Talk:Scripture

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Hello there! I found it a fantastic omission that none of the external links to went to actual Scripture of the Hebrew and Christian Canons. By about year 350 A.D. the Christian church of various cities had produced an authoritative list of accepted books of the faith, roughly 66 books or 39 for the Law, Prophets, and Writings, and 26 for the Gospels and Letters. In the rowdy days before the destruction of Herod's Temple Saducees accepted only Moses five books, known as torah or Law, while the Pharisees accepted all the T-N-K. Modern Judaism inherits the oral tradition of the Pharisees, which disputes that Paul the Apostle of the Christian Church was a member. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bwildasi (talk • contribs) 10:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

first definition of a word in a dictionary refers to the manner in which a word was first used.

I've never heard this before. Any reference for this?--Editor2020 (talk) 01:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't sound right to me. The first definition is most often the most common usage contemporary with the date of publication of the dictionary. However, the Oxford English Dictionary may well follow this convention. The Oxford attempts very careful documentation of the etymology of words, and their history of usage from Middle English onwards, even if those uses are now obsolete.

Dictionaries of dead languages, which I spend a considerable portion of my waking life consulting, often start with a "primary" or literal sense of a word, from which various metaphorical or other extended meanings are presumed to have arisen. A lot depends on the size of a dictionary and the audience for which it was produced (and a fair bit depends on the tastes of the editors or those who provided money for the work).

A short Greek dictionary may give anathema as "curse", a more comprehensive one will start with "something 'set up'; by extension, offered up to a god; in later uses, cursed or forbidden things".

Well, that's all I'll say, it's a long winded way of me saying, "it depends". There are thousands of dictionaries and they work with different conventions. Alastair Haines (talk) 08:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Changing definitions of "scripture"

The definition of "scripture" seems to change throughout this article. It starts off as : “writings that are definitively characteristic of particular religious traditions”, but that’s not even one of the definitions given in the reference provided.

In the ‘Usage’ section an example is provided which the Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary uses as an example of a totally different meaning. 1. Anything written; a writing; a document; an inscription.

I have put it in scripture and in remembrance. --Chaucer.

In the ‘Comparisons’ section, the definition has changed to the Old and New Testaments.

At the end of the ‘Comparisons’ section, yet another definition is attempted, “Scriptures are religious texts, the truth of which is received by faith/belief of the reader/hearer, in that faith is belief in the trustworthiness of a written/spoken idea/thought that has not been proven.”--Editor2020 (talk) 02:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

That looks like a wiki at work. ;)

Yes, this article is at a very early stage of development.

Chaucer can be included as an example of usage by analogy, in the English language.

Perhaps it's helpful to point out that this an encyclopedia entry, not a dictionary entry.

If the word scripture in English refers to multiple notable ideas, disambiguation will be required.

But, whether scripture has multiple meanings in English or not, the article is about the idea of scripture, not the word (except in the etymology section).

This is immediately apparant, since the Book of Mormon would be one of few scriptures written in English, and certainly the only one from anything closely related to the major religious groupings of the world.

To be even more concrete, I read Sumerian hymns and other religious works. These are some of the oldest writings known, in fact, Sumerians are credited with being the first to invent writing. Religion is older than writing, a fact established by artifacts and inference rather than documentation, for obvious reasons.

Religion does not imply the existence of scripture, nor are all religious texts scripture, though the reverse is obviously true.

A good source for this would be helpful, though I'm not aware of any debate over the point, it's a simple matter of classification and definition of terminology.

Where there is extensive debate, though, is regarding what religious texts are accepted as scripture. It is precisely when everyone agrees that some texts are scripture and others aren't that the discussion gets interesting. How do we decide which is which, who has the authority to say so, etc. etc.

These discussions are concrete not abstract, in the sense that it is specific works in the context of specific religious traditions that are disputed to be scripture or not scripture.

Many religious traditions have denominations defined by different boundaries on scripture (Shi'ite and Sunni), others accept scriptures of different faiths (Islam accepts the Jewish Torah -- Torat in Arabic -- and Christian "gospel" -- Injil in Arabic).

There are even more examples of these things in Indic religions, where a wider diversity of distinct religious traditions have circulated in parallel for a very long time (Vedic Hinduism and Classical Buddhism for more than 2,500 years).

If no one else works through all these things, eventually I'll get around to it. The concept of scripture is, of course, also rather like the basis of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is constrained by authorised scripture (Reliable Sources) in a similar way to religious debates being constrained by commentary on scriptures. There are some important differences. But I think I'll wait until I or other editors provide the sources that explain those differences. :) Alastair Haines (talk) 07:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Original Research, contradictory claims and material not verified in citations used.

My recent edits were reverted with the claim that I had removed "verifiable information". Some of these claims have been tagged since August 4, and when "references" were provided, upon attempted verification they proved not to support the claims made (and in some cases to be in direct conflict with them) and were tagged as "failed verification". Since this time, none of these claims have been removed, no references have been provided and none of these failed verifications have been removed or changed. If you can provide "verifiable" , reliable references for any of these claims, please do so. If not I will remove them.--Editor2020 (talk) 03:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I haven't looked closely at this article for some time. I have seen a range of wierd edits but just been watching to see who might come in and do some tidy up. Scripture is an important concept in comparative religion, and a "hot potatoe" in many different traditions. The reliable sources for the subject are probably in the hundreds of thousands or more, extending backwards at least two and a half millenia.

I'll give the current text a once over. Perhaps I'll drop a few good online bibliographical references and leave the article to incubate again. Now is not the time, but eventually, this article more than any other is one I'd care to see at a very high standard.

