Talk:Ezekiel 1

John Gill is Not a Reliable Source

I'm concerned about the copy-pasting of material directly from John Gill into the Wikipedia page. He doesn't constitute a reliable source in Wikipedia's sense of the term. For information on reliable sources, see WP:RS. There is no evidence to suggest that mainstream biblical scholars today regard John Gill as a reliable source. In terms of WP:RS AGE, John Gill published his Exposition in the mid-1700's, a century before modern biblical studies began to emerge (with Gesenius, Wellhausen, etc.). Material from John Gill should not be simply copy-pasted into any Wikipedia article. Alephb (talk) 21:36, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Respectfully disagree with the personal opinion that John Gill doesn't constitute a reliable source. The works are still widely used and republished as late as 2012. The concern about Gill's own opinion is reasonable, and care should be taken to include any of his theological views into the article. However, his compilation of ancient manuscripts and expositions for particular subjects is still valuable to the modern scholars. This will be the focus of using this source in the articles. JohnThorne (talk) 22:26, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Do you know of any mainstream scholars who treat John Gill's work as a reliable source. Not to be too blunt, but can you name two of them? Alephb (talk) 22:28, 23 February 2017 (UTC) PS: It doesn't make much of a difference, in terms of Wikipedia's guidelines, about whether the book is still for sale on Amazon.com. The fact that a book is still in print does not make it reliable in terms of Wikipedia's guidelines. What Wikipedia's guidelines care about is this: do mainstream scholars in the field view it as reliable. That's the real question here. And as far as I can tell, mainstream scholars do not treat John Gill as a reliable source. Alephb (talk) 22:39, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Please refer to the review section in the link I provided to show how many readers still regard John Gill's work as valuable. Wikipedia articles are meant for general users, so the sources should be the ones many people accepted, not limited by the opinions of "scholars". Feel free to contribute insightful information to improve the articles. JohnThorne (talk) 22:40, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

You seem to be misunderstanding the WP:RS policy. Have you clicked on the link and read it yet? The sources on Wikipedia are absolutely limited by the opinions of scholars. Wikipedia's policy is not to simply include sources that are popular with general readers. It is Wikipedia policy that articles are supposed to be based on scholarly views as described in WP:RELIABLE. You can click on either link; they both lead to the same policy page.Alephb (talk) 22:47, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out. Here is the part that I use as a guidance: "Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. However, some scholarly material may be outdated, in competition with alternative theories, or controversial within the relevant field. Try to cite present scholarly consensus when available, recognizing that this is often absent. Reliable non-academic sources may also be used in articles about scholarly issues, particularly material from high-quality mainstream publications. Deciding which sources are appropriate depends on context. Material should be attributed in-text where sources disagree." Therefore, it is open for any users to add materials, showing the alternative theories, bringing the article into a good balance of opinions. I appreciate your inputs and will strive to put the best information in the articles, not just to condone one particular ideas or opinions. Hope to see you contributions in the article soon. Peace. JohnThorne (talk) 23:38, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

As long as those alternate opinions can be supported with citations to reliable sources, multiple opinions are welcome on Wikipedia. Peace.Alephb (talk) 23:50, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

References

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown is not a Reliable Source

I'm concerned about the copy-pasting of material from the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary into the text of this Wikipedia article. Their commentary is not a reliable source in Wikipedia's sense of the term. For more information on reliable sources, see WP:RS. There is no evidence to suggest that mainstream biblical scholars today regard J-F-B as a reliable source. In terms of WP:RS AGE, it is a source of some concern that the commentary dates to the 1870's. While modern biblical scholarship was indeed beginning to emerge in the nineteenth-century (with Gesenius, Wellhausen, etc), J-F-B hold to views which are today the sorts of views addressed in WP:FRINGE. For example, the J-F-B commentary holds to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, a view which is abandoned in mainstream biblical studies today. Material from J-F-B should not be copy-pasted into a Wikipedia article because it does not meet Wikipedia reliability standards. Alephb (talk) 21:55, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

The concern for older sources is reasonable and caution should be taken to avoid citing out-of-date opinions in the articles. Nonetheless, the commentary is a great source to get some information regarding ancient literatures related to the subject. The work is still republished in 2011. JohnThorne (talk) 22:42, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

See comments above on John Gill -- the same issues apply. Alephb (talk) 23:29, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

The Pulpit Commentary is not a Reliable Source

I'm concerned about the copy-pasting of material from the Pulpit Commentary into the text of this Wikipedia article. The Pulpit Commentary is not a reliable source in Wikipedia's sense of the term. For more information on reliable sources, see WP:RS. There is no evidence to suggest that mainstream biblical scholars regard the Pulpit Commentary as a reliable source. In terms of WP:RS AGE, it is a source of some concern that the commentaries date to the nineteenth-century, when biblical studies was in its infancy. Although there were nineteenth-century scholars like Wellhausen and Gesenius who are still held in high repute today, the Pulpit Commentary resisted those scholars, and holds views that are now WP:FRINGE. For example, the Pulpit Commentary argues that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, a view which has been abandoned by mainstream scholars. Material from the Pulpit Commentary should not be copy-pasted into a Wikipedia article because it does not meet Wikipedia reliability standards. Alephb (talk) 22:27, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

