Talk:Bible/Archive 16

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Judaism and scope of this article

Is it justifiable for the focus of this article to be so evenly split between Judaism and Christianity as it is?

There is a body of religious writings started by the Jews, supplemented by the Christians, and further supplemented by the Mormons and Muslims (with each new sect asserting that the prior compendiums are holy but critically lacking). So why stop at Christian denominations, rather than including the interpretation of additional mainstream Abrahamic religions which also consider it as divine revelation?

Alternatively, why is Judaism included anyway? The Jewish scripture is called e.g. the Miqra. They do not normally call it the Hebrew Bible, which is merely a recent artificial invention designed to push a viewpoint of commonality in interfaith dialogue. "Bible" is a specifically Christian term (coming from the Greek-speaking early-Christians). Should the article on fortresses divert half of its attention to flying fortresses?

So, what is the appropriate scope of this article? Cesiumfrog (talk) 13:47, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

This is a good point by Cesium that I too have questioned. It seems like it can be confusing to try and include such different subjects, in some sense, on the same page. Cesium also makes a good point, that "the Bible" is a Christian term, and there is a different common word for the Jewish Scripture. Perhaps this could be resolved by having a Christian Bible page and a Jewish Scripture page separately? WalkerThrough (talk) 14:18, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
How can Cesium make a good point, when her point is full of so many errors? Miqra is Hebrew for "a reading" and is used that way. It is not the Hebrew term for the Bible, although of course it is applied to readings (reading = miqra) of the Bible. It is true that Jews usually do not say Hebrew Bible. They just call it "the Bible" but when they do, it excludes what others call the "new testament" and the last book is Chronicles. It doesn't matter who coined the term - Jews coined the term "amen" but don't charge a fee every time Christians use it. I do not know what an artificial invention is, as opposed to a non-artificial verson, but "Hebrew Bible" is certainly not a recent invention. The first use of it that I know of is from the 1700s. That is the earliest recorded use I know of it, but nothing indicates that Thomas Boston coined the term (that Cesium is the typical English word for creating a new word). Since Jews, when speaking in English, call the Tanakh "the Bible" I suspect that "Hebrew Bible" is a Christian invention that Christian use to distinguish between the Bible that Jews refer to and the Bible that Christians refer to, but I am speculating. Anyway, the Catholic Encyclopedia has a detailed entry on the Hebrew Bible which says nothing to question the validity of the term, and it gets over four million google hits.
We have discussed this several times. Many Jews speak only English and they call their sacred book the Bible, as do many Jews who are bilingual, when speaking in English. There is no reason why this cannot be one article. It also keeps the Jewish POV on what some call the "Olt Testament" in one place, and avoids duplication.
The holiest book of the Mormons is the book of Morman, and the holiest book of the Muslims is the Quran. If reliable secondary sources establish that Mormans and Muslims have significant views about the Bible, by all means they should be incorporated into this article, given due weight. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:43, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
SLR- don't feed the trolls. Zargulon (talk) 14:46, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
In point of fact, the Mormons feel very strongly about the Bible being an essential part of their open canon. I'd be wary about calling the BoM the "holliest" book.--Tznkai (talk) 01:48, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Please read WP:POVFORK. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 14:55, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
  • It is a fallacy to think of "The Jewish Bible" and the "Christian Bible" as two distinct books. There are important historical reasons for treating both Jewish and Christian text collections. The most important is that the old testament was compiled by Jews, not Christians. The Christian Bible only has the form it has today because Jewish scholars chose the texts of the old testament. Christianity and the Christian Bible is, so to speak a secondary historical development which took the Jewish canon as a point of departure. In short we cannot describe the history of the Bible without describing its Jewish origins.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:03, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

OK, there are already at least two or three articles on WP about Islamic views of the bible (wikilinked in OP). What I'm proposing is to augment this article with a very brief section referring the reader to those.

I wasn't aware that the Tanakh was referred to in English even within judaism as just the bible. Perhaps this article could make that explicit somewhere? Cesiumfrog (talk) 15:32, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

It would be redundant. The title of the article is "the Bible." That is sufficient to inform readers that the word "the Bible" can also refer to the Bible of the Jews. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:33, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Alas, it wasn't sufficient to inform me, and I even checked the main relevant articles (TNK and Hebrew Bible). I think it is sufficiently non-obvious to need to be verified, which is another reason not to just leave it implicit.
Why is the article structure focused on the Christianity/Judiaism split, rather than on the book collection itself? For example, the section "old testament" seems to significantly duplicate the scope of the Jewish canon section, could non-interpretative material from both be merged into a common "hebrew bible" section (still followed by a section on "new testament"), i.e., is there any reason why the natural divisions of the bible (e.g., books of moses, prophets, other writings, gospel, epistles) could not feature somewhere in the layout of the article (so that the sections on particular religions would be left only to say what is specific to their respective interpretations, with less duplication)? Cesiumfrog (talk) 00:26, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I think you are right that it makes sense to focus on the book collection itself rather than the split. However the history of the compilation of the different biblical canons obviously requires a description of how they relate to theological discussions in Judaic and Christian traditions.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:29, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Been too busy to add much lately, but just a few observations since my last post. I support the general consensus re reference to divine inspiration in the lead, but not first paragraph—probaly the third paragraph, with expanded information in the relevent section. Also, comment was made above about the OT being written by Jews, not Christians, implying that the NT was written by Christians, which is true but they (or most of them) were also Jews. I understand that the Jewish Bible/OT is often referred to by Jews as "The Holy Scriptures". Finally, on the issue of denominations, not only do many Christians not identify with a particular denomination, there are diverse views on the divine inspiration of scripture even within denominations, so making distinctions along denominational lines wouldn't be an accurate reflection. Well that's just my few pence worth for now. Supt. of Printing (talk) 05:41, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I have never heard Jews refer to their Bible as the "Holy Scriptures." I do note that www.holyscriptures.com is a Christian website, and I have heard Christians call it Holy Scriptures. Perhaps this is how Christians translate St. Jerome's Latin Biblioteca Divina. But Jews just call it "the Bible" in English. Obviously, the Gospels, Acts, Epistles etc. are not part of the Bible. When Christian talk about their Bible, which to them includes these books, I have heard Jews call it the Bible "the Hebrew Bible" to differentiate. But among themselves in English I have only ever heard them call it the Bible. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:28, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
A quick google search will bring up a number of sites like this one: http://jps.org/product.php?id=473, plus I have heard them referred to as "The Holy Scriptures" which I obviously can't referenc here. Supt. of Printing (talk) 01:19, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, Supt, for providing another source that supports my point. The site you refer to - well, if one actually reads it - begins with this sentence: "In the early nineteenth century, most American Jews couldn’t read the Bible because they were not literate in Hebrew and an adequate English translation didn’t exist." In the text that follows the site repeatedly uses the word "The Bible" to refer to the 24 books Jews, well, as I told you, call "the Bible." You pick a webpage describing the 1917 translation, which was published as "The Holy Scriptures." But as I have explained to you, this is what Christians call their Bible too. So my point stands: Jews and Christians call their sacred canon of books using the same terms in English. If Christians use "Holy Scriptures" for their canon, so do Jews. If Jews use "Bible," so do Christians. These are just generic English terms. "Holy Scripture" is more formal and archaic and used less commonly, probably among Christians too. Certainly as this website makes clear, Jews refer to their Bible as the Bible. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:58, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
I ran across a digital copy of what I think was called the Encyclopedia Judica (no joke) which has a massive discussion on the Bible, Jewish Bible, and Hebrew Bible (same thing, to them) and its construction. I'll look into it more later tonight but significant portions of the Jewish community and the scholarly community refer to the Jewish canon of scripture as "the Bible" disambiguated into "the Christian Bible" or "Jewish Bible" as appropriate. I prefer Hebrew Bible as the neutral term for all of the various Masoretic text descendants and Tanakh for the mainstream Jewish view of the canon.--Tznkai (talk) 17:15, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
You didn't mean "Encyclopedia Judaica?" This is real and has some weight. Isearched for Encyclopedia Judica online and couldn't find it but I did find a "Jewish Encyclopedia" which is an online version of something published in the early 20th century. When I searched "Holy scriptures" it redirected to "Bible Canon"[1]. In this article it says that the oldest Hebrew word for the 24 books in question is in Hebrew "sefarim" which just means books; according to the article, the Greek translation of sefarim is ta biblia and so the English word is "Bible." All the sources I know of confirm what I know from long experience which is that Jews call their 25 canonized books "the Bible" and they exclude all of the New Testament from their Bible. Supt. of Printing is expressing a very obscure or fringe view. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:04, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Title: Encyclopaedia Judaica Editor(s): Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik Edition: 2nd ed. Imprint: Macmillan Reference USA Place of Publication: Detroit Publication Year: 2007 No. of Volumes: 22 Total Pages: 18015 ISBN: 978-0-02-865928-2 eISBN: 978-0-02-866097-4 Copyright Statement: COPYRIGHT 2007 Keter Publishing House Ltd. Under the entry for Bible it begins " There is no single designation common to all Jews and employed in all periods by which the Jewish Scriptures have been known. The earliest and most diffused Hebrew term was Ha-Sefarim ("The Books")... Greek speaking Jews adopted this usage and translated it into their vernacular as τἁ βιβλία. ... It is from this Hellenistic Jewish usage of τἁ βιβλία, which entered European languages through its Latin form, that the English "Bible" is derived." Emphasis added.
I'm also privileged to have, in my lap, a copy of the Oxford Guide to the Bible edited by the late great Bruce Metzger and you know, some other guy, which states in relevant part: "The number of these sacred and/or authorative books varies in different religious traditions. The Samaritans... the Hebrew canon... the Prodestant canon ... accepted by the Roman Catholic Church ... The Bible of the Greek Orthodox ... The Ethiopic church..."--Tznkai (talk) 20:33, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Alas, this is one of those facts obvious to most educated people where we really should add - somewhere in the body of the article - these sources. Otherwise misinformed editors will keep bringing this up at regular intervals. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:19, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Other Abrahamic religions - lead

