Wikipedia:Featured article review/Gospel of the Ebionites/archive1

Gospel of the Ebionites

Gospel of the Ebionites (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured article candidates/Gospel of the Ebionites/archive1

• Featured article review/Gospel of the Ebionites/archive1

Notified: Example user, WikiProject Christianity, Talk:Gospel of the Ebionites

I am nominating this featured article for review because... as per several of the comments on the article talk page, including from the person who first nominated the article for FAR, there are a number of concerns which have been expressed, and I do not see the degree of attention to the article required to address those concerns being made that I believe would be required for this article to remain at FA status. As I can see no reason for an article to continue to be listed as an FA despite having clear at least potential problems which are not necessarily being actively addressed, I believe it is not unreasonable for the article to perhaps be removed from FA status until such time as those concerns have actually been addressed. John Carter (talk) 15:36, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Extended content

Hey John, I see that this article was only promoted last month. Usually we'd want to wait at least three months after promotion before starting an FAR, unless there are extenuating circumstances, and even if a review was begun now the article's status would not be immediately removed. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:09, 21 July 2013 (UTC) True. However, please note that the FAR section of the article talk page is already started, and several concerns expressed. Also, there seems to have been some serious question as to whether the article got as much attention independent of the article developers at all. It also seems to deviate rather substantially from the few extensive print and other independent overviews produced in recent years, and although that is of course not necessarily overwhelmingly important, it could perhaps not unreasonably be counted as an extenuating circumstance. Drawing broader attention to the article in this way is I believe under the circumstances called for. John Carter (talk) 16:17, 21 July 2013 (UTC) No. I can't see any reason for that. Ignocrates has replied to all specific concerns raised by Keilana, and myself so far. You haven't been concrete enough in your textual objections, John, for me to make a call there. In any case, I promised to continue a thorough, source-based review of the article, and I've only had time for the lead so far, given the time-wasting battle forced on me while attempting to push Khazars out of its historic slough of despond. I will get round to completing my review over the next month or so. Like you I had strong disagreements with Ignocrates in the past, but he has, I repeat, set a high benchmark for strong sourcing, neat formatting, and a succinct yet comprehensive overview in that difficult areas where ideological conflicts and interests are intense. Any concerns of a specific nature, I mean 'spot the errors' type concerns, not generic objections, will be handled surely in the normal course of improving the article.Nishidani (talk) 17:03, 21 July 2013 (UTC) After reading the article and the even longer talk, I can grasp at least some of John Carter's reasoning for requesting FAR. The subject of the article is a document that does not presently exist in any verifiable form. We are dealing with theoretical reconstructions based upon possible mentions and speculative quotations from other sources. The main problem, as I see it, is that the voice of the article does not reflect that statements regarding this document are tenuous rather than established—and will continue to be, absent discovery of an actual copy or fragment of the text. Instead, the article frames possible constructs (whether an editor's or a scholar's) as fact. A few recent changes in the article's lead point to some of the ways the problem of this synthesis might be addressed, but a thorough copyedit of the entire article needs to be done to make clearer that there is not concrete evidence for anything within the book itself, and that there is no universal scholarly consensus on many of the points. For some points, a few more alternative views from other scholars would be appropriate. Absent a FAR, the chances of this one slipping through the cracks and continuing with FA status is high. The FAR discussion on the article talk is being red-herring'd off the point, and hopefully these personal animosities wouldn't get dragged into a formal FAR. As it now stands, I would be upset to come across this article on Wikipedia's front page, so I would think an FAR is appropriate. • Astynax talk 17:24, 21 July 2013 (UTC) There is a very serious question regarding WP:WEIGHT on this topic. Particularly regarding a lot of things in early Christianity, about which little if anything independent survives, sometimes the only