The concern needs to be taken seriously for any outdated opinions from the authors' singular perpective. However, it is still a valuable source to compile respectable commentaries from earlier period. The republication in 2014 shows an interest to this work. JohnThorne (talk) 22:50, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

See comments above on John Gill. The same issues apply, so no need to have three parallel discussions of the exact same arguments. Alephb (talk) 23:30, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Hebrew (and Arabic) *wa*

""Now"; literally, "and". The use of the conjunction indicates here, as in Jonah 1:1, that the narrative that follows links itself on to something that has gone before." No it doesn't. It's just the way Hebrew and Arabic start sentences. PiCo (talk) 22:39, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Yeah. I don't know if it's clear to you, but that entire paragraph is copy-pasted from Jamieson-Fausset-Brown's commentary. It's a fundamentally unreliable work. I was in the process of stripping those kinds of things out of the Ezekiel 1 article, but then I paused to discuss some disagreements with User:JohnThorne over what constitutes a reliable source. Alephb (talk) 22:44, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

@PiCo:: The quote actually continues with "Here the sequence is subjective. We may think of Ezekiel as retracing the years of his life till he comes to the thirtieth. Then, as it were, he pulls himself up. That must be the starting point of what he has to say. Our English use of "now" is nearly equivalent to this." It is certainly not uniform for all Hebrew Bible books to start with *wa*, thus the more interesting for people to know. Thank you for the input. JohnThorne (talk) 23:33, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

I'd suggest avoiding works like this and going to the Bibliography section of the article Book of Ezekiel to find reliable sources.PiCo (talk) 04:55, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Separate page for a single Bible chapter?

Why on earth is there a separate Wikipedia entry for a single Bible chapter? Are we doing this for all 1,188 other chapters as well? Gonna be a lot of fun ;) Drabkikker (talk) 22:52, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

My thought exactly. PiCo (talk) 04:56, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't know about every chapter, but chapter articles similar in format and content to this one already exist for every chapter in Isaiah, every chapter of Lamentations, etc. There's a template installed that allows navigating through the Isaiah articles, which you can see for example, here: Isaiah 4. Ditto for Lamentations chapters: Lamentations 3. Alephb (talk) 08:47, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

The chapter article for Isaiah 4 isn't very encouraging, but if people want to spend their time writing these things I won't try to stop them.PiCo (talk) 09:19, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

A Question About Direct Quotes

Over the last day, material has been added with footnotes to several sources: the Nelson Study Bible, Scofield, and the New Oxford Annotated Bible. I own the Oxford one, so I checked the references to it, and I've found that this article contains direct quotes from the New Oxford Annotated Bible without any clear indication that they are quotes. For example, take the sentence, <<"The fifth day of the fourth month" would be July 31, 593 BC>>. Except for changing the BCE in the source to BC in the Wikipedia article, this is lifted word-for-word from the Oxford Bible, but without quotation marks around the words quoted. I know it's a small quotation, but given the way other sources have previously been copied word-for-word directly into the text, I wonder how much this has been done with the other sources in the article. So my question for User:JohnThorne is this: of the other sources cited, how much material has been lifted word-for-word, and how much of it is paraphrase? Alephb (talk) 09:16, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

This is not good as Diannaa and Crow have warned him about this before. Doug Weller talk 10:42, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Mind if I fix your User page links to User:Diannaa and User:Crow? I'm not sure what the Wikipedia norms are regarding minor edits to other people's talk comments? Alephb (talk) 11:59, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I've looked also at the first reference to Scofield, and the same copy-pasting issue occurs there. Since Scofield is an unreliable source anyhow, for the same kinds of issues found in Jamieson-Fausset-Brown and the Pulpit Commentary, I'll be removing the references on the grounds of WP:RS and the WP:PLAG policy.Alephb (talk) 12:17, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

It looks like User:JohnThorne has also been warned twice copy-pasting from copyrighted sources in a talk section entitled "You are still just copying and pasting" and one called "Copy and pasting" by User:Lucas559 in a now-archived discussion [1]. Also, a warning about copyright violation from Theudas yourself at [2]. Alephb (talk) 12:47, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Request if someone has a Nelson Study Bible

We seem to be having some issues with direct copy-pasting of text of sources (copyrighted and uncopyrighted) into the text of this Wikipedia article. (See the previous section on this talk page.) I've been trying to remove the plagiarism as I find it. However, I don't have access to a Nelson Study Bible right this very moment. If some other editor owns one and wants to do us a favor, would it be possible to check the parts of this page cited to the Nelson Study Bible to see if any text has been directly copy-pasted from it without being put in quotes? Thanks in advance. Alephb (talk) 18:16, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Nevermind, folks. I've tracked down a Nelson Study Bible, and although it's hard to find the references to whatever it is that User:JohnThorne is getting from it, it turns out to be a pseudo-science-pushing WP:FRINGE source, as expected. So I'm removing the material that relies on it. Alephb (talk) 00:02, 11 July 2017 (UTC)