There has been some disagreement between some users about the following sentence in the lead: "The Hebrew and Christian Bibles are also important, but not primary religious texts in other Abrahamic religions including Islam and the Baha'i Faith." It has been removed and replaced a few times, so perhaps we can resolve the issue here, please? ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 20:55, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. I disagree with the statement, and as there are no RS, at this point it is best not to include (WP:RS). If RS can be provided, then of course it can be put in. WalkerThrough (talk) 20:59, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
It seems we have reliable sources now - all seems ok. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 21:10, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
The reason there were no sources before is that it is such common knowledge they didn't need sources. However, sources were easy to add. Links in the lead should be avoided if possible, but they are certainly better than someone edit warring over something so basic out of ignorance. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 21:13, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Abrahamic religions are called that because they are all based on the biblical story of Abraham's encounters with the biblical deity and the subsequent narrative about his sons and their progeny. A Wikilink to the Abrahamic religions article is completely sufficient, as this really is common knowledge. ♆ CUSH ♆ 22:43, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
As the person originally responsible for the statement. Yes, it is completely obvious as brief perusal of Wikipedia pages will inform you. No, references to other Wikipedia articles is not an adequate source, but yes, we do try to avoid citations in the lead. And yes, it is common knowledge to those of us who have done any comparative religion beyond the early grade school level. No, I don't think its worth a fight, which is why I didn't.
Generally, I understand that reliable sources are important. But I'm annoyed of the reliable source policy used as a bludgeon to eliminate change. Writing should be fun, digging for sources to prove every last point no matter how small is not. As to this article in particular. The Bible is important. It is important to a lot of people. A neutral, accurate encyclopedia tries to at least mention this to all of those people, who are themselves, in some way important. It also explains what the hell it is, to people who are unfamiliar with the subject. Imagine a little green man from mars has the English language downloaded into his brain, Matrix-style, but doesn't have the same cultural cues we share. Would he have any idea what this article is about? Would he understand the linkage between the Christian and Hebrew Bibles? Would he be left with the erroneous impression that only two groups think that the Bible matters at all? Would he understand the importance of the Bible in western culture, its influence on the English language, on the development of literacy technology, its frequent citation as justification for causes great and small? And do we want to make him slog through an endless serious of citations to find out?--Tznkai (talk) 23:03, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
What are you ranting about? There already is an article about Abrahamic religions with sources provided there. We do not repeat sourcing in every article that somehow touches a related subject. And if your little green person came here, he/she/it could certainly follow blue links as well. There is no need and definitely no urge to create unnecessarily bloated articles. ♆ CUSH ♆ 06:54, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

"Writing should be fun, digging for sources to prove every last point no matter how small is not. " This should be the motto of everyone who is NOT a Wikipedia editor. If reading reliable sources is not your idea of fun, well, um, gosh, you should ask whoever is pointing a gun at your head and forcing you to edit an encyclopedia to pleeeeeeease let you do something else. Take a creative writing class! Journal! Join a chat room! Do anything other than write encyclopedia articles!!! This line is so perfectly phrased I propose we add it to a new guideline on "what Wikipdia editors are WP:NOT"Slrubenstein | Talk 10:02, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Don't put words in my mouth, proverbial or otherwise. My issue is with the inane quasi-litigation that erupts over even minor content changes that makes editing into a multiround pissing contest over every sentence. Idol worship of Reliable Sources (not even the policy, but the concept) makes the writing worse as well as more miserable. Our goal is to provide a neutral and accurate encyclopedia, and our method to do that is with an open and consensus driven process. The source policy has been abused and that abuse has turned the process into a closed veto-point driven process. And the content has suffered as a result. Hell, the abuse of the source policy creates a backwards process, where you look for a source to prove a point you want in, which is fine for advocates; but we should be researching first, and then writing. That is besides the self-evident fact that the source policy does not have a thing to do with writing prose in and of itself, and will be of little guidance of how information is to be presented and ordered beyond a sense of whether or not it is true.
My series of questions on the significance of the above are the top of my head important historical facts about the Bible that the vast majority of modestly educated Americans would know. Americans, mind you, have one of the lowest rates of religious literacy in the world, (I'll find my Prothero book on this later) so its a pretty low bar. These are facts buried somewhere in the content of the page, or pages, maybe. But it scarcely matters, because the writing is so poor and dense that the reader will never get there. This is not an insult against anyone here. This is the natural result of writing by committee. And these constant petty arguments over minutia demotivate not only me, who we don't really need to care about, but many unknown editors from ever trying to improve it.--Tznkai (talk) 13:19, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
To try to focus, on the actual article at hand here: does the lead answer the 5ws? Is it written at a level that it can be comprehended by any person of reasonable intelligence and education? Is it written, as befits an international encyclopedia, in such a way that any fluent English language speaker, even those who are not Anglo or American, can grasp the subject matter without cultural immersion first? Does the article present a warrant for why the reader should care? Is the importance of the subject clear in both its natural subject and its closely related ones? (As in, religion as the natural subject, and literature and history being closely related ones) Is the causal chain presented? Is it clear whether the interest is historical, current, or both? Is the lead too heavy or too light on details, with emphasis on summary of important points and introduction of the topic? The lead fails along several of these lines of questioning, never mind the article as a whole.--Tznkai (talk) 13:40, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Ack, Slrubenstein, I think you took Tznkai's words out of context and completely misunderstood his point. I don't have time for an extended comment right now, but please look at the history of this article immediately prior to this, as well as the history of the editor involved (now indef-blocked, but of course we didn't know that would happen when all this was written) - his interactions with others and how he was using RS to push his POV in articles. I really wish I had more time for this, because I think you're both great editors and I respect you both. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 14:11, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Tznkai - I apologize for taking your words out of context and don't wish to misrepresent you and all the good work you have done at WP. I am just sorry about that. For what it is worth, I genuinely do not believe we should ever deprecate the search for reliable sources, because I think that the main reason WP continues to be looked down on by many educators and researchers is that the overwhelming majority do not take the time to do serious source-based research. this means I am critical of people who rush to provide countless "reliable sources" that are available through google books or websites in those (many) cases when much better, and in some cases the only truly reliable sources, are found in actual libraries.

