousands of verse redirects, especially those to book articles. I also think the issue of uneven coverage is quite irrelevant. People write about what they want to. Christopher Parham (talk) 16:03, 2005 July 24 (UTC)

Why this poll?

Why are we even having this poll? Just last week a VfD vote with a large turnout ended with keeping them separate as the most popular option. A discussion of this issue was just beginning at Wikipedia:Merge/Bible verses, and there was no sign that that discussion had been exhausted. - SimonP 22:06, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the VFD ended with no consensus. The majority did not want them seperate (i.e. wanted to transwiki/delete/merge) them, but this was a majority of 2. Standard practice when a VFD ends on no-consensus is to open it up again. VFD's only last 2 weeks, and it seems highly likely that a lack of consensus will emerge in the initial stages once again, so to stave off this problem, a survey, which is able to be open for longer - i.e. for 1 month + however long extra it takes to get consensus if not reached in 1 month.

The thing about discussions on issues is that it is an increadibly good way to fudge the situation so that the issue remains in the state that it was to start with. See Hutton Report. Because it was discussion not trial it was very easy to fudge the result so that the government got what it wanted despite the evidence pointing to the opposite conclusion. ~~~~ 23:45, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

This is why Wikipedia:Merge/Bible verses was begun. Discussion is always better than voting. - SimonP 23:52, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

If you want to fudge things so that you get your way, of course it is.

This is a survey to determine consensus. That is all. It isn't policy. ~~~~ 00:37, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes I do feel that a discussion is better than a poll for my goals. I feel strongly that I am right on this issue, and that with some rational debate and discussion I will be able to convince most other Wikipedians to share my point of view. You seem to consider polls are better for your POV, since you have now started four of them. - SimonP 00:44, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

The problem with continued polls is that I don't see why you believe the no consensus that we came to in early July and again in mid July will suddenly come to a clear consensus in late July -- especially as you turn a proposal which would gain wide support, that verses must be notable to be included, into the same exact one we were debating in the VFDs, that the existing verse articles should be merged or deleted. A suggestion if this poll is reopened -- allow an option that permits support of a notability principle, without qualification, which is what I interpreted the option I voted for in the first place to be. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:16, 2005 July 25 (UTC)

Closed

After a recent edit war over this page I decided it would be a good idea to temporarily halt the poll to discuss some basic issues. This matches the Wikipedia:Survey guidelines, which states that consensus must be reached about a poll's format before voting begins. - SimonP 01:42, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Note that when I closed this poll the option that I personally voted for (All verses notable in their own right should have individual articles) was winning by a large margin, but I do have problems with this poll. The wording of the intro is biased to one side. It refers to Bible verses as a "problem" that must be dealt with, and it misrepresents the results of the recent VfD. The options also need some work. Wikipedia:notability is not policy for good reason, yet the vote seems to be structured around this concept. The introduction also gives no outline of what percentage was needed for an option to be considered "consensus," something that has recently been a problem on a related poll. Also we need some discussion of what date this poll should close. I support a longer period as it will encourage discussion and allows for users to revisit, and possibly change, their votes after reading the discussion. The recent Wikipedia:Template locations has produced useful and interesting results with its no fixed endpoint, so that might be a model to follow here. It is also important to discuss the scope of this poll. Is this just to determine general guidelines, or are we going to get into specifics, such as the recently added section on what number of articles are likely notable. - SimonP 01:56, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

I think that this discussion is useless until there's a well understood definition of "notability" with regard to individual Bible verses. Until we agree on what this means and how to apply it to this situation, it's useless to discuss whether "notability" is a valid or useful criterion. Wesley 03:18, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

