Talk:Jupiter (god)/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Mythology?

Why is Wikipedia denigrating Roman religion as mythology? This kind of bias is unacceptable in an encyclopedia. ♆ CUSH ♆ 07:41, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I would've preferred that such articles be named Jupiter (deity) or Jupiter (god), the latter being a redirect, to disambiguate the article from other uses such as planets. That ship sailed long before I was active on Wikipedia, I fear. It's extremely important, however, to keep in mind that Jupiter is not just an archaic god, but had an active mythological tradition in later Western culture, by means of art and literary allusion. So while I agree with your point, I don't see "mythology" as denigration, just not particularly helpful, and an encyclopedic treatment requires coverage of all aspects of such figures. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Help the French article about Jupiter !

As a French user of Wikipedia, I am impressed by the quality of this article. The French article is a total confusion between Jupiter and Zeus... I'm trying to make a global correction but it takes time and it's quite difficult. So if some writers of this article can write a bit in French, I'm asking for help in order to increase the precision of my corrections ! Thank you !

Aegiochus

As the father of Aigipan, Jove has the epithet "Aegiochus", per the Hyginus Astronomica. Any objections to adding this to the page, and creating a redirect here?192.249.47.181 (talk) 15:54, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it's used in the Iliad/Oddessey too, so I'm just gonna add it. If I do it incorrectly, someone please give me a pointer on how to fix it, thanks!192.249.47.181 (talk) 15:55, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

This is a rather minor or obscure epithet, and should be added instead to Epithets of Jupiter. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:13, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

"Countepart"s

At some point in the past (it's hard to be bothered with Wikipedia's increasingly cumbersome history system) someone added a sentence to the lead of this article stating that "The Etruscan counterpart was Tinia, the Hindu counterpart is Indra". Upon noticing it, I subsequently removed this line.

Why? First of all, what does "counterpart" mean? Is, for example, Germanic Thor the counterpart to Zeus? No? Why, because he doesn't meet the appropriate etymological lineage but yet is essentially personified thunder-lightning? In other words, counterpart is a subjective term that requires direct attribution. It cannot be used to simply mean 'similar'—which would be just as unacceptable—without saying exactly why and who said it if it hopes to not violate WP:NPOV.

Now, the similarities between Vedic Indra and Greek Zeus are pretty limited. Such a statement can be dismissed immediately on the grounds of both etymology and function(s). The similarities between Zeus and his Etruscan neighbor Tinia are more complicated. Sure, they shared a lot of iconography and motifs. But deities don't exist in a vacuum, especially when empires grow upon or plant flags on their soil. What influenced what? What about the layers?

"Counterpart" doesn't cut it as a neutral term. Now, a user has been restoring the link to Tinia. Either appropriately attribute it—and I know it's a common identification in Etruscan myth overviews, so it should be easy—or simply expect to be reverted for violating policy. Meanwhile insults aren't going to help things go any smoother. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:53, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Multiple RS were provided for the statement in the footnote you blithely deleted: de Grummond, for instance, specifically uses the word "counterparts" in relation to the identification of certain Etruscan and Roman deities. Uni and Juno are another pair of counterparts. Not all Etruscan deities have a direct Roman counterpart; these two pairs, however, are central to the switch from the Archaic Triad to the Capitoline Triad, along with Minerva/Menrva. I can only assume that you didn't bother to actually read the footnotes and check out what the sources say before you deleted impeccably-sourced content. The identification of Tinia and Iuppiter is an historical part of the development of Roman religion; it was recognized by the Romans themselves, and can be traced through Roman and Etruscan art and ritual practices. There's nothing "un-neutral" about the word "counterpart", which simply means "a person or thing holding a position or performing a function that corresponds to that of another person or thing in another place." The roles of Tinia and Iuppiter correspond in this way within Roman and Etruscan cultures, which are closely and documentably related. Your personal unfamiliarity with the topic is irrelevant; the point is well-sourced.