But I agree with you (well, if I read you correctly) that people whould not throw OR accusations around as a form of edit warring (i.e. when they do not have enough knowledge to reasonably blieve the claim is wrong); all works of scholarship, including encyclopedia articles, should assume that readers are reasonably well-informed enough to recognize claims that really are so uncontroversial among experts that they need no citation. Moreover, I agree that citations as a rule belong in the body, and that the introduction should introduce the body and thus only summarize what is developed in the body and the body is where all the citations should be. Too many people fight huge battles over what is the mainstream view and what needs to be sourced over the introduction. These kinds of arguments really should be made over the body, and we should focus on clarity and graceful style in the lead. If these are the points you are making, I agree with you completely. Nevertheless, I still think that a good wikipedia editor is someone who enjoys reading reliable sources, and I think a good wikipedia article will provide multiple sources. In the past, before we had our RS policy and before we adopted the current form of referencing, many articles had only "see also" or "for further reading" sections and no referencs at all, or references as well as "see also" sections. In past years we have largely abandoned thi practice so multiple citations becoms the best and in most cases only way we can direct readers to what to read next if they wish to go deeper. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:52, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we're agreed on all the large points and almost all of the small. I'm sorry that I lost my temper and ranted again. I overall approve of the trend on Wikipedia to take citing sources very seriously.--Tznkai (talk) 17:24, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

It is right for you to want people not to wake your words out of context. I am glad we agree on the major points! Slrubenstein | Talk 19:21, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

The intro needs to be edited

The intro needs to make it clear that the bible is made up of mostly fiction. As it stands, an uncritical reader might get the impression that the contents of the bible are true and accurate descriptions of history, and that would be unfortunate. 46.162.76.182 (talk) 16:52, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I'll ask the question, even though I think I'm just feeding a troll, but what parts are mostly fiction? And where are the sources to back this up?--JOJ Hutton 16:58, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
I do not mean to offend people, and I do not just want to see people argue, but if by "troll" you mean "someone who raises a question that he know's is sensitive", then, yeah, guilty as charged, I guess. I'll also admit that I'm not very familiar with the Bible. But, any part where Jesus performs miracles or any part where God speaks to people or effects immediate changes in the world, is quite obviously not quite an accurate description of history, and I'm under the impression that at least some parts of the Bible focus on that sort of thing. 46.162.76.182 (talk) 17:37, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
The intro does have its issues. Rather than addressing the fictional nature of much of the bible (as suggested above), I simply request that the intro be less repetitive. For example, the intro states that an alternative name for the bible is "holy bible" three times! This point only need to be made once; if at all. — fcsuper (How's That?, That's How!) (Exclusionistic Immediatist ) — 23:36, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I personally think my intro makes distinctions that need to be made:

The Bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books"), known as the Holy Bible, is the English word that refers to the several similar compilations of books that most Jews and Christians believe to be sacred scripture. The Bible is the best-selling book in history with more than 6 billion copies published.[1][unreliable source?][2][unreliable source?]. The Bible—composed of the Tanakh (also known as the Old Testament) and the New Testament—is the literary foundation of the religions of Judaism and Christianity, respectively. + The Bible (from Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books"), known as the Holy Bible, refers to several similar collections of sacred scripture related to Judaism and Christianity. The Bible is the best-selling book in history with more than 6 billion copies published.[3][unreliable source?][2][unreliable source?] - There is no Bible that all Jews and Christians agree upon. This disagreement is because some different dominations hold different books and their respective arrangements to be God's Word. Mainstream Judaism divides the Tanakh into 24 books, while a minority stream of Judaism, the Samaritans, accepts only five—the Pentateuch. The 24 books of the Hebrew Bible are divided and rearranged into the 39 books of the Christian Old Testament, although the two texts, as a whole, remain the same. Complete Christian Bibles range from the 66 books of the Protestant canon to the 81 books in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.[4]

What do you think? --Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 21:30, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

How come now the article refers to the Bible as "the primary religious text" of Christianity and Judaism? It does not earn the status of "sacred text" or "holy book"? After all, it is listed in the Religious texts article, which defines these texts as "the texts which various religious traditions consider to be sacred, or of central importance to their religious tradition. Many religions and spiritual movements believe that their sacred texts are divinely or supernaturally inspired." Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 04:39, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I also think that the introduction needs to mention Jesus as the centerpoint of the whole Bible. Although non-messianic Jews (and others) will disagree, a good argument can be made that the Bible is about Jesus. We could at least say that the OT makes reference to a future Messiah savior figure, and that Jesus best fulfills this in the NT. Afterall, He said it Himself ("I did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets [i.e., the Tankakh/OT], but to fulfill them" - Matthew 5:17), and all the NT is about Him. You probably won't agree, but let your thoughts be known. Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 21:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

That idea would represent a strong and moot WP:POV, which is unacceptable for a Wikipedia article. If it is important to mention Jesus when talking about the New Testament, then that is the context to include that point. — fcsuper (How's That?, That's How!) (Exclusionistic Immediatist ) — 22:45, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
What about at least saying something like, "Christians believe the entire Bible is about Jesus." Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 04:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Do they? All of them? Find a reliable source for that. ♆ CUSH ♆ 06:31, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Best selling book in history

This little factoid has been pushed by Christians for years. It is a sales pitch and it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. The sales of many different books were combined to arrive at this promotional figure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.54.236.121 (talk) 11:40, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

It would be good to have a figure of how many copies of the bible are produced annually (even combining many versions and editions), so that it can be compared objectively with other literature. Cesiumfrog (talk) 06:14, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