The proposed wikipedia:importance policy outlines a number of guidelines for when a subject is important enough to deserve an article. Your average Bible verse pretty clearly meets two of these: they have been covered in peer reviewed publications, and they have affected a reasonable number of people. The third criteria is perhaps the most relevant: can an article longer than a stub be created. For some, perhaps the majority, of verses this is almost certainly not the case. A good policy might be one in which any chapter where the majority of the articles are stubs would have the verse articles merged and redirected into the articles on the chapter. This would not apply to any of the six current chapters that have a fair number of verses covered, but all six are pretty packed with highlights. Most chapters in the Bible would have far less content, and thus likely to not have an article per verse. - SimonP 03:54, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Ril's actions wrt this poll

-Ril-, I would like you to give an explanation here, on this talk page, regarding why exactly you chose to spam over 40 peoples' Talk pages with an invitation to come vote here. What criteria specifically, did you use in determining whose pages to spam? From where I'm sitting, it looks like you only invited people who agreed with your position on the original conjoined VfD on Individual Bible verses, and specifically neglected to inform voters with whose position you did not agree. Happily, about half of the peoples' Talkpages you chose to spam are on my watchlist, so I found out right away about your little ploy, but it seems to me that the fact that this poll is not advertised in any big way like the VfD that spawned it is disingenuous at best, and downright dirty at worst. If you are truly interested in gaining consensus among interested editors, perhaps your efforts would be better spent contacting all interested editors. Or did you just choose to not contact me because I was the one who threw such a fit about the fact that the VfD was open for a preposterous nearly 2 weeks? And now, I see that you've added options to the vote AFTER IT STARTED, which is, in the words of Cap'n Hook, Bod Foam! Are you TRYING to act like a troll, or is it something about consensus and working with other editors that you don't understand that makes it look like you are? I look forward to your reply here. Tomer ^TALK 03:48, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

I don't respond to people making personal attacks. Remove them if you wish me to answer. ~~~~ 07:00, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I have made no personal attacks. It appears that you're using the red herring allegation of personal attacks as a pretext to avoid giving an actual response. Smokescreens and subterfuge do not a valid reply constitute. Tomer ^TALK 08:12, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

This is fairly standard procedure for -Ril-. The funniest result was the time he invited this user, who had agreed with him on an earlier vote. The user did join the discussion, but he surpirsed -Ril- by voting to keep. -Ril- then struck out the user's vote, accusing him of being sockpuppet. - SimonP 04:05, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Bible verses: the problem with an article for each and every one of them

The problem, of course, is that no verse really exists in isolation. Each verse exists in relation to the surrounding verses, and must be placed in this context. It would be better, in my opinion, to create an article on each book of the Bible and write about the book in there, using section headings to divide up concepts and ideas. This could be done fairly easily: almost every Bible commentary gives the structure of the book and the verses that make up this structure. I can really only think of several verses that need their own article: John 3:16 and John 11:35.

I strongly oppose an article about each and every verse. I cannot see how we would gain any insight into what the Bible says, I don't feel that it would be treating the Bible's content with the justice it deserves, and I hardly see how we could get a neutral article out of this approach. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:28, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Ask IZAK, I'm sure he can tell you how insight can be gained from every single verse. Not of the "New Testament", but (without prejudice) the assertion that meaning can't be gained from each and every single verse of the Tanakh is regarded, in eschatalogical circles (at least in Judaism), as an expression of arrogance and/or ignorance. Tomer ^TALK 05:51, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

It is true that "almost every Bible commentary gives the structure of the book," but every one of them gives a different structure, leading to POV concerns about us choosing a single order. The scholarly standard for NT studies, as with OT, is to go verse by verse. Please read the articles, they do not focus on concepts and ideas, as you are correct that these are larger than verses and would better be covered in the chapter or book articles. Rather they focus on problems of translation and interpretation, and use in culture and literature all of subjects that are best dealt with, and usually covered, on a verse by verse basis. - SimonP 12:29, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Is there disagreement about a transwiki option?