things that can be concretely said is that, like in this case, "Epiphanius said..." and "others have said based on that information from Eusebius and their own hypotheses..." Unfortunately, such blank slates are, in a very real sense, among the favorite targets of those who wish to attempt to produce or manufacture evidence for their own opinions, and who use these blank slates as something upon which to pin their own conclusions. And, yeah, that happens in the academic world too. In such cases, it seems reasonable to me that the best sources are those which are most clearly overview-type sources, not those which seek to propose some new idea. There are very few overview type sources of any particular length regarding this topic. With the exception of the Anchor Bible Dictionary, most if not all give it only a short summary of one or two paragraphs on this topic. And I have looked through a staggering number of them in my own review of this subject at various academic libraries. While it is not unreasonable to include some material on the modern hypotheses constructed around this topic, or in many cases around ideas favored by academics which are tacked onto this or other sources, there is a very real question how much of that material should be included, and where, and I very much believe the current article violates WEIGHT requirements regarding these basically often speculative articles in academia. John Carter (talk) 17:39, 21 July 2013 (UTC) A few recent changes in the article's lead point to some of the ways the problem of this synthesis might be addressed, but a thorough copyedit of the entire article needs to be done to make clearer that there is not concrete evidence for anything within the book itself, and that there is no universal scholarly consensus on many of the points. I concur basically with Astyax, but differ in assessment. I noted some of those issues in my prelimiary notes. My basic point is that most of this area is hogwash. I can't see any article (please point them out) which any scholar would be comfortable with, in terms of unified formatting, high-quality sourcing, consistent neutrality in the choice and balancing of material, in the areas dealing with the origin and growth of monotheistic religions. What Ignocrates has done has set standards that, by their nature, allow editors to step in and correct, modify, retune, without wrecking one of the rare attempts to try and get a religious article beyond the crap level. I say this because every time I've tried to work a specific area of longterm interest like the origins of Christianity I've met roadblocks so resolute, I can't get beyond a few edits, either from those who believe Christianity was radically different from Judaism, or from editors who think Christianity was antisemitic from virtually the outset. (I'm a pagan, but think the evidence is, Christianity was a set of sectarian Jewish (by lineage or conversion) groups for almost a century after the date usually fixed for the crucifixion) That's fundamentally why I am very sympathetic to what Ignocrates has done: I regard the article as a starting point where we can comfortably improve, that in itself is a notable achievement.Nishidani (talk) 17:48, 21 July 2013 (UTC) You have no idea how much I agree with you regarding the current status of most of the "crap" religion articles around here, believe me. Articles on the history of individual churches, individuals of significance in those churches or broader Christianity, and particularly "History of ..." articles are among the biggest problems I see out there. Regarding the differences between Judaism and Christianity, I can say that we would be better off talking about "Israelite religion" or something similar for basically "Biblical Judaism," and "Judaism" for that which emerged after the fall of the Temple and Jerusalem, because that distinction is clear in the leading reference works on the subject. But it takes a lot of time to get together lists of articles and subarticles in encyclopedia of about 15 volumes or so. When that, admittedly still in its early stages, gets finished, and we can began to more actively try to gather sources from as many internal and external perspectives on various religions as possible and see what can be cobbled together collectively from them, some of those concerns might be more easily addressed. But I think that is entirely a different matter from whether this article as it currently stands meets FA according to the standards of any part of wikipedia other than the religion topic, and I think the answer to that is fairly clearly "No." Just as much as I can say that we should try to improve the religious content, I think it equally reasonable to say that something which is, as you more or less said, the best of a bad lot, is far from sufficient basis to say that it meets FA status. John Carter (talk) 18:03, 21 July 2013 (UTC) Well, I've not much confidence in neat distinctions like 'Israelitic'and 'Biblical Judaism' and 