Talk:Jacob wrestling with the angel

message: * This is a really fascinating and ambiguous biblical passage.  Shouldn't there be an "interpretations" section? --71.231.140.55 (talk) 07:53, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: "Interpretations" section?

message: So if I get drunk at a frat party, or I get delerious from walking for days on end without food and water in the desert and start to hallucinate, and I then wrestle with some guy, and ask for his blessing, I too can wrestle with god or an angel?  
Citations needed of eyewitness first person testimony to prove this guy actually wrestled with god or an angel, or I move for deletion as unsubstantiated rubbish, from a single source.  17:14, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether it is literally something that happened (no, probably not) or not is not really relevant; its importance as a cultural touchstone (for instance, notice all the paintings based on the tale) is not really in dispute and like many parts of the Bible you'll find reference to it in tons of arts. 108.49.210.238 (talk) 18:56, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Citations Needed

message: After reading the Passage in English, and Spanish, its clear for me that Jacob fought against God itself or at least an instance of him. The Idea of an Angel its and interpretation, and in the text its clear (from someone without religious blinders) that Jacob was wrestling with the God of Israel.200.48.214.19 (talk) 16:19, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrestling with an angel? Sure, but is not a Angel. 

message: Wrestling with an angel is a secondary interpretation and should not appear in the title. The title should be either 'wrestling with God' or 'Jacob's wrestling match'. The current title is far too inaccessible to the layman who is unfamiliar with the Bible. It is also  assertive of a point of view which is less accepted among scholars.Grathmy (talk) 20:16, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the idea of Jacob's wrestling match, in that it preserves neutrality (see my comment in the preceding move discussion). It also has significant use in secondary sources: 1600 results in Google Books, such as this commentary. StAnselm (talk) 21:32, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for title change to 'wrestling with God' 

message: I would like to know why my edits are constantly being reverted. In the Genesis Jacob wrestles with a being who can be considered God. This is the main interpretation and the most parsimonious one. My changes do not divert from mainstream opinion. Additionally a title change should be made to wrestling with God.Grathmy (talk) 21:00, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: If you would like to change the title, it is best to follow the procedure at Wikipedia:Requested moves. If you look further up this talk page, there was a discussion about the article title a while ago. Your edits were reverted because you need to discuss things here and gain consensus. In the case of the lead sentence, the usual practice on wikipedia is to follow the article title, so changing the lead like that without discussing the title is inappropriate. StAnselm (talk) 21:27, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Constant reversion of edits 

message: "Jacob wrestles God" is an extremely common interpretation of this story. I don't understand why it's so downplayed. The article title is also simply bad, since it immediately picks a side. The previous RM was handled poorly because some users claimed that this was established in a previous RM/consensus, when that RM was only about whether to capitalize "angel"... Needs a tag for now. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 12:28, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I completely agree with you. I just moved the title to a neutral version. Truth be toad (talk) 05:37, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Nope, my version was reverted so i've lodged a 'requested move' directly below. Truth be toad (talk) 10:39, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Promotes one view 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I've posted to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Muslim_view_of_Jacob_wrestling_with_the_angel. Happy for comments there. Please keep discussion in one place. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:31, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Muslim view 

message: The previous rename effort failed, in part, because people didn't like the proposed alternative; but the current one is clearly unusable.  It clearly fails the naming policy, since sources disagree on what Jacob wrestled with; even if you accept that it's the WP:COMMONNAME (which I do not, since the paintings and other adaptations are not the topic of this article), WP:COMMONNAME states that '"ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. Neutrality is also considered; our policy on neutral titles, and what neutrality in titles is, follows in the next section."  The current title is clearly not neutral; the article describes a serious and ongoing debate about the meaning, which means we must rename it even if this is the common name for the story.  I would also suggest that, when we do choose a name and run an RFC, that we broadcast it more widely; most of the previous ones had comparatively low participation.  I don't see any way to satisfy WP:NPOV, at the very least, without changing it, and the previous rename attempt (over six months ago) was clearly flawed because most of the !votes cited WP:COMMONNAME as if it allowed us to ignore WP:NPOV in titles, when it explicitly says it does not. --Aquillion (talk) 03:43, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: A new one would be the fourth in a few years, and probably get even lower participation, and I think inevitably the same result. There is no better name, whatever the issues, but if you want to waste people's time (again), then you must. The NPOV issue is best addressed by explaining the issue in the lead, as the article does. Johnbod (talk) 03:50, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I mean, when you exclude Wikipedia and Wikipedia mirrors (as the naming guidelines suggest), "Jacob Wrestling with the Angel" doesn't have that many more hits than "Jacob Wrestles with God", and the latter one clearly has more relevant hits (most of the ones for the first one refer to the name of various works of art based on the story, while the latter one's hits are virtually all to biblical analysis directly talking about the story in question.)  Google hits aren't the ultimate arbitrator of a common name; the key thing is "what term to people use when specifically talking about this topic", and I think "Jacob Wrestles with God" clearly wins in that respect - it is, today, the more common term people use when discussing the story itself (so if we must chose between those two flawed titles, I'll probably push for a rename to that one.)  The fact that several famous painters (many taking a lead from each other) have used an alternative title for the story doesn't change that, since we're interested in what term people use when talking about the story and not about how people refer to those paintings.  But both names have the same problem, yes.  And I think we can get more participation by cross-posting to various religious messageboards and groups, which doesn't seem to have been done previously. I was hoping I could convince you, specifically, to support a new title, since I noticed your arguments above relied on a misreading of WP:COMMONNAME - obviously, the article text can't correct an issue in the title, which is used for all incoming links with no context.  That's why WP:TITLE specifically forbids non-neutral titles like this one.  But either way, I don't intend to just dive straight into an RFC just yet - we need some discussion so we can broadly reach an agreement on the flaws of the current name, what the various alternatives might be, and which one would be ideal.  I mean, how else do you intend to resolve the WP:NPOV issue?  You can't work around a non-neutral title. --Aquillion (talk) 04:05, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