Is there some sort of disagreement about setting up a transwiki option, making a WikiBible (either in WikiBooks or of its own) for the in-depth discussion of each verse? Sometimes it seems like this debate looks like it's either merge/delete or keep all the articles. I wonder if people who don't want to see the information deleted (or reduced by merging) are saying that they prefer to keep all the articles, when in fact they'd be fine with a transwiki? I'm not saying that's the case, but I'd be curious to hear what sort of opposition there is to the transwiki option. Thanks. :) kmccoy (talk) 06:37, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I would say there is very little disagreement, consensus seems to be that is a bad idea. So far we have had seven VfD debates over Bible verses. Each time a handful of people bring up the transwiki option, but the majority of people are opposed. - SimonP 12:13, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

What's your definition of "consensus"? kmccoy (talk) 13:03, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

"General agreement" works. - SimonP 13:44, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

I think you're abusing the term. There's obviously not a "consensus" that it's a bad idea. It's not like it's being mentioned by one or two people, with twelve or fifteen arguing against. In the VFD, it was mentioned by a number of people. In this page, ten people support its creation. It's mentioned to a lesser extent on Wikipedia:Merge/Bible verses. So while there may not be "consensus" to create such a project, there is also not "consensus" or even a clear majority of people opposed. I detest the use of these terms in a way that seems to be aimed at controlling the discussion. kmccoy (talk) 13:56, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

We have so far had seven different VfD debates over Bible verses. Over time these have coalesced around two options: keeping or merging. In the early votes outright deletion and transwikiing were clearly found to not have much support, thus supporters of those options moved to the two more popular options. My understanding is this is exactly how consensus works. The results on this poll are not terribly surprising in that, as mentioned above, pretty much the only people who know about it are the forty or so anti-verse people -Ril- has contacted. - SimonP 14:27, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

If by "general agreement" you only mean among the group of people who aren't "anti-verse", then maybe that's your consensus. If you're looking for a true consensus, I doubt you're going to get it. There are clearly groups of people who agree and disagree about the issue and all of its contained subissues. So the best you can do is try to find a compromise. Or you can just exclude the opinion of the people with whom you disagree simply because they came to this particular page because of -Ril-, and this issue can just drag on without resolution. kmccoy (talk) 14:35, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it is less that there is a consensus that verses should not be transwikied, and more one that pursuing the transwiki option is pointless because there is almost zero chance that it could win the consensus needed to be enacted. Either option produces the same result. After six months of debate over this issue it seems that if there is any chance of a consensus, it lies in some sort of merge compromise. - SimonP 15:00, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Transwiki'ing *is* a merge compromise, at least part of such a solution. Because if you transwiki the specific bible verses to somewhere else, there's still a place for articles on WP, just not as many as there are now, so there will have to be some merging done. kmccoy (talk) 21:46, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Notability

Rather than taking semi-educated guesses as to how many Bible verses are deserving of articles, perhaps we should ask questions determining more specifically what would make a verse worthy of an article. Questions worth asking could include:

• Does appearing on billboards make a verse encyclopedic?
• Does use in a major work of literature?
• Does a scholarly debate of its meaning or content?
• Does a debate over its translation, or a famous mistranslation in the KJV or Vulgate?
• Does being the foundation of a sect's doctrine?

- SimonP 12:49, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Considering that every single verse has been the subject of scholarly debate, that clearly isn't sufficient to make it notable. Bible verses that are the basis of a sect's doctrine should be mentioned in the article on that sect; it doesn't make the verse notable on its own. Similary, verses that are famously used in a major work of literature should be mentioned in the article on that work; verses that are just used in passing don't even merit a mention. --Carnildo 18:04, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

My changes to the top of the article

This poll was badly done. It's best to discuss a poll before it is opened for voting, otherwise people will possibly ignore the poll. Having said that, people seem to be happy to vote on it. In fact people are still voting despitye the green box. So I've edited the intro. I've started off making, what I felt to be pretty uncontroversial edits and got bolder and bolder with each new edit I made. This is to facilitate people being able to undo what I did easily. You can revert back to whichever edit you feel comfortable with. Please no revert wars though.