This should not be referenced in the opening paragraph. Perhaps it can be stated later on as a claim made by the community. Without actual facts and figures, this cannot not be stated and linked, especially in its current place. 94.113.2.4 (talk) 22:48, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but after all these centuries, the Holy Bible is still in print. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.64.0.252 (talk) 20:46, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Currently the sources for the "best selling" claim are dubious. The first one is a book called The Oracles of God which uses a BusinessWeek article and this book as its sources for the publication numbers. The BuinessWeek article in turn refers to this article which has an unsourced claim for 2.5 billion copies. I was unable to check the sources for the 6 billion copies claim in the Top 10 book. Nevertheless, estimating a number for such book is almost impossible, as said already in the List_of_best-selling_books article. Pushing it is just silly. --piksi (talk) 23:17, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
It is unfair to say that these magazine articles proposing how many copies of the Bible have been produced are unsourced. After all, A Tale of Two Cities—the book listed as the best-seller is unsourced as well. The article with that figure merely says, "Charles Dickens’ second stab at a historical novel, A Tale of Two Cities, has sold more than 200 million copies to date, making it the bestselling novel – in any genre – of all time." Where did the author get that figure? Same with any other book. That article reads, "Religious books, especially the Bible and the Qur'an, are probably the most-printed books, but it is nearly impossible to find reliable figures about them. Many copies of the Bible and the Qur'an are printed and given away free, instead of being sold. The same goes for some political books, like the works of Mao Zedong or Adolf Hitler. All such books have been excluded from this list for those reasons." Many other books "are printed and given away free, instead of being sold," so why target just the Bible and the Qur'an? --Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 01:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, the List_of_best-selling_books no longer lists the Bible (or Qur'an) due to the difficulty of finding reliable figures. But it does mention that either of those books are probably the most printed. Maybe stating that the Bible is one of the most printed books in history would better? Though I haven't looked for a resource for that. Paperfree (talk) 11:43, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

The issue with "number of copies printed" is the same as "number of copies sold". There are too many organizations printing and then distributing Bibles, for anybody to hope to track that data accurately.Gideons International claims to have distributed 1,600,000,000 Bibles and New Testaments since 1908, or 70,000,000 per year.(http://www.gideons.org/AboutUs/WorldwideImpact.aspx) The Bible Society claims to distribute 25,000,000 Bibles per year. (http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-bible-society/what-we-do-around-the-world/making-the-bible-affordable/) Umpteen other organizations also give away Bibles. Their numbers may, or may not be included in the total for either Gideon's or Bible Society. Other organizations distribute Bibles for profit. Deduct the gratis distributors that purchased Bibles from those who sell it for a profit. This only addresses the issue of print copies. When audio, video, and electronic copies are factored in, data reliability is even more questionable.
Whilst it is a pretty safe bet that the Bible is the most printed, and most distributed book in history, once one eliminates self-reporting sites, reliable sources are going to be virtually non-existent.
If one wants to include things with reliable sources, that the Bible is at the top of the charts, then number of languages it has been translated into, is the category to select. (457 languages, with partial translation in another 1,211 languages, and ongoing work in another 1,500 languages:http://www.wycliffe.org/About/Statistics)(451 languages and ongoing work in another 2,028 languages:http://biblesociety.org.nz/global-news/scripture-now-in-2479-languages/)(2,527 languages, in whole or in part:http://www.unitedbiblesocieties.org/sample-page/)p (talk) 19:40, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The Bible into a single file

Hello, I report the existence of the Bible in a single digital file: http://www.lafeuilledolivier.com/Ecritures/KJV.htm. Is this feature worth being added to external links? 09:50, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I would say that it would be more appropriate to link to something such as Bible Gateway, which allows the Bible to be read in multiple versions and multiple languages, if we are to add anything of the sort at all. http://www.BibleGateway.com Preston A. Vickrey (humbly) (talk) 04:09, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Children's Bibles

In Germany, there are - since the Middle Ages - Children's Bibles (i.e. books that contain some excerpts from the Bible in easy language and with many illustrations) by many authors, illustrators and publishers. This is described in de:Kinderbibel. In the English Wikipedia I just find The Children's Bible Story Book. Is there really only this one? --84.184.14.141 (talk) 13:25, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

In this article, nothing more than a short mention is warranted. However, this concept fully warrants a separate article, whoch I believe should be started by translating the German article in its entirety. Please give me some time to check what I can do. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 17:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
"...whoch I believe should be started by..."
It is not what you believe. Wikipedia should only be organized and contributed by non-biased FACTS, not how people believe it should work/look/state. It should be runned by the NPOV rule. I understand your suggestion, but if the anonymous IP address "believes" that he/she should contribute to this article by adding more information, then that means that there is a conflict between you and he/she.
The best way to fix this conflict is:
  • 1) The IP address should make a Wikipedia account to be trusted with his/her contributions
  • 2) Have enough referances/sources to prove that the Children's Bibles in German should be/stay in this Wikipedia. Whether or not the article should be translated does not mean that he/she can[not] contribute to the article about the Holy Bible, or
  • 3) You prove that this information is not related enough to be in this article, and that
  • 4) He/she creates or contribute to the article of "Children's Bibles [In Germany]" or any other title.
Thank you for understaning, I hope that this advice fixes the problem :D
序名三　「Jyonasan」 Talk 20:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Post Script: "whoch" is not a word in the American English dictionary, "I believe" it is a typo (mispelling), if you meant to write "which".[5]

Jewish vs Christian views of Creation

There is an article on Creation according to the Book of Genesis that discusses creation. There is a suggestion now to rename it and give it a Biblical name that may overlap with the New Testamant. I think that will mix differing views, but not being an expert on all of the topics, I think clarifications on that will be helpful here: Talk:Creation_according_to_Genesis#Requested_move_.28as_a_way_to_resolve_every_reasonable_concern.29

Your comments will be appreciated. History2007 (talk) 14:47, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I think a clarifications should be given instead of rename it.--Myth&Truth (talk) 10:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

External Link

Does the link at the the bottom of the article actually have permission to post the NRSV online, or does it just claim to by posting a large amount of the Bible online in small increments? If it does not have permission, then it should be removed.--Frindro (talk) 03:42, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The site abides by the publisher's copyright, so I don't see that there is a problem. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 06:08, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
It does not seem like they do, in fact there seems to be three infringements on the copyright: (1) over 500 verses have been reproduced, (2) entire books of the Bible have been reproduced, and (3) as there is very little work accompanying the parts of the Bible, which appears to be in its entirety, on the website the reproduction of the NRSV accounts for over 50% of the work.--Frindro (talk) 04:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


Stages towards canonization of the New Testament

A very good analysis of the canonization of the new testament appears here[[2]]. However I don't know how this information would best be integrated to the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Odinbolt (talk • contribs) 20:05, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

That site is a blog, and, as such, does not qualify as a reliable source unless it has been itself widely cited, which doesn't seem to be the case. However, it does contain adequate references, so the best way to go would be to usurp the site's references without violating its copyright on the synthesis. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 05:30, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Can an external link be added for the Bibleless Peoples Prayer Project www.wycliffe.org/bppp this project seeks prayer for languages that don't have the Bible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluecheese1 (talk • contribs) 20:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC) Arabic Christian Magazine The Grace offering the Arabic Bible — Preceding unsigned comment added by النعمة (talk • contribs) 23:24, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