text: Yes, but Johnbod does have a point in that we actually do need a name that people can agree on (one of the problems with previous rename attempts.)  I'm not particularly enthused to try and push for a rename to "Jacob Wrestles with God", but the deeper I dig the more sure I am that it would at least be better than the current (if you page through the Google results - causing it to eliminate duplicates, which are a big problem here due to mirrors of various bible and art-history sites - the two come out to nearly the same number of unique hits, and as I said above the first one's hits are clearly more relevant to the topic - specifically, "Jacob Wrestles with God" is clearly and repeatedly used as the title for the story in question, over and over, in those hits; whereas "Jacob Wrestling with the Angel" is only occasionally used as a title for it in its hits.  If we must go with WP:COMMONNAME and ignore the NPOV issue of picking a side, the "Jacob Wrestles with God" is clearly more commonly used to refer to the biblical story. It also has the advantage of being slightly more concise. --Aquillion (talk) 04:23, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would support either "Jacob Wrestles with God" or "Jacob Wrestling with God." Truth be toad (talk) 04:55, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

text: My reading based on the lead and structure is that the page is primarily about the Bible story, with a section devoted to artistic representations; but it occurs to me that one solution might be to fork it into one page about the bible story, and a second page about the artistic motif (of which there is clearly a lot more to say.) This would require elaborating on both, but I don't mind doing that if it would help resolve the issue. --Aquillion (talk) 04:23, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see it would really. Johnbod (talk) 13:32, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

text: "Jacob's close encounter of the third kind"  —PaleoNeonate - 17:45, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coming up with a new name. 

message: Ridiculous story, possibly, but how is it from the "Christian Bible" (generally used to mean the New Testament collection)?  Is the source appropriate and the sentence reflecting it?  I cannot access the source, only its table of contents.  If it is a notable enough claim, we could probably also find another reference by a respected scholar who would clarify or criticize it.  If it is a quote, we should probably quote it directly...  —PaleoNeonate - 09:33, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course another question is if this point of view reflects that of most Muslims (especially if it's the only thing the article says on the subject per WP:WEIGHT).  Thanks, —PaleoNeonate - 09:36, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: We're discussing the reliability of the source this comes from at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Muslim_view_of_Jacob_wrestling_with_the_angel. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:31, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  "as one of the ridiculous stories in the Christian Bible" 

message: My addition of Ibn Kathir's story of Yaqub to the Muslim interpretation was rejected as "Removed inconsequential Ibn Kathir view. Cite shows he is simply reproducing the biblical account." First, the fact that biblical stories were incorporated into the Muslim tradition was not inconsequential, and Ibn Kathir's stories of the prophets are well-known. The cite shows that there is a Muslim interpretation to this. Biblical stories are also in the Koran. Does that mean parts of the Koran are not Muslim? Second, he does not simply reproduce the biblical account. The Hebrew refers to Jacob's encounter with an "ish", a man. In Ibn Kathir's account: "When the dawn of the second day came one of the angels appeared in the shape of a man. Jacob began to wrestle with him. They were neck and neck until the angel injured his thigh and Jacob became lame." StarryGrandma (talk) 16:47, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think Ibn Kathir's view is worthy of inclusion because he has clearly put very little effort or thought into assessing the wrestling incident. He has lazily lifted the biblical account, as is shown by his repeated inclusion of "The People of the Book said/claim" throughout the cite. His view should at least be a little more focused and thoughtful to warrant inclusion. Truth be toad (talk) 05:01, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