You have exceeded 3RR, and reverted after I requested a discussion, so I'm unclear about how to proceed, since I would add John Pairman Brown, Israel and Hellas (De Gruyter, 2000), vol. 2, p. 66:

Jupiter's conciliar status may be derived from his Etruscan counterpart, Tin or Tinia.

This statement relates to the Di Consentes. So I must repeat: the burden is on you to provide sources that deny that Tinia and Iuppiter are counterparts, and these sources must outweigh the authority of the sources I've given. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:23, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

What I am seeing here is the following:

a.) You're presenting this material as if it were in a vacuum. Like I said above, there are layers that must be acknowledged here (Admittedly, this article does a very bad job of this in general). Just as with archaic Greek religion and Proto-Germanic religion, we cannot present it as if it "always was"; some things changed, some things stayed the same. Meanwhile, we need times, places, and people making commentary. We need explicitly spelled out sources in chronological order. This should be obvious for anyone who has had any academic background in this material, which you seem to portray yourself as having. A good article about Hera wouldn't say Hera was this or that. It would say according to this. Why? Because some of her earliest representations and references are very different from what we have now. Things change. Hera is no longer depicted as a plank. Many female Greek deities were downgraded before Hesiod and "Homer". Make that historical context clear or expect to be reminded.

b.) Indeed, counterpart is not objective. It's subjective. It is not technical term. I could say that any Indo-European sky god is the "counterpart" to Zeus. I could say any deity with an association with thunder and eagles is a "counterpart" to Jupiter. If I adjust my parameters enough, I could say essentially anything is a "counterpart" to anything else. As for references, I can plaster this article with citations claiming Jupiter is the "counterpart" to essentially every major deity on record, if by way of iconography, linguistics, or simply just being a "major god". I'm sure you've heard the phrase "the Jupiter of the (insert culture here)". In fact, some of them are probably more related to Jupiter than Tinia. However, all would require me to present such commentary as a comment from a scholar and not just slap a reference on it. You are not doing this.

Again, no matter how many sources you take on to something, when you present the subjective as objective, it's just going to continue to be reverted. If you want to continue to wasting my time and your own, you can continue along the current course. If you want to save yourself some trouble, directly attribute subjective statements. "Some scholars have observed/theorized/said/whatever" would even do. As it stands, I wouldn't even have the statement in the article without the appropriate historical discussion in place, but I'm flexible.

Finally, count my reverts. I did not exceed 3RR. And I was typing up my comments on this talk page when you messaged me, so you're wrong about that point as well. I'd advise you to assume less. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:36, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

What I'm seeing is that you have no sources, and no grounds for banning the word "counterpart" to label this identification when it's used by reputable scholars. I repeat, you plainly don't know this topic; this is not the same as speculation about PIE religion (and I have no idea why you keep on about Zeus as the IE sky god); Tinia/Iuppiter is an historical identification made by the Romans themselves, and accepted by scholars who specialize in Etruscan and Roman religion. It is not your place, or mine, to reject their findings; neutrality means reporting RS with balance and due weight, not imposing our own view of what's right or wrong. Produce sources to support your view that specifically address the identification of Etruscan and Roman deities. "Counterpart" is a neutral word here that is based on real evidence, not conjecture. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:54, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm well aware of the exchange and overlaps of cultures in the Mediterranean, the question of Indo-European versus non-Indo-European in the area, etc. etc.. This should be obvious. Why am I mentioning the Indo-European sky god so much? Maybe you should dig a little deeper into this sky god business.