New Testament introduction

I find it more than a little odd that the New Testament section is introduced by a reference to an article (Frank Stagg) that reads more like a deification than an encyclopedia article. Also, the point-of-view seems to be that of a rather recently-formed denomination (Southern Baptist) and not reflective of historical Christianity as a whole. It makes the section seem to say that THIS is the ONE, single approach. It strikes me as an unbalanced and impoverished introduction to the subject of Christian scripture. Is there any way we can broaden this? The canon was determined nearing fifteen and a half centuries before this guy was born--is there any way we can broaden this, especially given that it is the introduction???? InFairness (talk) 05:20, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Without even looking at the article on Stagg, I'd say there was extreme POV in that statement, so the wholesale deletion of that passage was a plus for the article. Good job. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 16:12, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Compromise vs. comprise

"The five books of the Torah compromise the legal code and origins of the Israelite nation." Shouldn't it say "comprise the legal code..." etc.? The page is locked so I couldn't edit it. 98.245.12.131 (talk) 20:37, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Good catch...looks like a vandal or maybe unintentional typo. Someone fixed it now. — fcsuper (How's That?, That's How!) (Exclusionistic Immediatist ) — 20:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Stephenog, 17 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

Please change "The Hebrew Bible is comprised of the books" to "The Hebrew Bible comprises the books" as the first is grammatically incorrect. Stephenog (talk) 14:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Done --Darkwind (talk) 16:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

likely broken link

I have been doing some online bible study from the Lineberrys site, however, I have been unable to connect for months now. I suggest you find a new link for the new revised standard version. 68.144.80.168 (talk) 20:59, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

The Holy Bible

Bible (disambiguation) mentions The Holy Bible (album). Is The Holy Bible (album) noteworthy enough (I've never heard of the album) to receive its own mention here, whereas Bible (band) is not? —ron2(talk) 22:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, Manic Street Preachers are definitely more notable than Bible (band). · CUSH · 22:33, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Davidlandin, 18 May 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} I would like to suggest a link to your non-English translations page found at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_by_language

This link could go below the "English Translations" link in the right hand box.

David Landin (talk) 21:07, 18 May 2010 (UTC)Dacid Landin

David Landin (talk) 21:07, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Not done: That's what the languages links on the left side of the page are for. 22:03, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request

"The Bible Jesus read was the Old Testament essentially as we know it today.[2] Books which are largely[weasel words] overlooked or misunderstood by modern Christians, such as Job, Deuteronomy, Ecclesiastes, the prophets, etc., are books which Jesus spent time reading and used in some of his quotes."

as

"The Bible read during the time Jesus is believed to have existed would have been the Old Testament essentially as we know it today [2], including books such as Job, Deuteronomy and Ecclesiastes."

No need to specify who "believed"; clear in context, and clunky to define "who" believe(d) this. "The prophets" is vague, the rest of the paragraph is implied by the former part, the "etc" is superfluous in the light of "such as/including". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.70.217.172 (talk) 15:40, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Can an External link be added to this page for The Bibleless Peoples Prayer Project (BPPP)(see http://www.wycliffe.org/bppp )? The BPPP program encourages prayer for languages that do not have the Bible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluecheese1 (talk • contribs) 14:46, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

We don't know what was "the Bible" at the time of Jesus. There may have been no official list at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.207.42.7 (talk) 14:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, we do know what was holy text the Jewish people at the time of Jesus. That would be the Tanakh, which *roughly* corresponds to the Christian Old Testement. For more, see Wikipdeia's own article on the Tanakh: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh

However, this discussion is moot as the text quoted above in the original edit request is no longer part of the article. Prtwhitley (talk) 04:11, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Plot section

I'm wondering if there shouldn't be a "plot" section to provide an overview of exactly what goes down in the Bible, as opposed to the development/significance/other stuff that occupies the article. If "plot" is considered offensive, maybe "overview" or something. I read the Bible a few years ago, but this article should really provide a legit plot summary here, rather than just covering all that in intense detail on dozens of sub-articles. Tezero (talk) 03:08, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, plot summaries are found in the articles about the particular books of the Bible. ≡ CUSH ≡ 08:58, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
What Cush said. The bible as such doesn't have a plot - some parts are history, many are not, and there are a lot of gaps. PiCo (talk) 12:23, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
You mean a time-line of Biblical history like Adam & Eve leave the garden, Methuselah born, Noah builds the Ark, Tower of Babel construction halted, Jacob gets a coat, et cetera? What about the events that we aren't sure about when they happened? Like perhaps event A occurred before event or perhaps it happened after it... Cross-referencing all Books to create an accurate outline of events would take too long and who's to decide which events are major and minor?
Plot of the Jewish bible (same as the Old Testament but with the books arranged differently - the Jewish bible ends with the Book of Chronicles): Creation-origin in and migration from Babylon-enslavement in and escape from Egypt-godly kingdom in Judah but God's grace withdrawn due to failure to worship Yahweh alone-enslavement in Babylon-restoration to a second godly kingdom in Judah ruled by priests and God (equals end of history).
Plot of the Christian bible (Old Testament same books as Jewish but end with the prophet Malachi): Creation-earthly kingdom under God's chosen, David (so far same as Jewish plot, but from this point it changes)-destruction of God's earthly kingdom due to sin (not the same sin as in the Jewish bible, which was failure to worship Yahweh; for Christians it's failure of faith rather than worship)-God sends his son, beginning of the earthly kingdom defined by faith-end of time with coming of the heavenly kingdom (i.e., the message of Revelations, which forms a counterpart to Genesis's creation myth).
Judaism is about God's election of a closed community (the Jews) and their salvation through worship; Christianity is about God's invitation to enter an open community (the Church) and salvation through faith. Neither is right or wrong, they're just two ways of constructing a narrative using many of the same books, but in a different order and with different interpretations.PiCo (talk) 05:03, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
I would add that that even among Jews and Christians, there are other ways of telling "the plot." So I am against such a section if it is based just on a reading of the Bible - that would violate NPOV and NOR. If we had a section that drew on reliable secondary sources, especially literary critics who have written on the Bible, that would be acceptable. But the plot of any work of literature is always the product of interpretation. If you think the plot of Moby Dick is, a sailor joins the crew of a whaling ship, meets an obsessed captain, and disaste ensues, or that the plot of War and Peace is, first there is peace, then war, then peace again, then you must hav been sleeping during class! Slrubenstein | Talk 11:38, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
I think a section outlining content is probably needed, since some readers may have no idea. It doesn't need to be detailed. Perhaps something like "The Old Testament outlines traditions of the creation of the world and the history of the Hebrew people from the settlement of Caanan to the Macabbean period of the 2nd Century BC. It also contains the divine law held to have been delivered by God through the prophet Moses along with a narrative of subsequent prophets and wisdom literature. The New testament documents the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and his followers in the 1st Century AD, along with theological discussions and prophetic works." Xandar 00:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. This seems like one of the only core topics here on WP where it seems to assume that everyone knows a lot about it already. Tezero (talk) 18:24, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Pending changes

This article is one of a small number (about 100) selected for the first week of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue are considered for level 1 pending changes protection, unless stated otherwise.

The following request appears on that page:

However with only a few hours to go, comments have only been made on two of the pages.

Please update the page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially.

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 20:07, 15 June 2010 (UTC).