text: This seems rather selective -- as long as we reference Gary Greenberg's view that this references a wrestling match between Osiris and Set I see no reason to not also briefly reference Ibn Kathir. Ibn Kathir apparently gives the entire story in great detail, including interpretations such as "one of the angels appeared in the shape of a man". Sure, this is a very late commentary  (14th century), but elsewhere in the article we do not shy away from treating medieval or even modern interpretation, so I don't see why Ibn Kathir should be treated differently. --dab (𒁳) 10:08, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Comparing Greenberg's original analysis to Ibn Kathir's copy and paste job is completely inappropriate. I made it very clear above why Ibn Kathir's "view" doesn't warrant inclusion: if you read the entire source, it is obvious it is not his view, commentary or interpretation whatsoever; he has simply copy and pasted the event from the Bible. To include his "view" under Interpretations is to make a mockery of the word 'Interpretation'. --Truth be toad (talk) 23:11, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

text: It seems strange to include both the Jewish and Christian interpretations but remove the Muslim interpretation. Jacob is also a prophet in Islamic tradition; see Jacob in Islam. I am putting the Ibn Kathir reference back. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:21, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: As i have shown above, Ibn Kathir offers no Muslim interpretation: copy and pasting from the Bible is not offering one's interpretation. --Truth be toad (talk) 23:11, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

text: I think that's fine, thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 20:46, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed the "Muslim interpretation", per the reasons offered above. --Truth be toad (talk) 23:11, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: , three of us (myself, , and ) think the material should be in the article. You are the only one who disagrees. I notice that you put your objection ahead of PaleoNeonate's agreement, making it appear that he agreed with you instead. Your removal of the material is against consensus. StarryGrandma (talk) 00:28, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  Before we can talk about consensus, youse must prove that Ibn Kathir's "interpretation" is more than just his copy and pasting of the Bible story — which the source clearly shows it is. If youse cannot prove this then consensus is simply smoke and mirrors for adding content that has no right to be included. Anyway, at best, Ibn Kathir's "interpretation" does not warrant inclusion under its own sub-heading but would belong under 'Other views'. --Truth be toad (talk) 00:48, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

text: I have made it very clear that i will accept Ibn Kathir's "interpretation" if any one of youse can prove that he is doing more than quoting the Bible story word for word. No one has responded to this challenge so far; therefore, Ibn Kathir's non-interpretation cannot be placed under 'Interpretation' — let alone having pride of place under its own 'Muslim interpretation' section. (A scholar quoting a primary source is not interpretation of any sort.) Until you can answer my simple request please stop using the smoke and mirrors of consensus. --Truth be toad (talk) 04:48, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: No one here is finding the "deal" you are offering interesting or relevant to how WP works. And consensus is actually how this place works. Please do review WP:CONSENSUS. It is not the same as "every person needs to agree". Jytdog (talk) 06:40, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe consensus is being used here for mean-spirited and evasive purposes. --Truth be toad (talk) 06:51, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

text: This is fixable.  See the article. Jytdog (talk) 14:26, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Job well done! Thankyou. --Truth be toad (talk) 06:58, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ibn Kathir and the Muslim interpretation 

message: Could this article not simply be shortened to the jewish accunt on this verse? Since judaism hold, elohim refers here to an angel (acutally elohim is in jewish thought not equal to God, but means "force" also refering to kings, angels, God(s) and so on)--VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 19:34, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dissolving the issue with the title 

message: Not particularly christian and it is not clear to me if Guiley is a credible or a pusher of woo......
According to popular author Rosemary Ellen Guiley, "This dramatic scene has spurred much commentary from Judaic, Catholic, and Protestant theologians, biblical scholars, and literary critics. Does Jacob wrestle with God or with an angel?...There is no definitive answer, but the story has been rationalized, romanticized, treated as myth, and treated symbolically."
-- Jytdog (talk) 16:45, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: So why did you remove her view? If you removed it because it doesn't belong under 'Christian interpretations' then it can be easily moved to 'Other views'. If you removed it because the author is not credible then please define what makes someone credible in order to have their views added; i don't see anything controversial in her statement. --Truth be toad (talk) 04:31, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: He removed it because it isn't significant what she thinks, although in fact her comment is perfectly conventional. Johnbod (talk) 04:42, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Please, if you don't mind, i'de like to hear it from the horse's mouth. --Truth be toad (talk) 05:40, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rosemary Ellen Guiley