Talk:Bible/Archive 7

message: Tightened NPOV of tone a bit, removing language that might be perceived as advocacy and providing a more neutral tone while (hopefully) leaving content essentially the same. Also, if anyone has a source available it would be very helpful to report what percent of bibles sold use gender-neutral language versus what don't. It might be useful for NPOV purposes to report something about why people who use each approach prefer it for balance. The current language speaks exclusively about secular developments and opinions. Might be useful to bring in what the people who actually develop and use Bible translations think and why they use the approaches they use. If people in different denominations have e.g. theological reasons for prefering one or approach to another, these might be relevant explanatory background. Best, --Shirahadasha 05:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inclusive Language 

message: i think the bible belongs in the fiction, or mythological category? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.15.247.228 (talk) 19:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From the Jewish POV it should be in the section on laws and judicial systems.--Mrg3105 03:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is of course not the business of Wikipedia to push either viewpoint(but not illegal). See WP:NPOV and WP:SOAP. Best, --Shirahadasha 17:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  fiction 

message: I felt the need for a new thread in discussion.
It is not logical to call any part of TaNaKh 'Old Testament' because Christianity has replaced it with something which they recognise as their dogmatic guidance. Christianity does not recognise any part fo the TaNaKh as a true testament, and do not obey any part of it, and this needs to be clearly spelled out in the article.--Mrg3105 03:05, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Old Testament 

message: I added this new section - taking in material from a smaller existing section and covering much of the same ground, but more fully. The existing section was called "Criticism of the Bible", which I feel was a bit loaded - it's the text that's being criticised, not the bible itself. It tends to concentrate on the OT rather than the New, because that's the area I know more about - I recognise that this is a weakness, but I don't have the knowledge to write anything about NT criticism. The section adopts a historical approach, and I've tried to set out the major stages in the development of biblical criticism, and some of the major names. For comment. PiCo 05:20, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New section, "Textual Criticism" 

message: I deleted the section headed Advocacy of the Bible - the complete section read as follows: Christian apologists advocate a high view of the Bible and sometimes advocate the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy. It doesn't tell the reader anything worth knowing. PiCo 06:49, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say, right move.  I can't see that section becoming anything other than a POV fork.  Pastordavid 06:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Advocacy of the bible 

message: Moved the following text to Talk and renamed the remainder "Criticism by early western scholars":
:The Jewish tradition, later adopted by Christian scholars, was that the various texts were composed by the authors with whom their traditional titles are associated - the book of Joshua by Joshua, the books of Samuel by Samuel, and so on - acting under divine inspiration. The tradition can be traced to the 5th century AD and the composition of the Jerusalem Talmud. The Talmudic view was questioned from the very beginning, with attention focussing specifically on the Pentateuch, (the first five books of the Christian Old Testament), ascribed by the tradition to Moses. 
The claim that Jews only regarded Moses as the author of the Torah from the 5th century on or this is a peculiarity of the Jerusalem Talmud is unsourced and contradicts numerous statements by Talmudic figures (and biblical figures such as Malachi and Nehemiah) believed to have lived much earlier. Further, since the Jewish tradition is adequately explained in its own section, this section simply creates either redundant text or a POV fork. --Shirahadasha 17:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Chnaged the title again to Early Criticism, as it's not really very descriptive to call it Western. Id like to keep something about the tradition of authorship - this was the background against which textual criticism (the subject of this section) developed, and it's not restricted to the Jewish tradition (Christian textual critics were frequently imprisoned for questioning the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch). PiCo 05:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Talmudic Tradition 

message: "The word "Bible" refers to the canonical collections of sacred writings of Judaism and Christianity." This is often not true. Many "Bible"s contain appocrypha not considered cannocial. It seems as if several definitions have been fused together rather than clearly explored. The word "Bible" is used to mean different things from the Jewish and Christian perspective other than what is stated. What was the criteria for determining the opening definition? Most common world wide usage? Most commonly held opinion on Wiki? On the internet? In scholarship? 
"The Christian Bible..." what book store or library refers to the Christian collection of books as "the Christian Bible" and not simlpy "the Bible" is this simply a pov oversight? 
Further down, In the "Inclusive language" section, What serious scholar advocates rewriting all of scripture to remove all gender refferences from the Bible and more importantly, who cares when it's the extreme minority making it inappropriate for this article? --68.22.19.194 20:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: When a person calls a book the Bible, that person is referring to what he or she considers to be canonical.  Granted, not everyone considers the apocraphal/duetero-canonical/inter-testamental books to be canonical -- That is considered in the article.  Yes, Jews and Christians do mean different things when they talk about the Bible -- thus the distinction between the Hebrew Bible and Christian Bible.  As to how the opening paragraph was formed, it was formed by consensus.  Editors, representing the many different understandings of the word "Bible," agreed on the current wording. As to the "Inclusive Language" section, there the article is only documenting a phenomena related to the Bible.  It is not a question of whether we agree or not -- it is happening.  Wikipedia cares because it is a verifiable, notable, fact. -- Pastordavid 22:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree. The definition listed here should accurately & encyclopedicly refelct what those definitions are. --68.22.19.194 18:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Hello, in articles on religion, Wikipedia generally regards different religious groups as representing different subjects, each of value in its own right, rather than merely different opinions on a single subject. Thus, rather than thinking of "the Bible" as being one subject with majority and minority views, Wikipedia's approach has sections on each major group's version of the Bible treating them as subjects of their own. This is why there are separate sections on the (Jewish) Hebrew Bible and the (Christian) Old Testament. Best, --Shirahadasha 01:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I also think separating and commenting on the varying points of view is encyclopedic and appropriate here. --68.22.19.194 15:35, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I also added the concept that to the various Christians the word Bible may include approcrypha in the opening definition, as per the discussion above, the majority portion of Christians use such Bibles. If the word appocrypha is not appropriate, please suggest the appropriate wording for books considered canocial by some and not by other in Christianity. Thank you. --68.22.19.194 15:48, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the "Christian" Old Testament refference from the Hebrew definition and placed it inside the Christian definition. --69.244.153.46 22:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  problems I see with this article 