Introduction wordiness

In terms of content, the introduction is vastly improved since the last time I've seen this article (earlier last year?). At that time, the introduction had a somewhat evangelistic tone. It now as a much more neutral tone. However, my complaint now is that sentence structure and wordiness of the current introduction makes reading it somewhat difficult. To those who are editing this article right now, may I suggest collectively looking over the text of the introduction to apply some brevity? — fcsuper (How's That?, That's How!) (Exclusionistic Immediatist ) — 19:58, 29 June 2010 (UTC)


In the introduction it says "The Christian Bible is divided into two parts. The first is called the Old Testament, containing the 39 books of Hebrew Scripture," I believe this should be reworded to reflect that depending on which Bible is being used the number varies, but if this can not be done it would seem to be best to say that the number is 46 as that is the most common number —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.230.236.228 (talk) 07:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

please turn the word "sacred" in the first line into a link

In the first line, reading "The Bible refers to collections of sacred scripture [...]", the word "sacred" should be a link. sacred

God, maker of the world (talk) 07:33, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's really necessary; we don't want to overlink. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 03:44, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Instead shouldn't the words "sacred scripture" be replaced with "texts" to preserve NPOV? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.249.60 (talk) 08:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Bit confusing

Just browsing through this because I don't know much about it. All very interesting, but got to this sentence: "The New Testament refers to the threefold division of the Hebrew Scriptures: the law, the prophets, and the writings" Which confused me. Retrospectively it does make sense; it's just that it can have two meanings. I read it as though the Hebrew Scriptures were called the New Testament. I suppose if you were already familiar with the subject matter it wouldn't matter soI don't know if this is important enough to change or not? Maybe something like: The New Testament makes reference to the threefold division of the Hebrew Scriptures: the law, the prophets, and the writings —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.40.128.119 (talk) 14:50, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, that's inaccurate. "Old Testament" wouldn't be accurate either, since the Old Testament is the collection of Hebrew scriptures, not the division thereof. Anyone has any idea what the author of this paragraph had in mind? -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 15:54, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
I just tried a remedy. The mistake goes waaaaaay back in the history of the artice. It is sloppy writing: it is understandable to think that "refers" = 'signifies" but in this context, "refer" does not mean signifies or stands for, it means refers to in the colloquial sense like "I was talking to your sister the other day and she refered to your new car" - it doesn't mean "sister" = "new car." In this case, the point is that the authors of the NT were themselves familiar with the three-fold division of the Hebrew Bible, suggesting that by the time the NT was written, Jews had already canonized their Bible. "refer" = 'attests to" or something like that. Does this make sense? Slrubenstein | Talk 18:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

best-selling

The introduction goes to great length to explain that there is no single Bible, but that "a Bible" is any of the numerous existing compilations (not to mention translations). It then goes on to say that "The Bible" is the best-selling book in history. That's a bit crude, isn't it? You may as well claim that "AT 750ff is the most popular tale in history". --dab (𒁳) 08:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't understand your point. You're comparing a compilation with a list? -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 16:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

no. let me be more clear:

  1. I am asking for a WP:RS to the effect that "The Bible is the best-selling book in history". So far we just have a bunch of web pages saying so
  2. I am asking for a clarification as to which bible we mean by "the Bible". Does this include the Jewish Bible, or is this strictly the standard 66-book Christian bible?

If we can substantiate the claim that "the 66-book Christian Bible is the best-selling book of all time", this will actually be a meaningful statement. --dab (𒁳) 16:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

"So far we just have a bunch of web pages saying so". Actually, the cited sources are Newsweek and Russell Ash. The simple fact that it is the "best-selling book" is probably true, but I do agree that it is an odd thing to say about the Bible, especially considering the number of organizations that give it away for free. In response to your second question, the List of best-selling books considers all versions of "The Bible", presumably Jewish and Christian alike, as one thing. If I'm not mistaken, the Christian Bible is basically a superset of the Jewish Bible, so it's not a horrendous mistake to lump them together. ...comments? ~BFizz 16:40, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The Businessweek item hardly counts, as it is an article about Harry Potter. They draw a 2.5 billion figure out of their sleeve in passing, with no reference (as likely as not the journalist just pulled that number off Wikipedia). But you are right that the Ash reference may be quotable, I think I missed that. The question is, what does it say? Does it just say "The Bible", and what does it base its estimate on?

Yes, if we are charitable, we can state that "those books of the bible which are common to all canons", presumably that's simply the Hebrew Bible, can be argued to be sold every time any sort of bible is being sold. The Bible is also a special case in the sense that the vast majority of copies sold are in translation. --dab (𒁳) 17:43, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The short answer to the question is that nobody knows how many copies of the Bible have sold, stolen, or given away. The long answer is (Outdenting, because it is easier to list source and numbers):

Unless specifically stated otherwise, Bible Society statistics always refer to the 66 Book Protestant Canon. I'd venture to guess that despite Catholic and Orthodox Christians outnumbering Protestant Christians by 3 to 1, more Bibles are purchased by Protestant Christians, than Orthodox and Catholic Christians combined.jonathon (talk) 22:07, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I propose to keep the current statement to the effect that "estimates range in the billions" is good enough and should be kept. Especially because a few billion copies is easily enough to substantiate the claim of "most copies sold, ever". --dab (𒁳) 14:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Quotations from Chairman Mao claims that between 5 billion and 6.5 billion copies of that book were printed under Chairman Mao's leadership. As such, I think it would appropriate to put the Bible Society number of 6 billion in this article, with a link to the source for that figure.) jonathon (talk) 16:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Generally, I would imagine that "best-selling" refers to the act of selling the book. Putting up an exact statistic for the total number of bibles printed is very different...since many of those were given away. True, somebody had to pay for them, but it's not the same buy-sell relationship that usually goes with the term "best-selling". I understand the desire to get the wikilink in here for "list of best-selling books" since The Bible is at the top of the list, but I repeat my sentiment that it is an odd thing to say about the Bible; perhaps we can move it out of the intro and into a subsection somewhere? ...comments? ~BFizz 00:41, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
The Bible is unusual, in that people buy it for the sole purpose of giving it away. http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-bible-society/what-we-do-around-the-world/making-the-bible-affordable/ claims 25 million copies a year are distributed. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2007-06-04/news/0706030703_1_religious-publishers-book-industry-study-group-bible-publisher claims 25 million copies a year are sold. Are you looking at gratis distribution by Bible Societies and non-gratis distribution by commercial publishers, for a total of 50 million copies a year? Or are only 25 million copies a year distributed, with the commercial publishers and the Bible Society using the terminology they normally use when referring to their own operations?