The issue of consensus can be decided after the poll has closed. I see no reason to close a poll early even if 100% chose only one option. We need to give all interested parties time to find the vote. Usually for a small number of votes 80-100% is needed. As the total number of votes goes up the % decreases but never less than 2/3 (67%). Of course what is a large /small number of votes is up for debate.

The issue of sockpuppets can also be decided after the poll ends. The best way to deal with thwem is just to add a note after each vote - account is 1 day old. or users 1st edit. I feel the number of 200 edits is far too high. This will catch out loads of legit non sockpuppet users and cause bad feeling. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 22:29, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with your changes, but would suggest a couple more. I feel the section on other religious works should be removed. This vote is pretty explicitly about Bible verses. Note the section on number of verses, for instance. We should not assume all religious texts should be treated equally. There is vastly less analysis and scholarship on the collected works of L. Ron Hubbard, and there is no reason to assume they can be treated in the same detail as the Bible. That noting of the "longest poem known to exist in the world" also seems to be worded in a way to suggest an inclusionist anarchy if we allow Bible verses. - SimonP 23:01, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

I already changed it from "will affect" to "may affect" . Although I agree that we shouldn't treat all religious texts equally, the section isn't talking about all relgious texts. It's talking about other, well studied, major religious texts. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 23:19, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Is a policy needed?

One important issue that has arisen at Wikipedia:Merge/Bible verses is whether a specific Bible verses policy is needed at all. This poll currently assumes that such a policy is needed. Perhaps we should add a question on this issue? - SimonP 22:50, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

No, this poll clearly indicates that it is NOT a policy. It is an aid in determining what the correct interpretation of policy is. ~~~~ 06:58, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

How can we be interpreting a policy like Wikipedia:Notability that doesn't exist? - SimonP 12:51, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Who said we were interpreting (a) that policy (b) only one policy. ~~~~ 20:40, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I honestly don't think this poll is very clear about anything. Everytime I come here I find a new section to vote on or new poll response that wasn't there before. Even the issue of what I thought we were voting has confused me over time. Any kind of poll that could affect the future of 30,000 (or maybe even hundreds of thousands) should not be conducted this way. I suggest we use the arguments and suggestions put forth so far to start a new discussion based on specific things. There have been some great ideas presented long after I voted on any issue that have made me rethink my stance on certain things. I honestly feel this discussion is far too broad and out of hand for me to participate in anymore and would like to discuss something else than "what arbitrary number can you think of?" hansamurai 飯侍 (burp) 18:48, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Problem with this whole approach

While a great deal of effort and breath has been expended on this subject, the whole subject is being (again) approached from a completely unWP perspective. Both times I've known about this whole question about whether or not individual Bible verses should have their own articles, it was offered first as a VOTE rather than as a DISCUSSION. I understand the rationale for combining the dozens of articles on individual verses in the initial VfD proposal, and was happy to see that the VfD failed, primarily because I felt it was attempting to surreptitiously establish WP policy via VfD. No sooner has it failed however, than Wikipedia:Bible verses pops up. And does it begin as a discussion? NO! It begins as yet another poll! Has no one read M:Polls are evil? Does anyone, honestly, having read that, believe that yet another poll is the way to resolve this? I move to scrap the poll and start the discussion. Do I hear a second? Tomer ^TALK 08:22, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

I'll second it. Providing the discussion starts with the open question - 'Is there a distinct problem with Bible verses, that requires an approach different from that used for other subjects?'. --Doc (?) 08:42, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I'll second the counter proposal. ~~~~ 08:51, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Great. Can we officially moribund the present poll then and take this whole thing somewhere else? VfD maybe? Tomer ^TALK 09:57, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

I wrote "the counter proposal". ~~~~ 17:52, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think anything should be deleted - 'to forget is to be destined to repeat'. Given the number of contrubutors involved, I would think a 'motion to close' on the project page would be the most transparent way of handling this. --Doc (?) 10:02, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