It is very easy for Wikipedians to understand the sense of scripture. Just as some sources are not considered reliable by Wiki standards, so different religious groups consider different subsets of religious texts to be reliable. There's absolutely no need for this topic to be controversial, so long as it admits all points of view. There will, of course, be fly-by editors who are likely to push their own perspective--either liberal or conservative--but that is easily managed.

First things first, though, I'll get sources for the main idea, not all religious texts are considered equal by religious communities, on this matter much ink and blood has been spilled. Alastair Haines (talk) 05:47, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge to Religious texts

The other articles with names like "Scripture" have been merged into the article Religious texts. Scriptures goes there, as does Sacred scripture, Sacred Scriptures, Holy Scripture and Holy Scriptures. What is unique about this one form that is different from all the others?--Editor2020 (talk) 01:05, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Simple answer. Is the Anglican 39 Articles of Religion a religious text? Yes! Is it scripture? No.

Once we have this article up and humming, redirects with scripture in the name can redirect here. :)

Religious texts is an absolutely huge topic. There's no way a single article can handle all the strain.

This article is inevitable. It is also likely to grow so large it will need sub-articles to specialise in scriptures of Indic religions (probably also too large for a single article). The Sikh scriptures are neatly compiled in the Guru Granth, distinguishing them from other Sikh religious texts. Alastair Haines (talk) 09:17, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Moby thesaurus

Listed under scripture: Bhagavad-Gita, Bible, Book of Mormon, Douay Bible, Holy Scripture, Holy Writ, King James Version, Koran, Revised Standard Version, Revised Version, Septuagint, Testament, Vulgate, canon, sacred writings, the Book, the Good Book, the Scriptures, the Word.

Obviously we're not going to get definitions of what scripture is not, listed under scripture, for example: apocrypha, psuedepigrapha, creeds, mysticism and so on, normally included under religious texts.

There's an interesting blurry area, since Roman Catholic respect for commentaries by certain Church Fathers, Jewish respect for the Talmud and various Indic traditions of commentary, while not strictly classed as scripture are clearly closer to scripture than other religious texts. Other examples, just from para-Christian traditions include the writings of Ellen White and the Watchtower. Are these scripture? They are certainly religious texts.

All hands on deck! There's a mountain of reliable sources on this subject ... even if they are not scripture. ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 10:16, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a dictionary.

See WP:DICTIONARY especially WP:DICTIONARY#The_differences_between_encyclopedia_and_dictionary_articles--Editor2020 (talk) 23:27, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely.

At this date, this is an extremely poor article. Among the many things it requires is a clear definition of the meaning of its title. The reliable sources for that, and clarifying any potential ambiguity are, of course, dictionaries.

Because Wiki is no dictionary, this article doesn't have to cover all senses of the word scripture, just any particular one that editors choose, normally the main one, but not in this case.

Scripture has normally meant the Christian Bible in modern English. However, the word is used widely in a techncial sense to refer to a specific sub-class of sacred writings in the corpus of relgious writings of any religious tradition. This seems to be the definition much better suited to an encyclopedia, which is not a dictionary.

It is so important to make clear to a reader that this is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary, on this topic, that we need to make the rationale explicit. We cannot simply create our own meaning for a word that has clear documentation in dictionaries, like the Oxford, that demonstrate various meanings from a range of reliable secondary sources.

This article is intended to deal with the concept of "canonical" works within bodies of religious writings. Alternative titles would be Canonicity or, perhaps, Sacred writings. However, scripture (or Scripture) is a more simple and direct term, and avoids the stronger Judaeo-Christian connotations of canonicity, and the vagueness of sacred writings, which could extend to almost any religious text.

The Indic religions are probably most interesting as far as issues related to canonicity/scripture goes, there is considerable diversity in the status given to various texts.

Perhaps the most profound difference both between and within various traditions is the issue of "inspiration". Do canons reflect a recognition of "divine inspiration" in whole or in part? Or are canons a reflection of a "peer review" process? Islam and Mormonism believe in "divine dictation", Judaism and Christianity believe in recognition of inspiration, Indic religions tend towards the "peer review" theory.

I'm assuming we agree on these basics here, but perhaps you are planning to contribute from difference sources towards a different sense of the word scripture. Perhaps we need a disambugation page, because you're interested in contributing towards that different sense of the word scripture. Wiki is not a dictionary, we don't need to disambiguate in every article, nor even provide every sense of words on DAB pages either. The question is, are we wanting to contribute in the same name space, or to different but related ones? Is something obstructing your contributions, is there anything we can do to make it easier for you to summarise sources and expand the documentation of knowledge at Wiki? :) Alastair Haines (talk) 06:59, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Merge into religious texts

Before this article goes too far it needs to be merged into Religious texts which in its lead mentions that it also covers "sacred scripture". Abtract (talk) 14:56, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree.--Editor2020 (talk) 19:43, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, when there actually is some content at this name space, feel free to copy it to religious texts. Whether it is accepted there is a matter for those who watch that article to discuss. I would have thought that article is already rather long, though, so you may find some objections.

However, as the parent article mentions itself, scripture is a natural subset of religious texts that is, by definition, discussed in reliable sources. This namespace is a natural extention of the success of the parent article.

I find the merge suggestion a little odd, since there is currently no content to merge. I'd think what we need is more content. Ultimately, I have little opinion about where the content goes, just that the content is provided. Alastair Haines (talk) 03:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Merge reverted, no case made. Any objections should be directed to my talk page, but I don't expect any. Cheers. Alastair Haines (talk) 14:15, 11 September 2009 (UTC)