Bible vs Christian Bible

I was trying to get some info on the various gospels of the Christian Bible, not to mention quoted text from different sources (i.e. different translations). It seems really odd that there is no separate article on the Christian Bible. Is there a reason for this? Dynasteria (talk) 00:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Given that the section Christian canons of the Bible covers pretty much everything that would be included in such an article, it is not necessary. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 02:59, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Nothing is absolutely "necessary." The question is what is ideal or at least desirable under the rubric of an encyclopedia. Moreover, your comment doesn't address the decision not to give it a separate article. Or why the present article is supposed to address that need. Dynasteria (talk) 14:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe I've addressed the issue of why there's no separate article. It would be an unneeded duplication. See speedy deletion criterion A10. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 16:54, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

There is New Testament, which is the article on the part of the Christian Bible that is in fact Christian (as opposed to pre-Christian). There is also Old Testament. I don't really see that creating another article would be useful. In fact, Biblical canon is already suspiciously redundant with this article. --dab (𒁳) 12:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The "Christian cannons of the Bible" section is large enough that splitting it into its own subarticle is not an unusual propsition. The purpose of splitting it out would be, of course, to shorten this article and only retain a summary style overview of the section in this article. I don't have strong feelings either way on the issue. ...comments? ~BFizz 17:20, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
You could delete that entire section, replacing it with a pointer to the existing article that it duplicates --- right down to the table. What I've forgotten, is what that article is called. :( jonathon (talk) 23:04, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's review here, wikipedians. There is a separate article for the Hebrew Bible, the Qu'ran, Hindu texts, Buddhist texts... So ALL the major religions of the world have a separate article for the textual basis of the religion, except Christianity, which also happens to be the "largest" religion in the world. What's the hidden agenda? Dynasteria (talk) 15:28, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


well, as I see it, Bible could be a disambiguation page, but that is hardly satisfactory. The problem is, there is on Hebrew Bible and one Qur'an, but almost as many Christian Bibles as there are Christian denominations. You can always expand the "Christian canons" section and {{split}} it into a main Christian canons of the Bible article, and have Christian Bible point there. This would not be controversial, I think, it's just a matter of somebody sitting down and doing the work. Also, the Christian Bible is simply Old Testament+New Testament. So there are already two articles dedicated to the two parts of the Christian Bible alone. You can also try making "Christian Bible" a disambiguation between the two, but there is hardly a point in just creating a redundant Christian Bible article which does nothing but copy information from Old Testament and New Testament.

The general idea of parallelism ("there is a Qur'an article, therefore there must be a Christian Bible article") is a terrible guide. --dab (𒁳) 17:03, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

It seems the article missed the existence of the Christian biblical canons article. As it stands now, this article is vastly redundant and both the Christian and the Jewish sections should be trimmed to meet WP:SS. --dab (𒁳) 17:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

To answer Dynasteria's question, the explanation is pretty simple. Christians and non-Christians alike refer to the "Christian Bible" as simply "The Bible," with only Jews being expected to refer to something else. Given that the entire Jewish Bible is part of the Christian Bible, there's no need to separate them, really. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 19:10, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
so you are saying that this is the Christian Bible article? That's not the case. This article is clearly divided in a "Jewish" and a "Christian" part (and not an "OT" vs. a "NT" part. You will also note that Hebrew Bible and Old Testament are two separate articles).
I have now pointed Christian Bible to the article that actually focuses on the Christian canons.
most of this article is content duplication anyhow. We seriously need to ask ourselves, what is the point of this article as it stands. --dab (𒁳) 20:16, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I would think that anyone who bothers to type "Christian" in the search box would indeed be looking for the contents of the Christian biblical canons article, so I support the redirect you made. As for the OT being "Jewish" as opposed to the "Christian" NT, perhaps a cleanup of the section titles is in order, given that the OT is considered authoritative in Christian circles. No article on the "Christian Bible" would be complete without a detailled discussion of the OT. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 20:40, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood. I was saying that "OT" is Christian while it is Tanakh that is Jewish. --dab (𒁳) 12:46, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I have to admit to having gotten into this out of ignorance. Frankly, where I come from when people say "The Bible" they mean only one thing. Nor did I know that the word bible could refer to the text of any other religion. Thanks, all, for addressing this. Dynasteria (talk) 03:29, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

You still bring a point to the table. In every other context other than wikipedia, the word "Bible" has a roughly 95% chance of meaning "a modern translation of the Christian Bible". If for instance you google the word "Bible" how long would you have to look down the list to see an article that takes the meaning of the Tanakh. Even in virtually every dictionary the first definitaion reflects the same. Several issues I notice here are that the Tanakh seems to be given a closer treatment here and even has it's own main page. Seeing as how there are multiple definitions of "Bible", how do most articles deal with that? This article seems unique in it's attempt to mash the two definitions into one discussion when I don't think both perspectives are given proper treatment. It would be ideal for clarity's sake to have a "(Christian) Bible" page and a "Tanakh" page in my opinion, but I'm sure that won't happen. Not exactly what to propose as a solution. 0nonanon0 (talk) 23:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Authors of the Bible

I would appreciate it if anyone interested in the authorship of the Bible weighed in on the contents of this article. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 04:17, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

39 books

Someone wrote:

"The Hebrew Bible contains 24 books that were rearranged into 39 by Christian denominations."

Really? As the arrangement the 24 segments were scrolls rather than books and 39 book division predates modern Christian denominations this seems most unlikely! How about the Hebrew Bible contained 24 scrolls which were divided and re-aranged to make the modern 39 books at the time of the Reformation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.207.42.7 (talk) 14:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I have tried to improve this. --dab (𒁳) 11:21, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

FYI "book" is the traditional translation of the Hebrew, sefer and the Hebrew Bible is traditionally diided into 24 books. I think this anonymous user is confused about the difference between a book and a codex. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Epistle to the Hebrews

Epistle to the Hebrews is not of Paul —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fra4481 (talk • contribs) 07:16, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 70.67.3.135, 26 October 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} An updated knowledge of the Old and New Testaments. They are also recognized as the Hebrew Scriptures(old Testament) and Christian Greek Scriptures(new testament). A more accurate description removing the idea that the old testament has the old laws and the new testament has new laws that veto the old ones. 70.67.3.135 (talk) 19:25, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. Thanks, Stickee (talk) 22:12, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Source about bible translation

I found a source about Biblical translations:

We have a Sex in the Bible article. It needs cleanup. Please take it there. --dab (𒁳) 08:22, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Authenticity of the bible

I think there should be an section that discusses the historical inaccuracies of the bible. 74.90.233.6 (talk) 18:44, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Could you say anything more specific than that, perhaps with some links to reliable sources? Dylan Flaherty (talk) 18:59, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
we already have plenty of such content, obviously not under the "Bible" title, but at the articles about the respective topics (all time favourites are Genesis creation narrative, Noah's flood, The Exodus, etc., take your pick). These aren't "historical inaccuracies" though, as the Torah doesn't pretend to be a work of historiography to begin with. The actual historical books of the Bible (Kings, Chronicles etc.) as far as I am aware are reasonably accurate, even if clearly propaganda written from the point of view of one faction. --dab (𒁳) 08:18, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

CE vs AD

Is there any consensus to which form to use on Wikipedia: Bible. There seem to be many back and forth changes that are happening across the pages within the Christianity/Bible series with regards to how we date things. While this is minor it would make sense to stop the editing war and use our time to have meaningful discussions on how to make meaningful edits. Policy states "Use either the BC–AD or the BCE–CE notation, but not both in the same article. AD may appear before or after a year (AD 106, 106 AD); the other abbreviations appear after (106 CE, 3700 BCE, 3700 BC).", I would recommend we choose one so that it can be done with. Not trying to open a can of worms, just trying to find consensus and create uniformity for the Bible series.Preston A. Vickrey (humbly) (talk) 20:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

In articles like these the lingstanding custom has been to use BC/AD when talking about the Christian Bible or Christianity, and BCE/CE when talking about the Jewish Bible/Judaism. It seems to be a stable compromise, that signals to our readers that there is no one single system. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:56, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

"Myth"