It clearly says "22nd august" on the page, it isn't even the first. VFD was already tried the result was "no consensus", with a slight (2 vote) majority for "not as independant articles". Previous VFDs on the subject have also resulted in "no consensus". ~~~~ 17:52, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I can see it says "22nd august" - but we are seeking a consensus to do something different (unlike the way this poll was instigated). Oppose the motion by all means - if there is no consensus for an earlier closure, so be it. As for VfD's, they are votes for deletion - there was clearly a small minority for that - end of story. What I don't understand, if you feel so strongly about it, is why you don't go ahead and merge the articles. I'd certainly support a responsible merge. Matthew 1-2 would quite sensibly go into Matthean infancy narratives. --Doc (?) 19:37, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Because any attempt, without establishing a highly visible consensus, to merge/delete the articles will result in instant reverts by SimonP, even if they are technically supported by the majority. ~~~~ 20:13, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

You're right. Merging and deleting does require consensus, not just a majority. We have now had seven votes/polls on this issue and it is quite clear that no such consensus exists. What would be useful is if you were to create a merged version without redirecting the verse articles. Then voters would be able to compare and contrast the two approaches. - SimonP 21:14, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Good LORD! You're kidding. This has been rehashed SEVEN times??? Why has no one stepped in to put a stop to this before now aimless endless polling??? Tomer ^TALK 23:41, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

This is the first actual poll (unless you count Wikipedia:Bible source text) the others have all been votes on VfD. Each of these was on specific verses, but made quite clear that they covered Bible verses in general. I also miscounted, this is actually the eighth vote on this issue. The previous ones were:

• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/John 20:16, and future Bible verses
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/John 20 and all linked verses
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 2:16 also applied to Matthew 2:1-15
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Genesis 1:1
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 1 and all similar articles
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 1:verses
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Individual Bible verses

The result of each of these was keep, except Matthew 1:verses, which was no consensus. - SimonP 23:58, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

No it wasn't. The results were consistently "no consensus". ~~~~ 07:24, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

A motion has been made and seconded to close this polling and move on to constructive DIALOGUE before conducting any more polls on this matter. The floor is open to discussion and voting. Please see Wikipedia:Bible verses#Motion to close

• I do agree with the motion to close, but it does create another issue, which -Ril- was so kind to point out - when does that vote close? --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 13:37, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

My (Nabla) opinion

On the survey:

I thank -Ril- for warning me on my talk page that something I was interested in (this survey) was going on but I do not like people pointing me what my opinion should be.

Since the first version of this page it was assumed to be a survey, not a policy vote, and that it would be open until Aug 22. Accordingly I assume that the "voting" is just a way of keeping opinions organised while a discussion may take place here on the talk page. So any later attempt to establish a policy would need an independent vote, if not than that would look like a bad-faith action. I consider the date simply as a truce deadline, as in "let's discuss things here before we flood VfD with more heated voting".

On my votes:

"No bible verses should have individual articles whatsoever" because "No verses are notable". The verses per se are just lines of text, i.e. they are sources for some subject, not the subject itself. And what is important is the subject, which is not an exclusive of any verse. A few examples may clarify my opinion:

The Lord's Prayer is an obviously good article subject. Breaking it to Matthew 6:9 to Matthew 6:13 would put phrases out of context. Also Matthew 6:14, and some of those following, explain the meaning of the prayer and make much more sense as a source for its interpretation within the main article.

Meekness currently redirects to Seven Virtues. That is very sad in my opinion. Why would an article about Matthew 5:5 (Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.) be more useful than making a full article on meekness that mention how it is treated along the biblical text? As in [...] Moses was very meek [...] (Numbers 12:3), The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever. (Psalms 22:26), But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. (Psalms 37:11), The meek also shall increase their joy in the LORD (Isaiah 29:19), etc., etc..

For the same reason individual chapters are not worthy of an article. Most certainly all individual book need an article, just as many other books do.

