Category talk:Deuterocanonical books

Proposed category structure for Deuterocanonical books

With respect to the Deuterocanonical books there are two alternative points of view: either they belong to the Old Testament, or they belong to the Old Testament Apocrypha. The category structure that represents the two alternative views best is:

• Old Testament - Hebrew Bible
• Old Testament - Deuterocanonical books (one view)
• Old Testament apocrypha - Deuterocanonical books (other view)
• Old Testament apocrypha - Old Testament pseudepigraphica

In either view, Old Testament apocrypha is not part of the Old Testament (views merely diverge with respect to what it should contain). Marcocapelle (talk) 06:22, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Second attempt

Let me put it differently.

1st view (the Protestant view if you wish):

• Old Testament equals Hebrew Bible
• Old Testament apocrypha equals Deuterocanonical books + Pseudepigraphica + a few others

2nd view (the Catholic view if you wish):

• Old Testament equals Hebrew Bible + Deuterocanonical books
• Old Testament apocrypha equals Pseudepigraphica + a few others

If we are aligned on the above, the below follows by mere logic.

Both views have in common:

• Hebrew Bible is contained in Old Testament
• Pseudepigraphica and a few others are contained in apocrypha
• Old Testament and Old Testament apocrypha exclude each other (and consequently, are sibling categories, at most)

The views have one difference:

• Deuterocanonical books are contained in either Old Testament or contained in Old Testament apocrypha

Therefore it should be a child category of both Old Testament and of Old Testament apocrypha

Hope this explains it better. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:05, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, I understand your points now. Near the end of the 2007 discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_June_29#Tanakh, I proposed a hierarchy in a graphic which placed "OT Apocrypha" under "OT", and I then implemented that. However, I note now that only user:Johnbod commented on the graphic/hierarchy as a whole, and the "apocrypha" part was peripheral to that discussion. Although I had been relying on that 2007 CFD as establishing consensus, I now accept that it did not specifically do so for the apocrypha/ deuterocanon hierarchy.

It still strikes me as counter-intuitive to remove Category:Old Testament apocrypha from Category:Old Testament, but if we have Category:Deuterocanonical books within the latter, then it achieves the structure that is necessary.

The difficulty is that your summary of views omits the Eastern Orthodox views, which count varying members of the "few others" as deuterocanonical. The widest view of these are currently in Category:Anagignoskomena, which is being discussed at CFD November 12. It looks unlikely to be merged, in which case we should probably modify your conclusion: both the deuterocanon and anagignoskomena should be child categories of both Old Testament and of Old Testament apocrypha.

I suggest we wait for the outcome of that CFD before changing the hierarchy, but I withdraw my objection to your proposal.

Template:Hebrew Bible category should be revised accordingly.

I would like also to revise Template:OT category and reinstate it on all the "OT" category pages (where I think you have removed it). – Fayenatic London 23:16, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Marcocapelle (talk) 18:27, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

This one is confusing. As the intended purpose is to apparently deal specifically with the deuterocanonical books, I might prefer scrapping this particular category completely, or maybe add text to the category itself clearly indicating that it is limited to those works included in the Catholic Bible but not the Protestant Bible. For all other canonical variations, I might favor more specific categories like for instance "books of the Old Testament of the Syriac Orthodox Church" or similarly phrased categories, or variant phrasing for any contested NT works. John Carter (talk) 19:57, 2 December 2017 (UTC)