'Judaism' and general accounts of it in encyclopedias, if only because traditionally grounded narratives are still with us. Once you get into the nittygritty of any one issue, confidence in generalizations as large as 'Judaism', 'Christianity', 'Islam' fall apart as we observe how essentialist thinking inflects discourse. Read the Elephantine papyri together with Ezra and Nehemiah, and the clash between ground-level realities and sacerdotal ideology was profound, to give one instance. To the contrary I think there's a massive sea-change underway only visible in specialist scholarship that, however, has yet to find expression in general overviews. There are huge ideological investments at stake here. This is related to what Ignocrates has done. It passed FA and you say this was due to a flaw in the process. The same was said of the SAQ article. Whatever, both have a quality level that requires future editors to stop fucking round and fucking up the aim of this place - to produce articles general readers can trust, and scholars can read to the end without feeling nausea.Nishidani (talk) 18:35, 21 July 2013 (UTC) It seems to me that some of what you're saying above is relating to the comparative lack of content in even some of the main articles related to religion, and the lack of articles or other content on "popular Judaism" (if that is the right term here) from "official Judaism," and/or more individual articles or lengthy sections on the specifics of a given religion in a specific time, or in a specific area. This might include such things as a whole series of not only articles on the "History of Judaism" for instance, but also maybe one or more articles on "History of Popular Judaism," for instance. I would agree there as well, and, from what I can remember seeing, most of the reference/academic texts on those topics have enough content to produce a good deal more content dealing with those topics than we now have. Whether there is any sort of "sea-change" only visible in the academic literature I don't know, as honestly a lot of the reference books like the Eliade/Jones EoR and the German RGG are pretty much written by the specialists in their fields, who are generally selected based on their appearances in the academic literature and probably say basically what they say in the material which drew the attention of the editors. Regarding whether, for instance, Nichiren Buddhism (or even its "subarticles) is in its own way as important and significant as Buddhism, or Jehovah's Witnesses or Christadelphians or whatever is as important and significant as Christianity, I have to agree there as well. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what the SAQ article you mean is, so I can't comment on that. John Carter (talk) 18:54, 21 July 2013 (UTC) Well, by coincidence I was invited to a monastery where I have friends, to dine, hence the delay. I only looked at the Nichiren Buddhism article, because I have a fair competence there. Useless. Bellicose in origins (though it had a notable exception to this in the transitional period to Tokugawa Japan) and militantly imperialistic from Taisho times down to the end of WW2 (Tanaka Chigaku, and his apocalyptically minded military student Ishihara Kanji, for example), and the article says zilch of this, and a lot more, while getting tangled up in lists, all drawn on poor sources, or generic multivolumed encyclopedia style sources. A good example of what I mean. The sea-change dates from the 1990s, so I'm a bit leery of any general books written on these subjects before then. But then, John, this is just one chap's personal bias, and, of course, in wikipedian terms, you are quite correct that the encyclopedic sources are eminently good in terms of RS. Nishidani (talk) 20:46, 21 July 2013 (UTC) I hope the monks you know eat a bit better than some of those around here. FWIW, I'm not sure whether you mean our article on Nichiren Buddhism, which is what I think, or those published in independent reference sources. I agree a massive number, possibly the majority, of most of our articles relating to religion, well, suck. I was not linking to our articles in particular as examples of quality, because I think most of them probably aren't of much quality, but rather trying to the topics and what we should have in them. Some of your concerns might be addressable by having a good MOS, which we don't have for religion yet. And, yeah, I would favor using secondary sources as opposed to tertiary sources for references, although I think that in some of the cases the recent tertiary reference sources written by "leading scholars" (or at least those who would write them) can be used as an indicator of comparative weight, with some reservations, given any biases apparent in them from subsequent comments in journals. I don't think that many, probably even most, of our content related to religion has undergone such review yet, because a lot of us haven't necessarily known where to look for such material. Highbeam