Nabla 15:15:10, 2005-08-06 (UTC)

I have to disagree. We already have an article on Matthew 5:5, and it contains a considerable amount of content that wouldn't be appropriate to a general article on meekness. - SimonP 17:26, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

I support Nabla's opinion. ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 21:19, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

A good article indeed, still I can't see anything that wouldn't fit in a article named meekness. If you'd like to point which do you think won't fit I would appreciate. Nabla 21:22:35, 2005-08-06 (UTC)

For one Gundry's theory that the verse is a rephrasing of Matthew 5:3 to keep Luke's eight fold structure is about the verse, not about the ideas behind it. The discussion of the eschatological meaning behind the phrase "inherit the earth" also has little to do with meekness. That this verse is quoted in Little Shop of Horrors and is parodied in the title of a song on Thing-Fish also has little to do with meekness. Moreover this is a rare verse with only one fairly clear topic. A verse like Matthew 3:7 deals with a number of interrelated subjects, and would be even harder to merge into a general topic. - SimonP 21:36, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Frank Zappa's song "The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing" actually first appeared on the You Are What You Is album. Thing-Fish uses an alterate (heavily overdubbed) version of the same recording. (Ibaranoff24 20:25, 23 December 2005 (UTC))

There is no perfect solution, off course, still most of what you mention could be included in a meekness article, yet it would need a not so elegant solution. Something in the line of 'meekness is refered on Matthew 5:5, which according to Gundry [etc.]'
Anyway I'm not proposing a simple name change for articles on individual biblical verses. That would be impossible either because there are multiple verses on the same subject, or because there are several subjects in the same verse, as you pointed.
So a possible organization for the info on Matthew 5:5 would be:

• The stylistic reference from Gundry would go into a section (or article) on the writing style of The Gospel of Matthew.
• The expression "inherit the earth" is also used in Psalm 25:13 and Psalm 37:9,11,22. Similar expressions (related or not? I don't know) are used in other verses, e.g., inherit all nations (Psalm 82:8) and inherit the throne of glory (I Samuel 2:8). So it probably deserves its own article.
• Popular culture references to the Bible could also go into a separate article. Not to mention that they don't add much to the understanding of the verse (In the same sense that my performance of a (very) minor character in a movie is relevant to my history but is meeningless for the portuguese movie industry's). So in my opinion the reference is inverted: the movie/song article could link to meekness, which currently they don't, and meekness (nor Matthew 5:5) needs to link to them. Both readers and editors should be awere of the potential of an internet encyclopedia, that includes links and also search engines.

Anyway organizing by verse is a good and logical solution, but I still think that organizing by subject is a better and even more logical one. So which are the options?

• by verse, no articles on the subject - that's looks obviously ridiculous and I guess no one wants that, since many subjects must be analysed by POVs other than the Bible's.
• by verse and by subject - that would lead to a lot of redundancy, also because of the need to include context on the verses articles. Not a good solution in my opinion.
• by subject, no articles on individual verses - The best option as I have defended so far.

Yet I think some (many...) readers may come here looking for help on an individual verse. Possibly we could help them more than simply pointing to use the search engine. How? I'm not sure. Maybe a table/list of related articles, with something as up to 3/4 articles directly conected to that verse. Entries to that could be something like this:

Matthew 5:5 → [[Meekness]], [[Gospel of Matthew#Writing style]], ...
...
Matthew 6:9 → [[Lord's Prayer]], ...
...
Matthew 6:14 → [[Lord's Prayer]], ...
...
...
Luke 11:2 → [[Lord's Prayer]], ...
-- Nabla 12:08:18, 2005-08-10 (UTC)

We can just do re-directs e.g. #REDIRECT [[Lord's Prayer]] ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 21:29, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

For some verses yes. That's already (well) done from Matthew 6:9-13 to the Lord's Prayer. But for other verses that would be hard if they have multiple subjects. An almost random pick: When Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father in law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and that the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt; (Exodus 18:1). What would that redirect to? So some redirects may become "hot", even POV, something that a list would accomodate easier. Not that I like the list much either, its just an attempt to bring up ideas to reach some solution. Nabla 13:41:52, 2005-08-11 (UTC)