Scholars make subjective comments all the time. We present them as subjective comments. I do it all the time. Like I said, report exactly who said what and where or leave it out. Expect me to answer the same way every time you ask me for a source when the issue is subjective versus objective presentation. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:01, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The functional equivalence between Tinia and Iuppiter is scholarly consensus among those who study the history of Etruscan and Roman religion. It isn't a distinctive interpretation that needs to be attributed to an individual, as the note shows. And the note is only a few select sources from major books, chosen for their sufficiency and relevance; I could list probably fifty RS for the point if I included more-specialized articles. To say that they are functional counterparts is not to say that they functioned exactly and in every way the same in Roman and Etruscan culture; Zeus and Iuppiter are counterparts recognized as such by the Greeks and Romans themselves, but that doesn't mean that Iuppiter doesn't have a distinctly Roman tradition, and it doesn't mean that everything about Zeus is always true of Iuppiter, or vice versa. Cynwolfe (talk)

Then discuss the functional equivalence with the appropriate citations in the article space explaining what is meant by a counterpart. Or are you expecting me to plaster this article with other supposed "counterparts" identified by scholars for various reasons? Try this: Go to Google Books and type in "Jupiter counterpart". You might want to add "god" to that. See how many hits you get. Perhaps now you'll understand why it's important to be concise and straightforward about what is meant by counterpart and why this particular deity is being singled out. It's not a straightforward nor objective term, like I said. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:47, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The relation of Etruscan to Roman religion has historical significance that arguably outweighs that of any influence other than Greek and the general Italic context. The relation of the practices and iconography of Tinia to that of Iuppiter is historical and based on direct and continuing cultural contact over centuries, not hypothetical in some IE linguistically-reconstructed way, nor simply theoretical as an exercise in random comparative mythology. To omit even a link to Tinia would leave a gap in the article, and the statement is well-referenced to online sources if readers want more information than the article provides at present. Since this article has length pressures anyway, such development might be more beneficial at Tinia, where some dubious stuff now resides. If you're interested in knowing why it's useful to at least mention Tinia prominently, the sources cited can get you started. I provided sources for the questioned statement that show why the point is notable, but have many topics in my queue of greater priority. I'm not arguing for the sufficiency of the statement; only that it's useful to have at least a mention of Tinia in the article, with a statement that is more than adequately supported by RS at this point. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:34, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)::::I count 4 reverts by Bloodofox tonight. Dougweller (talk) 21:04, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Try again. I've only reverted 3 times. I removed the info (not reverted it), the info was modified, then there were three reverts thereafter. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:07, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

"A "revert" means any edit (or administrative action) that reverses the actions of other editors, in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material." Your removal of information reversed someone's edit, it counts. Dougweller (talk) 05:21, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Shema!

It is likely that name of roman supreme deity Jove is simply a mangled form of Yahwe(h), the jewish rendering of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH). The spelling of Yahweh sounds totally like "Jova", see: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/File:He-YHWH.ogg

After all, legend holds that Rome's founders were the survivors of Troy's homerian siege. Troy was located in Little Asia, not far from ancient judaism and the trojans were known to be allied to the hyxos, a coalition of afro-semitic warrior tribes, which under the leadership of hebrew chieftain Jakub-bei (the biblical Jacob) ransacked Egypt.

It is even possible that word YHWH (for The God) may have been one of the few words of "Ursprache" a.k.a. the ancient unified human language. Such a recognition may be revolutionary, because thus far, propsed vocabulary only includes words for "mundane" items, like body parts, water, soil, etc. and nothing of the spiritual needs of humans. 91.83.33.176 (talk) 12:21, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

God of Thunder or Lightning?

Does any one know which is correct? The lead text states Jupiter is the god of Thunder, the text box on the right states Jupiter is the god of Lightning. Jcardazzi (talk) 01:15, 28 April 2015 (UTC)jcardazzi

Both surely. He is a storm god. Johnbod (talk) 01:24, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

References

I'd be willing to tidy up the references and get rid of the "above" notation, which suffers from the same inherent flaw as "op. cit."; however, am I reading it correctly that the many references to Dumézil's ARR refer to the page numbers of the Italian translation? Q·L·1968 ☿ 21:46, 13 April 2016 (UTC) PS: I'd also like to go through and link to the {{CIL}} template, which is pretty rad.

