Talk:Judaism and masturbation

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2019 and 23 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): LoCo Wiki 1.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality dispute

See the discussion at Talk:Judaism and sexuality. Briefly, the question is what is the "Judaism" that the article is discussing, and according to whom. Many people who describe themselves as Jews, perhaps a majority, would not agree that the article is discussing "Judaism" (as opposed to "History of Judaism"). deisenbe (talk) 03:24, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Change name to Male Masturbation??

This article seems to be 99.9% about male masturbation. The article title should reflect that. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 18:01, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Since it is about both, even though female masturbation gets only one line, I see no reason to change this. Note that if this article is renamed, that sentence will have to go. Debresser (talk) 18:09, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so, we can always have a sentence, "As opposed to female masturbation which....." Or at the very least the female part needs to be expanded. I would also have the KSA bit removed, it's not a "real" source for halacha. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 18:15, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Editor trying tactics to avoid discussion of changes to longstanding version

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Judaism_and_masturbation&diff=729224334&oldid=723339777

That link shows Debresser's contentious changes (made anonymously) to the longstanding version

Removed material #1: and then in the evening begin to count a period of seven days (v. 13), after which he must wash in water again, then bring two pigeons or doves to the priests on the 8th day who will make the sacrifice for him.

Removed material #2: However, verse 3 states that he is rendered unclean even if the flow is "blocked", i.e. even if he stops himself short of ejaculation.

Debresser is engaging in alternate tactics to eject me from the conversation for disagreeing with him, rather than defend the weak reason given for the change, which was "omitting mistaken interpretation of leviticus 15"

This indicates that he was hoping this change would go unchallenged, unnoticed and discussed and was not prepared seriously to defend removal of these verses from the article text.

What you need to do is look up various interpretations of Leviticus 15:13 and of Leviticus 15:3 and explain why he is pshing some radical interpreatation of them that says they need not even be mentioned even though they are relevant to the chapter. 71.246.152.193 (talk) 18:51, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, that IP of the first diff was not me! Debresser (talk) 20:06, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I understand. My address is also in a range and can shift on its own but I assumed you were the first IP. But surely you can defend the removal of the longstanding mention of these 2 verses (Lev 15:13 and 3) which you called OR and reverted so many times, rather than continue to try to get me thrown out on some pretext merely for defending the crucial relevance of these two verses? 71.127.129.76 (talk) 20:16, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer the behavioral issue to be addressed first at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:71.246.152.193_reported_by_User:Debresser_.28Result:_.29. You violated PW:3RR and make all kinds of assumptions and accusations. All of that is not acceptable on Wikipedia. Debresser (talk) 20:27, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Socks of Til Eulenspiegel blocked. Doug Weller talk 13:56, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV

Mechuza, you seem to consider yourself a greater authority than Dorff, Patton and Milgrom. Wikipedia doesn't work that way. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:22, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

the introduction to this page is clearly biased

‘A superficial reading of the Hebrew Bibleseems to indicate that there is no commandment phrased as a prohibition against masturbation, however, the prohibition can clearly be seen upon further analysis’

this paragraph is clearly pushing an agenda, with loud claims that are completely unsupported by evidence. ‘Superficial’ and ‘clearly’ are not appropriate here without context. Ie. What is a ‘superficial’ reading? Why is this problematic or simplistic? Is the prohibition of masturbation really ‘clear’ on further analysis? What is the evidence for this claim - (ie. consensus among scholars across diverse sources, etc). Is there a debate?

This is *clearly* an inappropriate way to begin an article on Wikipedia. 121.200.6.27 (talk) 23:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are reasonable Rabbi-based sources for that line. I revised it a bit - it's still a bit questionable, but better. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 00:04, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Modern Bible scholars agree there is no explicit prohibition of masturbation anywhere in the Bible. The article was conflating between "superficial" and "(not) explicit". A WP:RS/AC claim (universal agreement of modern Bible scholars) has been mentioned.

Exegesis which does not take the original meaning at face value is allowed, many religious leaders do that all the time. However, modern Bible scholars agree that the "original meaning" of the Bible never condemned masturbation.

So, yes, there is a big difference between the Tanakh says according to WP:CHOPSY full professors, and what the Tanakh says according to some rabbis. The rabbis have read their interpretation into the Bible, but that's not what the Bible says. Statements of fact are sourced to modern Bible scholars, while statements of exegesis may be sourced to rabbis.

Statements of fact are claims that can be “proved or disproved by objective evidence” (Mitchell et al., 2018, p. 3). From https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/fact-opinion-differentiation/

We have more recent, and very powerful WP:RS, which corroborate Patton's academic consensus claim that those rabbis have misread the Bible.

I assume the interpretation of the rabbis is normative for Orthodox Jews. But it isn't normative for WP:IS.

So: Orthodox Jews believe it's a biblical prohibition, any other Bible scholar believes it's a rabbinical prohibition. As WP:CITED inside the article, Orthodox rabbis refrain from dissenting from it being a biblical prohibition, for fear of stirring trouble in their communities.

I don't say that Orthodox Jews have to agree with me. But they have to agree that in the mainstream academia some scholarly claims are untenable. And that Wikipedia gives the lion's share to mainstream WP:SCHOLARSHIP, rather than to theological orthodoxy. The theological orthodoxy gets accurately described, but we don't claim it would be objectively true. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of tag

There was a "citation needed" inserted inside a verbatim quote from Dorff's book. It is totally not done to put such tag there. Dorff is a scholarly authority, he is an influential rabbi, and he is allowed to perform original research (but we aren't).

Accusing Dorff of relying upon a mistranslation and of sloppy scholarly work is a violation of WP:BLP, especially since offering a single quote from Maimonides cannot prove that Maimonides did not write something else about that subject, in his indicated work. Yup, pretty much the same place where Maimonides says there is no biblical punishment for lesbians, and that is cited by many modern Bible scholars, so it is not doubtful that he meant it. E.g. Encyclopaedia Judaica (2007) states there is no biblical punishment for lesbians, which corroborates that Maimonides was correctly interpreted. These scholars are not people who based their arguments on translations. I can bet that they understand the subtleties of Ancient and Medieval Hebrew much better than the editor who had copy/pasted the Hebrew quote from Maimonides. They're not amateurs, they're highly trained scholars. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:59, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I saw that, it was a bit weird to have a cn in a quote. It was added in Special:Diff/1150081449. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 03:53, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, it's a matter of how to prove the non-existence of a claim. Providing a single quote does not do it. And, yup, proving a negative is possible. In respect to Wikipedia, scholarly authorities can prove a negative, but it cannot be done through WP:OR by offering a single quote from a WP:PRIMARY source. E.g., if I offer a quote from Genesis 38, some editor may reply "Masturbation isn't forbidden there, but maybe it is forbidden somewhere else in the Bible." tgeorgescu (talk) 04:43, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]