and Questia subscriptions, for instance, have only been available here about a year or so, and I don't think most of the editors who have them have been aiming at the more important articles much to see how well they meet the standards of recent reference sources. There are also a lot of more focused reference works, like those in Category:WikiProject lists of encyclopedic articles, some of which are more recent, but some of them I have seen in reviews don't even, according to the reviews, meet the standards of the huge "default reference" sources like the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy or the Eliade/Jones Encyclopedia of Religion. But, again, I have very serious reservations whether this particular article meets the standards of RS you acknowledge are eminently good as per RS standards. Maybe the others are better, maybe they aren't, but I would feel much more comfortable if the person who spent most time on this article had shown any real ability to abide by RS on such topics as The Jesus Dynasty before. John Carter (talk) 21:18, 21 July 2013 (UTC) Request for clarification: My edit count on The Jesus Dynasty article: 2 edits in October 2010. They are as follows: edit 1 and edit 2. Please clarify the specific issue with RS involving my edits in your statement "I would feel much more comfortable if the person who spent most time on this article had shown any real ability to abide by RS on such topics as The Jesus Dynasty before". Ignocrates (talk) 01:43, 22 July 2013 (UTC) Compare The Jesus Dynasty (2010) with our article (2013), and there is a world of difference. Let's put it this way. The old encyclopedic mode summed up a general consensus. That paradigm itself is breaking down. In my own early experience, I once surveyed 80 years of scholarship on a highly specialized topic, with several dozen contributions. 4 were original, the rest derivative. It's harder to do that now, except in summary work for a general readership. In their own communities, scholars thrive on dissent, finessing, paradigm challenges. A century or more ago, two or three lines of interpretation endured with their respective consensus-communities for several decades. We now have a multiplicity of research centres, highly competitive, with different interests, perspectives, and allegiances, all trying to crack open the conundrums of key moments in history described in primary sources that are scrappy, ideologically self-interested, and silent over much that must have occurred, but which the emergent authorities of the past tried to suppress. This makes biblical scholarship, for one, an immensely complicated matter, and I like the way the sacerdotal authority of leading opinion is diminishing. It's like the tectonic shift in newspapers which characteristically set down an editorial line, ever conscious that reportage had to appear neutral, but which had a function of informing (moulding) 'public' opinion. Walter Lippman blew that smug idea out of the water in his book Public Opinion. Only the New York Times still believes in it, whilst the rest of us scour the net to check reportage, verify, dig up alternative angles, and see everything is simply far more complex than what your traditional source gives you. That is the divide we have here. Encyclopedias can't keep up with the, in part, net-driven rapidity of formal review in a gloabl world where no one center of religious research dominates. The conflict between you and Ignocrates is essentially like that: you want something like a consensual encyclopedic voice, he, with his own distinct interests, is foraging among the plethora of scholarly voices who are debating among themselves rather than thinking of writing for a public. This certainly, as I and Astynax have noted, potential dangers. But that can be fixed by wikipedians reviewing and editing. Knowledge is inherently unstable, and we have to accept that is the new paradigm. Sorry for the length, but I think the thought may clarify your unease with Ignocrates' work, and his incomprehension at why you should be opposing his progress. It's a McLuhanish difference in technological modes that separates you both.Nishidani (talk) 21:48, 21 July 2013 (UTC) Yeah, in a lot of ways, I actually agree with you. Even the major academic journals can't or won't keep up with all the sometimes highly speculative opinions of some academics, or give too much weight to the old warhorses who haven't done anything in years. Unfortunately, unless the third pillar of wikipedia as per WP:PILLARS is more clearly defined, I tend to think that as that pillar upon which the encyclopedia is based is interpreted in existing policies and guidelines dependent upon it, well, it agrees with me. So far as I can see, anyway. If anyone wants to move to clarify or adjust that pillar, I would myself welcome it, and have even suggested that such be done in a recent guideline proposal. But I regret to say that saying something is FA, despite extant policies and guidelines