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Jupiter (god)/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

good start. would like to see more added mentioning specific mythsGoldenrowley 02:56, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 02:56, 17 March 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 20:45, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Translating Jupiter Stator

I would suggest that the best translation of this is "the steadfast", as opposed to "the stayer". "Stayer" is English, but it's not a word in common use and it fails to capture the spirit of the verb "sto" which, in the military context is to "stand firm" or "not waver". Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 03:41, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Plebs

This article uses the term 'plebs' very frequently. I understand it to be a perjorative shortening of 'plebeians', and even that term could be misconstrued unless it's meant quite seriously. Particularly this section and especially its heading seem wrong to me. Is there a respected classical use for the term 'plebs' (rather than the full term) that I'm ignorant of, or should this be expanded to 'plebeians', here or throughout? Mortee (talk) 22:50, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Tricky. This has been discussed inconclusively several times in different contexts. See Talk:Plebs#Page move proposal and Talk:Plebs#Requested Move. It's difficult, because of the basically pejorative association of pleb with "low-class", "uncultured" etc in modern English and elite Roman sources. Personally, I tend to follow the tone and intent of whichever source I'm using - translated source, or secondary source, mark you - assuming that's reasonably clear. Thus, "plebeian" in the loose sense of the voting body of Roman "commoners", or the "Plebeian nobility" arising therefrom. "Plebs" when the source is unmistakably snotty, sneering or patronising. Haploidavey (talk) 23:22, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

At the moment the section I mentioned switches from 'plebeians' to 'plebs' and back again. I can't see any consistency in the switches so I think it would be helpful to either pick a term and stick with it, or pick a point in the section to make a more permanent switch, perhaps explaing 'plebs' the first time it comes up, if it does in the revised version. I'm happy to make an attempt at a change myself but I'm in no way a classicist. Mortee (talk) 23:27, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Nor I, but that has never stopped me editing such articles; they've been the main focus of my time on Wikipedia. I agree, one might as well pick a term and stick with it; and I don't think it matters overmuch which one is chosen. There's little-to-no consistency in either form across the subject area. We've a Plebs article, one on Secessions of the plebs etc. Though just to keep this in perspective, this whole article needs some very basic, quite merciless re-editing. Haploidavey (talk) 23:46, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

OK, cool. I've edited to stick with 'plebs' consistently with a quick 'also known as plebeians' and a link to Plebs to pre-empt any offense. Hopefully that helps. I'll leave the rest of the article to others for now but stick it on my to-do list to see about any other re-editing I might be able to offer :-) Mortee (talk) 00:00, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

..."forbidden, abhorred, and scorned."

That was a reference to Jupiter "finding himself" in a tricky position with the abolition of Roman kingship. Apparently this is based on something in Dumézil, G., (1996). Archaic Roman religion. Or is it a 1977 edition? Hard to say. I've edited the passage down a little from its former OTT rhetoric. The following links to a near-as-dammit earliest version, which carries a little more info on the early Republican secessio plebis but offers little further idea of where or how things went for Jupiter immediately after the expulsion of kings. My guess is that maybe they just didn't think like Dumézil. Earthly kingship could not be equated to divine kingship; Jupiter being king of the gods, not of Rome. Major deities didn't choose themselves as state deities. The state did the choosing, and if the gods liked the set-up, they moved in. But would anyone object to my removal of the "forbidden, abhorred, and scorned" Dumézil- based part and it's replacement with something a little more modern, and maybe even a little less dramatic?

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Jupiter_(mythology)&diff=prev&oldid=461924171#cite_ref-227

Haploidavey (talk) 10:13, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• And yes, I realise that the article has a section on Jupiter (mythology)#Jupiter and religion in the secessions of the plebs, but it's almost unsourced. Just two sources. Italian language. Haploidavey (talk) 10:38, 3 June 2021 (UTC)