Talk:Masada

Masada was nominated as a good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (April 10, 2007). There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.

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Bryan Derkson notes that "The 'credibility of Josephus' article suggests that the mass suicide story was merely embellished, rather than fabricated outright."

Absolutely; I didn't mean to imply otherwise, though I see how I gave that impression. RK

No problem. I'm reading the other article some more now, and hopefully I'll be able to include more details on the differences between myth and reality shortly. But until then, anyone who's really interested in this should be reading the external links anyway, so it's all good. :) --BD

Amazing to read the article and this discussion. Seems editors are finally realizing the Masada is ancient myth wrapped in modern propaganda. Come on here, let's write a real article about the fact that no one knows what happened at Masada, where it is or what this rock is and if it relates in anyway to what happened (or didn't happen) there. It's been used since by Israel and it military (who must swear allegiance there) to write a history of convenience for what has become a European colonization of Arab (Muslim, Christian and Sephardic Jewish) land.

Mike Livneh (livneh@ootips.org) would like to remark, that Prop. Ben-Yehuda's arguments are mostly convincing and widely accepted; while his far-reaching conclusions are not nesseserily the only possibility to understand the situation in past and present. Many first-class scholars do not agree with his conclusions, including most of the experts on history and archeology of Masada. See my book: The Last Fortress - The Story of Masada and its People, Tel-Aviv 1989 (304 pages). Most of the common errors, which Ben-Yehuda so brilliantly points out, were corrected by me in that book long before Ben-Yehuda published his ideas. In that book I show how to avoid wrong facts, and still admire Masada's people.

Name

Although the Masada is the common transcript of מצדה, I think Metzada is more proper transcrupt. "Metzada" dervied from the root "Me-Tz-aD" = fortress. Where "Masada" - Me Sa D corresponds to מסדה which dervied from the root מסד which means foundation. MathKnight 22:32, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

New info

I've just recently seen documentaries on both the History and Discovery channels challenging the traditional views on Masada. According to them the suicide rate was much lower than 900. They cite the lack of large graves near Masada as evidence. Some historians believe the suicide didn't happen at all. Please get back to me with infoIndieJones 04:49, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AD or CE?

This article uses both AD and CE for era references. In addition, the AD references are incorrectly used. Is there some compelling reason to use one over the other? It needs to be consistent.

In regards to changing the eras to AD and BC, the atricle predominately used AD and BC over BCE and CE. Since the article needs to be consistent, I went ahead and changed them all to AD and BC only to have them all changed to BCE and CE. It really doens't matter either way, but I would just like to make it clear that there was a reason for the switch and it wasn't just an attempt to push AD and BC over CE and BCE. — D. Wo. 21:02, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, this article directly relates to Jewish identity and history, BCE/CE worked fine here for a long time, so switching to Christianity-centric Anno Domini looks tendentious here. BCE/CE is neutral and commonly acceptable notation. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 09:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It has used BCE/CE since at least some time in 2004, and it is far more acceptable to use BCE/CE than BC/AD in an article on a very important event in Jewish history. Since we must have consistency, it should be BCE/CE. The recent attempt to remove all eras is of course a completely unacceptable compromise. Dates like 31, 37, 66, 70 and 73 with no era noted simply cannot stand. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 19:01, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article was born in 2002 with AD/BC. There is no reason for having a preference for BCE/CE (the fact that this is an important episode in Jewish history does not mean AD/BC is inappropriate). It is not allowed to edit an article to change between allowed styles.--Panarjedde 19:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oz is correct; I've reimplemented the non-Christian dating system. Dppowell 00:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much, much better. Amoruso 00:07, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I suspect it will be reverted soon, but I'm happy to lend my voice to the consensus. Dppowell 00:32, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also because you did not provide any good reason for the revert...--Panarjedde 17:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I did, on your Talk page. Since you reverted my comments there (you've been counseled before about censoring your Talk page, haven't you?), I'll post them here: "Here's the relevant language in the guideline: "When either of two styles are acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change." Amoruso is effectively arguing that the nature of the topic constitutes such a reason. Oz agrees with him, as do I. I'm sure the folks on Wikipedia:WikiProject Jewish history probably would, too, and this article is part of their project." Dppowell 04:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do not read your posts on my talk page, I delete them immediately, as you are not welcome there. As regards "counseling", you are free to add warnings and the like on the relevant section of my talk page, as that is was I was "counseled" about.--Panarjedde 12:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Correct. In addition, Panarjedde is wrong saying "It is not allowed to edit an article to change between allowed styles." There is a consensus to keep a neutral notation in this Judaism-related article, and it has been used here for a few years now. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 06:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And you are still to show me it. Where is it?--Panarjedde 12:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Where is what? I hope you realize that you are pushing POV against consensus. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 12:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I mis-read your post, I now read it better.--Panarjedde 13:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1842?