seemingly inherently disagreeing with that on some key points, because it is subjectively in the eyes of some editors, who may have displayed POV problems in the past, "better" than the policies and guidelines, is almost certainly going to be a losing argument here, and possibly/probably seen by at least some independent eyes as maybe willfully acting contrary to policy. Could/should the policies and guidelines be adjusted? Hell, yes. Until they are, though, I think everyone would have to say that they hold for content, even if some editors don't or can't see that. Could there be ways to adjust or set policies or guidelines to take into account some of these possible changes? Certainly. Should we act on firm conviction that they will take place in the future, and act in a way not consistent with existing policies and guidelines while they are in place? I honestly don't see how that sort of position is ever likely to win out. Maybe its right, and, honestly, I can see some ways to adjust content in a way so that some of what some people see as being these "cutting edge" ideas are included somewhere in wikipedia or other wikimedia entities, maybe even to some degree (I don't know) in the comparatively short main articles on the topic. That's one of the things I would like to see addressed in guidelines discussion. But we do have to deal with the guidelines and policies we have while they are still the ones in place. John Carter (talk) 22:03, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I point out these comments left by John Carter on the article talk page: "this article looks to me to be, basically, far far short of the standard of even a good article" and "what might be most required here is basically another total rewrite" and this link User:John_Carter/Guidelines_discussion#Current discussions which might relate to some proposed guidelines to put this request for a review in the proper perspective. I will be happy to respond to specific and actionable questions from the reviewers. Ignocrates (talk) 00:53, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Delegate comment: (@John Carter, Nishidani, Keilana, Astynax, Ignocrates) Okay, this is getting away from us a little here. We can't have this devolve into a content or personal dispute. Here are the FA criteria. I'd like each participant to list, briefly and without dealing with personalities or other issues, which of these criteria they feel the article does not meet and why. If you feel it meets all criteria, say so, but for the moment please don't respond to others. If any onlookers want to weigh in on the criteria, feel free. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:39, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comments - Hi, I mentioned a couple of concerns about sourcing on the talk page which were mostly taken care of or are being worked on. I don't feel qualified to comment further because not only am I not a scholar of religion in any way, I am not a religious person. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 14:48, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
• Reply: I agree, this is primarily a content policy matter (which is also a requisite for FA, though 1b and 1d could be seen to apply). See my comment above for why this fails to meet policy for content. • Astynax ^talk 16:34, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment: I think the FAC review process worked just as it should have and the article meets all FA criteria. Nevertheless, I am willing to continue the review and I will respond to criticisms and questions that are specific and actionable. Ignocrates (talk) 17:25, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment: I helped Ignocrates with bringing this article thru the FA process. I haven't commented yet because I wasn't certain whether my input would be constructive, & I haven't understood the objections to this article as they apply to its content. I emphasized that this article needed to specifically label the inferences & speculations of experts as such, & we made a determined effort to do that. I also found that Ignocrates did a far more thorough job of research for this article than I could have done, which he deserves recognition for. Based on my knowledge of the secondary literarture, I believe this article is neutral about its subject: there are no references to things such as the The Jesus Dynasty or other fringe topics. As for the appropriateness of its length, although the surviving fragments would easily fit into one printed page of text, there is ample secondary literature discussing this work; in this regard, this article is similar to another FA article -- Ælle of Sussex -- about whom the evidence is slight, yet there is ample secondary literature. -- llywrch (talk) 18:24, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment by Nishidani. I haven't been able to get beyond my review of the lead because of other obligations, but generally I find the page commendable.