After closure discussion

Well, the survey is now closed. And my question is still the one I asked at the very begining: so what? Where exactly does all this take us? What was the point in all that discussion? (And I suspect that these questions are rhetorical) --Doc (?) 19:37, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

• One obvious result is that mass VFDs of Bible verses are clearly not the way to go. Given that the important issue is clearly notability (there's 80%+ support for both the principle that notable verses should be included and non-notable verses should not be included), each article is going to have to be considered individually. But to be honest -Ril- being blocked probably means this issue is dead in the water. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:10, 2005 August 26 (UTC)

I both agree and disagree. I'd like to re-emphasise first that if there had been the two yes/no questions

1. "Should Bible verses notable in their own right have their own articles?", and
2. "Should Bible verses not notable in their own right not have their own articles?",

there would have been a huge support for both (78% and 81% respectively). So we can consider this matter settled.

Of those who answered the question "Roughly how many verses are notable?" (seemingly only those who answered "all notable verses" to the first question, though this wasn't required), a majority of 53% say that at most a few hundred verses are notable; excluding the abstentions, this figure reaches 77%. It may or may not be that those who did not vote on the second question or abstained, had they also given their personal opinions, would have changed the outcome (I consider that unlikely). However, if not, we can conclude that the number of Bible verses generally regarded as individually notable is at most in the order of a few hundred. (We could revote on this one just to make sure, but please...)

I do believe that people with enough knowledge to write an article about an individual verse pretty much have an idea whether a certain verse is one of the most notable 300 or not. So I'm as strongly as anything for mass VfDing all the articles on non-notable ones that exist today, or appear later.

KissL 09:48, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

• So if somebody has some free time, merging and redirecting would be a useful chore. Radiant_>|< 09:52, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Few things - firstly, on the number of Bible verses notable you must include abstentions. I abstained, and my reason was - 'I am against there being any policy/guidelines on this issue'. So in noting the support for <300, that must be taken into account.

My larger point is this. Merging is an option, but then it always was. The number of notable Bible verses is irrelevant to VfD, or even merges, as whether a particular Bible verse is in any 'notable number' will always need discussion. In any case, in the end, I suspect whether an article is merged, or deleted, will not depend on notability of the verse, but the strength of the article. If I ask you abstractly, 'is 2 Sam 1:19 notable?' - you'd probably rightly say 'merge with 2nd Samuel'. But if i wrote an article showing how not only was this verse important in the book, but that it had been picked up in liturgy and art through the ages (with pretty pictures), and quoted in political speeches, which had used it out of the original context, then I suspect it would survive. That's why I say this whole discussion has been a practical irrelevance. --Doc (?) 10:25, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. The question about the number of notable verses produced practically irrelevant results. This poll doesn't appear to have contributed anything to creating a consensus for merging pages, besides setting "individual notability" as a standard. But plenty of the people who supported the main proposal for notability are going to oppose merges of the existing pages. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:15, 2005 August 26 (UTC)

The discussion was not, and hardly ever is, irrelevant. You believed its outcome would be this... now you don't need to believe, now you *know*. And that is something.

Maybe it will help future discussions on VfD to focus on that particular article merits and not on the whole subject.

I suggest that the page be cleaned up, for ease of future reference. Nabla 15:36:12, 2005-08-26 (UTC)

Thanks Nabla, you're saying exactly what I've been trying to say. Let's sum it up for future reference somewhere, and be done with it. KissL 16:27, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

-Ril- being booted has allowed the long debate at Authentic Matthew to be quickly and amiably resolved, so perhaps the same can be done here. I don't think the various opinions are too far apart. Pretty much everyone agrees that some Bible verses are worthy of articles, and pretty much everyone agrees that some might be better merged together. We just need to establish some rough guidelines as to which fall into which category. - SimonP 17:18, August 26, 2005 (UTC)