I'm no expert on Masada and my memory is pretty close to nonfunctional. However when I visited there 17 or so years ago I recall reading on the site that it was discovered from the air, which would pretty much rule out 1842. The story I heard was that the story was believed to be fiction until the actual place was discovered accidently by someone flying over it.

The site is, by the way, simply amazing. If you know the story looking out over the walls and seeing the roman encampments is a very moving experience. Looking at the size of those things, towns really, you know exactly how those people felt looking down at them.

Zealots?

As far as I recall, Josephus - the sole source on the Siege of Masada - doesn't place the Zealots at Masada at all. Rather, Masada was occupied by a group of Sicarii driven from Jerusalem by the Zealots. Hello my name is Walter, my email is rayzrx001@yahoo.com...I had repeated dreams as a child about this event and know without a doubt I was there, there were two of us that seemed to be the decision makers and I'm thinking as far as my dreams had gone, that I was the unfortunate one, but I am only going by feelings and visions from a dream that started when I was about 2 and the last time I had it was around the age of 5, I never heard of this story until later in life. I need to correspond with others that may have been or feel they were there in a past life. Thank you.

Redundancy

I hate to lose time on this trivial matter, but I hate even more stubborn people. Is there any place on this talk page in which it has been decided that it is not allowed to remove redundant era styles, as User:Amoruso claims?--RedMC 19:14, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A small number by itself can be confusing. RedMC, I understand that you think that having era notation there can be redundant. I hope you also understand that others do not think so. This is an encyclopedia, and we should strive to be unambiguous and clear. Other than perceived redundancy, is there a problem with erring on the safe side and including era notation? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 22:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Protection

I have asked for this page to be protected since it keeps being vandalised.--Shakujo 05:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GA ideas

I'm not officially reviewing this but I thought I'd stick my head in just to say that you might want to put in some more inline citations, and possibly move the one piece of info in the trivia section into the main article, as a trivia section with one point is a little unnecessary. Also, perhaps trim the external links section down a little bit? I think these points but will help get the GA. SGGH 19:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

I think this article is very nearly at GA standards. A few comments:

Josephus needs to be referenced - to a modern printed edition. The link to the full text at Gutenberg isn't enough.
The third sentence of the history section is over-long and in bad English. You should probably put the 'reliability of Josephus' debate in its own paragraph.
The Sicarii: Please wikilink the first mention in the 'History' section to aid comprehension. Also the accounts of the difference between 'zealots' and 'sicarii' in the first and the fourth paragraphs of the history section aren't entirely consistent: which historians "believe that the Romans may have used Jewish slaves" to build the ramps, and do those historians think the defenders of Masada were Zealots rather than Sicarii, or do they just gloss over the difference?
The World Heritage Site infobox is over-wide for that position of the article; can it be reduced in width or moved down the page?
Is there any history of Masada before its fortification? If there is significant knowledge then it should be included for the article to be a GA. If there is little then a sentence would suffice.

If these can be addressed then happy to make it a GA. Regards, The Land 09:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

After one week, none of these comments have been addressed, so I have removed the nomination and marked it as failed; however I think it's quite close to pass standard and if these comments are addressed a renomination would most likely succeed. The Land 20:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, it's pretty darned far from a GA. No offense, but only four cites in the whole article? Oy. Jewish-wargamer 20:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]