The avoidance of primary sources is salutary, indeed, in this area, almost obligatory. Given the difficulties of interpretation of primary sources in foreign, and esp. ancient languages, they must by definition be cited strictly through secondary sources of the highest quality. In earlier disputes, some involving Ignocrates, I was insistent on this principle. He has taken it up and applied it with rigour here (though I claim no influence on his editorial choice in this regard).

The detailed citations in the notes are indispensable. In a recondite area, general readers who are unfamiliar with the scholarship are given assistance by their presence, and wiki editors are saved much trouble by the readiness with which they can verify text against source, which is important for quality and accuracy control.

From memory, (following GermanJoe), the last paragraph sounded on first reading like WP:OR synthesis. A general summary at the end should synthesize the scholarly consensus in its generalizations. It is not clear there that this has been done. I will take a further look.

That said, I think, it eminently shows FA level quality. Whatever problems are found can be handled by editors, or by Ignocrates, who has been very responsive to all specific objections or queries.Nishidani (talk) 15:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Comment GermanJoe - as a uninvolved layman (except an image review) i will strictly refrain from any content comments and try to offer some general remarks and observations as examples for possible improvements, mostly on sourcing:

• lead "...[our] only witness for this gospel..." => avoid first-person language for encyclopedic articles
• In general, the lead seems to make a valid effort to represent the vagueness of some information and the general dispute about this topic. The vast usage of footnotes in the lead is uncommon, but probably needed for this kind of topic (see summary below).
• Background "Epiphanius is believed to have come into possession of a gospel that he attributed to the Ebionites when he was bishop of Salamis, Cyprus." => Is this sourced by cite #5? If yes, i would repeat the source here. As this seems to be a hotly discussed topic, i would immediately cite all statements, which may be questionable or a matter of opinion ("...is believed to ... " and similar phrases are good indicators)
• "The gospel survives only in seven brief quotations by Epiphanius in Chapter 30 of his heresiology the Panarion ("Medicine Chest", c. 378[6]) as a polemic against the Ebionites." => while the statement seems relatively uncontroversial, it could use a source - or is ref 6 meant to source the whole sentence?
• "The term Gospel of the Ebionites [is a scholarly convention in use at least as early] as the French priest Richard Simon (1689); ..." => this statement cannot be directly sourced to Simon, especially the first part. A secondary source is needed for "it's a scholarly convention" and ideally for the assumption, that earlier usages exist. Or rephrase this as a simple factual statement: "Richard Simon used the term ... in 1689."
• "[Nothing is known] for certain about its place of origin." => source? The footnote text "The place of origin is uncertain." is not equal to "Nothing is known for certain." (some minor details could be known for certain, while the exact place remains uncertain). Avoid absolute phrases (nothing, all, ...), unless there is a RS directly making that statement.
• Inferences last paragraph => the whole paragraph is sourced by a 40 page source. The sourcing should be split in smaller parts for the separate thoughts. Two advantages: the sourcing is easier to verify and a smaller source makes it easier to stay close to the source and avoid OR and synthesis.

Summary GJ

• Sources could be tightened and clarified a bit in a few spots (see above).
• The vast usage of footnotes and long explanatory text is uncommon, but to my knowledge not outside our guidelines. However, please double-check, if all footnotes are really needed. Maybe some of them would be better integrated in the text or could be omitted, if they are not directly relevant. But that's part of editorial judgement either way.
• Usage of primary sources. Not able to judge this, but per our guidelines make sure to use primary sources only for non-controversial information and do not interpret or analyze it (just a general reminder to check).
• This article appears to be within FA-range or close to FA (disclaimer: excluding the expert dispute above, which a layman can't possibly judge). As editors were still discussing concerns on the talkpage to try and improve the article, this FAR seems premature.
• When our policies and guidelines have problems in dealing with complex religious topics or disputed sources, such concerns should be brought up in a more general venue on policy talk or in some form of content dispute resolution. FAR is not a good place to solve such fundamental disagreements. GermanJoe (talk) 08:17, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for all these suggestions GJ. I will attempt to tighten up the sourcing and implement the other improvements over the next few days. The "vast usage of footnotes" was an attempt to be proactive in anticipation that some religious nut was going to come along eventually and try to undermine the article. The footnotes also allow the article to be read on two levels; casual readers can skip over them, but they are useful information for scholars and other expert-level readers. Ignocrates (talk) 14:59, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Just as an fyi, all primary sources are subordinated as notes or otherwise explicitly linked to the secondary sources that use them. There are no "naked" primary sources in the article. Ignocrates (talk) 15:32, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

There is a very real, and, in cases like this, almost inescapable question about why there is so clearly an insistence on not using primary sources in the article. This is not a normal article. There would be no reason for the article to even exist were it not for the single primary source extant which specifically refers to it, and I cannot see any reason not to include the quotes included in the primary or secondary source, depending on how you wish to characterize it, Epiphanius. Also, honestly, the above attempt at justification of some of the notes seems to me rather incompetent. An obvious example is note 4, which is a note which is, basically, redundant, given the existing direct link in the text of the article itself to the other existing article on gospel harmony. Honestly, that note, and some other notes which seem gratuitously self-important to me, would probably best be considered by someone other than the person who found such redundancy reasonable in the first place, and it would be reasonable if that editor displayed less possible "ownership" problems with the article. And, unfortunately, I have very strong reason to believe that the article has already been possibly taken over by one religious nut, but that is probably best handled in the request for arbitration regarding that editor's conduct which I intend to file in the next week or so. John Carter (talk) 15:29, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

John: could you please refrain from personal and behavioural commentary here? I'd like to keep this review as focused as possible on the article and its adherence (or lack thereof) to the FA criteria, as per my request to participants above. Other issues should be redirected to the potential arb case you mention or another dispute-resolution forum. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:24, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, your comment on my own one, final sentence of commentary seems to be even longer than the comment you were responding to. I do hope someone actually reads the bulk of the comment, and perhaps responds to the points made. John Carter (talk) 19:40, 25 July 2013 (UTC)