Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bible/Archive 1

message: Just dropped by to let you know that Category:Bible stories exists. CheeseDreams 01:23, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just dropped by 

message: It looks like the project is gathering interest: I was pointed here to ask about style and resources.
I'm a Christian willing to contribute to Bible-related articles and express the Christian POV while keeping the overall neutral point of view. I hope I can contribute something useful. My motivation, is to facilitate interest in the Bible and encourage discovery. I'm not a theological academic but I'm a computer science graduate with a thirst for knowledge. — Peter Hitchmough 03:20, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hello and an offer of help 

message: The poll started out of controversy on New Testament and Talk:New Testament after some edit-skirmishes to remove 'Christian' right before 'Bible' in the first sentence of the article on New Testament. The poll has been open for over a week. The outcome of the poll is to favor 'Christian Bible' over all other options when referring to the Holy Scriptures of Christianity. Gebruiker:Dedalus 07:58, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poll on [[Talk:Bible]] closed 

message: Just a suggestion. Perhaps there should be a paragraph on the order of the Books.  The 1611 KJAV and its successors have the Apocrypha in a separate section (in obedience to Ezra),  which the 1609 Douay integrates these books.  --ClemMcGann 10:39, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order of Books 

message: Hi, this list was deposited on Wikiproject:Countering Systemic Bias some time ago. I thought that it was probably of more relevance here were there are a number of editors here working on biblical scholarship. Happy editing --nixie 01:29, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of suggested edits to book of the Bible

message: Excellent idea for a project, and if I was a scripture scholar, I would devote myself to the cause. However, I do want to offer my services as a consultant should there be any issues of a Roman Catholic nature. Feel free to check my professional qualifications on my user page. I hope I can be of some help. Essjay  (talk) 07:40, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)
I do have a research doctorate in Biblical studies, and although I've not got too much time, I'm happy to comment where I can. --Doc (?) 01:00, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Consultant

message: Raising this in response to a recent VfD several recent VfDs.
(In the event this topic gets its own talk page, can the creator please move my comments there.)
Regardless of the POV/NPOV merit/lack therof of a particular article, the number of articles of a certain type can be indicative of systemic bias.  If, for instance, there were seventy Jazz articles and six Folk, a casual reader would could draw incorect conclusions about the relative impact of the genres. This effect is amplified if sixty six of the Jazz articles are of minor notabilty. brenneman(t)(c) 00:41, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles For Individual Verses 

message: I'm new to the workings of Wikipedia and its sister projects and was wondering what mechanisms are available, or could be created, to mark citations as links to Wikisource or even allow inline references. I wouldn't have expected the arguments I've seen over Biblical pages concerning how much should be quoted. That sort of debate is at my level, nowhere close to scholarly or anything. The solution linking to Wikisource I think is pretty simple, but the integration between the projects seems to be much too loose in general, and what's available now is nowhere near as extensive as the BibleGateway, my favorite source. I was also so disappointed at the inconsistent formatting on Wikiquotes that I gave up editing, thinking that it would just fall into disrepair once again.
There should be a systematic effort at making all the books of any version available from within the Wikipedia syntax. First of all this requires uploading the relevant texts. Has anybody contacted BibleGateway concerning their active or passive involvement? I would guess they'd be quite receptive from the robots.txt file, not to mention the Christian attitude toward the proliferation of the Bible in general. It might be best to start with English versions for now because the different language versions of Wikipedia seem to be quite independent, although in reality this approach could have ramifications to not only other languages but other texts. Because of translations, there's no such thing as a text with a single version.
What I'm ultimately thinking about is a sort of link, say  or  or . These would appear as the standard citations and open to dynamic pages at Wikisource with the requested quote(s), relevant footnotes etc. in the user's default version, or with the option to override the version if the precise wording is important. There would be a global default, probably KJV for most, although books outside the cannon would require an alternate. Regardless there would be a pull-down menu (or more likely just links) for the same text in different versions, or even for comparisons between versions and such. I'm not really sure how mirror sites would handle this, but I'm guessing it could be simplified or flattened fairly easily.
This syntax could be used not only in the Wikipedia itself but in Wikiquotes and even Wikisource when the work is a selection, such as readings.
It would also be quite convenient to allow inline quotations. They would be edited as citations but cache in mirrors with the actual quotation. The main reason I have for this is achieving conformity. People seem to copy and paste from just about anywhere on the web, so not only is the punctuation or capitalization suspect, but if the version is not cited then it's time-consuming to add that tiny bit of information. Formatting in Wikiquotes especially would be much easier, and there would only be one source for errors.
One other potential advantage is that the page could change according to the user's preferences. When I say preferences I don't necessarily mean cookies, although that's a clear option. Additionally or alternately there may be a page default and links to the same page using a different version, especially the more common versions. If this turns out to be a bad idea, it's easy enough to set the default version universally.
What's the feasibility of all of this? Are any approaches more practical, aside from the current labor-intensive? I'd like to start a bit of brainstorming. Thereafter, who would be involved in implementation? What sort of issues need to be worked out, and how? What's the next step?
unsigned
R.e. citations - you can use :Wikisource:page-on-wikisource, there is also a nice template that does a similar thing as well. ~~~~ 08:14, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations 

message: Can you guys take a look at Biblical scientific foreknowledge and try to make that article NPOV with regard to it expressing the theological opinions of those other than just fundamentalists as it stands now.  Thankyou. Dunc|☺ 10:57, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Biblical scientific foreknowledge]] 

message: Anyone reading this?
There are a number of Bible passage articles which have recently gone through VfD - all were in dreadful states and in need of cleanup (or simply deleting). I saved two John 15 and recently Leviticus 18 by cleaning up. John 17 is going through right -is is only text with no article and needs killed or actually written. This is a terrible way to clean-up Bible articles - yet folk will keep finding plenty of POV rubbish, rants, and messes to nominate. 
I'm wondering whether we need to create a templete/category specifically for 'Bible related articles in need of attention' - so that those with knowledge can go to one place and work on them. Any thoughts? Also IMO articles that are just Biblical text should be 'shot on sight' without VfD as 'contentless' --Doc (?) 21:17, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *I agree with both points. A template/category (maybe a stub-type as well?) should most definately be created for articles in need of attention. Articles that contain only text - yeah, kill it. If a person wants Bible text, they can always use one of the many free online bibles. And aren't these already on wikisource anyway? --Blu Aardvark | (talk) | (contribs) 02:25, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *Regarding stubs, there does exist a stub for articles relating to the Old Testament , but none relating to the new. I propose the creation of  for New Testament verses, and  as a redirect to . Or whatever works best and is easier to remember. Once a consensus is reached, someone will need to list the proposal on WP:WSS/P. --Blu Aardvark | (talk) | (contribs) 02:41, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bible articles clean-up and Vfd 

message: The article on Genesis 1 needs a rewrite. up+land 09:45, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Genesis 1

message: If you are familiar with this debate - you will be groaning now. This article survived a messy VfD with a 'keep no consensus' - partly due to socks, User:-Ril-'s antics, and IMO voters who knew nothing about this subject. A debate in the wake of it agreed on a redirect. But the creator and her supporters are agressively preventing any alteration and reverting any attempts at clean-up. I'm not willing to go one-on-one with this, but it, and links to it inserted into other articles are really messing up our coverage of the gospels. Anyone willing to help out, please drop me a note --Doc (?) 09:54, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Authentic Matthew]] help wanted