message: I've been asked to rstore this para (previously the final para) from the lead, which I deleted as too trivial:
:The word Bible is sometimes used to denote a comprehensive collection on an number of topics, such as the Home Builder's Bible. In American vernacular the word Bible is commonly used as a descriptive word for other religous sacred books, such as referring to the Quaran as the Muslim Bible.
The reason given in the request for a restore was that it's normal to include popular useages in any Wiki article. I'm in two minds. The first sentence of the para is already in the lead - it mentions the use of the word Bible to mean any authoritative text. The second is more of a problem. I think calling the Quran a Bible is likely to be fairly offensive to Muslims (imagine the erverse happening on an Islamic website). Anyway, I'd like some help making the decision. Thanks. PiCo 03:43, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello at the very least there needs to be a link to the disambig page. Perhaps to suit all people a sentance such as, "this article pertains to the word Bible as used by Jewish and Christian religions. For other uses see: (Bible disambig page link)"  Hope this suggestion helps. --68.22.19.194 17:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted para from the lead 

message: vouta —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.84.54.149 (talk) 11:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  how many heart words mentioned in the HolyBible 

message: Hello. I like to help on this page from time to time. I don't care for signing in or getting extremely invoved in heated debates. Suddenly I am locked from editing this page. Could that be changed? Thank you. --68.22.19.194 17:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsigned request  

message: What happened to our definition? Finally There were separated, appropriate, clear definitions for the word Bible, chronologically listed (as per the article) and then an edit war reverts it to a convoluted definition that mixes definitions rather than separate for clarification.. What was wrong with the definition we've had for the past week that we had to revert? --69.244.153.46 01:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro reversions to a solid definition

message: I noticed that Afaprof01 changed two instances of "a historical" to "an historical".  Afaprof01's comment: ("an" historical because the /h/ is nearly always dropped. But not "an history.")  As a native English speaker, I had trouble following this reasoning.  One would say "a historical" in natural speech, so why would it not be written this way?  Can anyone provide an authoritative link to substantiate this change? --Strangerer 22:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A/an historical 

message: I removed it from the list of Eastern Orthodox Apocrypha.  I know of no church that uses it, and my NRSV, which gives a pretty detailed rundown of such things, lists no church that uses it, but simply says it appears in an appendix to the LXX.  IF anyone can actually show a church using it, add it back.  Carlo 04:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  4 Maccabbees 

message: One of the major English commentaries is not listed at the bottom under commentaries. Kretzmann's Popular Commentary is used by thousands of Christians world-wide. It has been in use since the '20's and is still popular today amoung moderate to conservative Lutherans. The online link is http://www.kretzmannproject.org . Could someone who has the cred & status to add it to the list please add it? 192.160.64.49 21:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Commentaries 

message: Okay, assuming that the bible really was written by God himself, how exactly did humans obtain the Bbble? Did God's arm extend down from the sky and hand the bible to someone? Did it just start appearing in libraries and hotel room drawers one day? Humor aside, this is a serious question. Can anyone provide an explanation to exactly how the Bible came to be in human hands? If this was addressed somewhere in the article, then please forgive me; it's a very long article, and I didn't want to scan it for the answer. However, if this issue is not addressed in the article, then it should be. EvaXephon 10:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure the question is addressed somewhere in Wikipedia, but offhand I can't say where. Anyway, the short answer is that there's no single answer. To begin with the Torah (the first five books of the Christian Old Testament, from Genesis to Deuteronomy), the traditional Jewish view was that these were written by Moses shortly before his death. Moses had witnessed much of what is in the Torah (from Exodus to Deuteronomy), and God revealed to him what's written in Genesis (the only book of the five in which Moses is not a major actor). As for the books making up the rest of the Old Testament, the traditional view was that they were largely written by the people whose names are attached to them - Joshua by Joshua, Samuel by Samuel, etc etc - acting under God's inspiration. For the Christian bible the traditional view was that the four Gospels - Matthew, Mark, etc, - were based on eyewitness accounts, while the various letters were ascribed to the various authors whose names are attached to them. All the authors were believed to have been guided by divine inspiration, but not to have taken direct revelation from God (except in the case of the final book) - this is somewhat different from the case of the many of the books of the Hebrew bible, which were traditionally believed to represent direct revelation. So to sum up, the traditional view is not that God wrote the bible, but that it came to man through a mix of revelation and inspiration, involving a variety of human (but divinely guided) authors. PiCo 05:10, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How did God give the bible to humans?