Pardon if this sounds like a perennial topic, but I was wondering if there was a way to fix the complete absence of the word "myth" from the article. Please mind, I am using myth in the sense of story or sacred narrative not as a binary switch for factual. I am under the impression that this is the majority scholarly view on how the term myth is properly used. With that understanding of myth, the Bible (both of them, really) is unambiguously full of them.--Tznkai (talk) 01:44, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the only way around this is to follow our policies closely - if a reliable source says that the Bible or parts of it are myths, then we quote that source.
I think the problem in the past has not only been the binary thinking you aver, but also editors trying to make a POINT about the whole Bible. The problem is, most Bible scholars do not write about the whole Bible, they write about books or parts of books, which are presumed to have been written by different people at different times. The way to handle the problem you bring up is by writing about it with nuance, but that can only be done with detail, and with hundreds of thousands of analysis and interpretation of "the Bible," no Wp article can do this well for the entire Bible.
I think the solution is to address this through much better articles on individual books of the Bible. There are thousands of pages written just on Genesis, and at least half a dozen books taking diferent critical positions on just this one book - one can write quite a bit just on the analysis of chapter 1 or chapter 2. I think it is in the context of such an article, that really goes into detail on the questions raised by different critical historians on a chapter, or one narative, within a book, that you will find reliable sources not just using the word myth but explaining how exactly the chapters operated as myth. Slrubenstein | Talk
If I understand your proposition correctly, Tznkai, you are proposing the addition of a section/paragraph that in essence states "The Bible is a collection of myths." While this may be technically true, unless accompanied by an explination of the scholarly meaning of the word (and, frankly, even if accompanied by such) the average reader is going to read "myth" with exactly the binary switch you mention. Other than to make the article contentious, what point would there be for such an inclusion? Prtwhitley (talk) 04:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)


The ensuing lulz. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.75.11.96 (talk) 20:56, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Bible Versions and Translations

In the 3rd paragraph, especially the sentence: "The primary biblical text for early Christians was the Septuagint or (LXX)", is problematic. This sentence not factually correct, as evidenced by the lack of soucre citation for the claim. There were so many different versions of Christianity in the first 2-3 centuries AD that to state that there was ONE primary text for all Christians is simply nonfactual. In Jewish Christian groups, certainly, the Jewish holy texts continued to be used, but non-Jewish Christians differed on whether the Tanakh applied to them or not. Each Christian community had it's own holy texts. For some, a single copy of a Gospel (and not limited to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) was all they had. Others had letters from various leaders of the early church (some of these letters, most attributed to Paul, made their way into canon). Sources : The Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament, and The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader by Bart D. Ehrman; The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels; A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong

In sum, this entire section needs reworking and specifically so that it is not misleading about the texts available to the early Christian communities. I'd be happy to write something, but it's not something I can do quickly (or work on right now), especially since I would want to review sources so that I can provide quotes and specific facts and not just a general summary. I do recognize that there is already a separate article on the development of the NT, but what is this section is not congruent with the information in the sep. article. Prtwhitley (talk) 05:51, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the intended meaning was just that the primary Old Testament text for Early Christians was LXX (as opposed to the Hebrew). But of course this holds only for the first and maybe second century. After that, we have the Peshitta and Vetus Latina versions. So perhaps it will be best to just lose the claim. Or make it refer to the apostles and their early congregations of the 1st century exclusively. --dab (𒁳) 08:53, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Islam

The lead opens by saying that the bible is a collection of sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity, but is there some reason why Islam is ommitted from this list? (See Islamic holy books.) This fact seems notable enough to warrant inclusion, since Islam is not some small cult but rather is the religion of nearly a quarter of all humankind and plays a major role in current world affairs. Cesiumfrog (talk) 02:08, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The fact is, when it comes to sacred books of Islam, the Quran comes to mind, not the Bible. I don't know how much importance Muslims attach to the Bible and to Bible reading, but in forums, whenever I see a Muslim quoting a holy scripture to make a point, it's always from the Quran. Anyone has anything else to say on this matter? -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 03:33, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
As I understand it, for all significantly large religions, some understanding of The Bible is held sacred in and of its own right, by Judaism and Christianity depending on what exactly you mean by bible. Other religions, such as the Ba'hai faith and Islam hold the bible sacred because Judiasm and/or Christianity hold it sacred. So, roughly, "The Bible (from Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books") is the various collections of sacred scripture of the various branches of Judaism and Christianity" is more correct than "The Bible (from Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books") is the various collections of sacred scripture of the various branches of Judaism and Christianity, Islam, Ba'hai faith, and certain other religions" but less correct than "The Bible (from Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books") is the various collections of sacred scripture of the various branches of Judaism and Christianity.... The Bible is also believed to be sacred by Ba'hai faith, and certain other religions"--Tznkai (talk) 03:35, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Seems fair. Islam is an offshoot from early Christianity after it was exported to the middle east ca. 700 AD if memory serves me right. 82.95.25.120 (talk) 12:42, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 112.202.45.97, 25 January 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} The oldest Jewish Bible is the Isaiah and it is in Hebrew. The oldest surviving manuscript of Isaiah was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls: dating from about a century before the time of Jesus, it is substantially identical with the Masoretic version which forms the basis of most modern English-language versions of the book.[6]:pp.22-23 (Isaiah was the most popular prophet among the Dead Sea collection: 21 copies of the scroll were found in Qumran.)[2]

112.202.45.97 (talk) 13:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. It's unclear what exactly you want us to do with the info. Furthermore, there are what look like reference numbers, but you didn't give us the actual reference. Is this copied from somewhere else? In any event, please state more specifically what you want changed in the article, and provide full reliable sources to support those changes. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:47, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Typo

In the section on New Testament, the bishop of Durham is N T "Wright" - not N T "Knight" --Steveames (talk) 21:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

 Done--Tznkai (talk) 03:38, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Themerryman, 6 February 2011

The Bible {{edit semi-protected}} This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events are not real and are depicted with exaggerations. Themerryman (talk) 13:06, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Not going to happen by any standard. The Bible has many historical and factual truths, even if not everyone believes in the spiritual ones.--Jojhutton (talk) 13:22, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. Logan Talk Contributions 21:41, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
Are you serious Jojhutton? There is nothing truthful about the bible at all. And my source is below:

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/false.html

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/proph/long.html

http://www.worldagesarchive.com/Reference_Links/False_Testament_(Harpers).htm

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6154787/It-Is-Easy-To-Prove-The-Bible-Is-False

http://www.illuminati-news.com/fraud-in-the-bible.htm

http://www.deism.com/bibleproblems.htm

Etc, etc, etc 74.216.44.7 (talk) 03:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

  • We could look at those websites, of course, or we could stop feeding the trolls. Drmies (talk) 03:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Layout problems

I don't know about other browsers, but in IE there is a layout problem here: an ugly white space at the top of the page. It would be good to fix this, especially since it is such a high profile article. 86.179.112.201 (talk) 03:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Opening description of the Christian bible

Current article reads: "The Christian Bible (sometimes known as the Holy Bible) is divided into two parts. The first is called the Old Testament, containing the 39 books of Hebrew Scripture, and the second portion is called the New Testament, containing a set of 27 books."

Since different sects of Christianity have different Old Testament cannons, it really shouldn't read "the 39 books of Hebrew scripture." --75.39.23.117 (talk) 00:37, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Article Survey

To anyone who's interested in keeping things current on the page Talk:Bible/Article_survey, The article Torah redactor no longer exists. The information it contained has been merged to Documentary hypothesis. Specifically this section. 134.29.231.11 (talk) 21:09, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 27 March 2011

Some Jackass put The Bible (from Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books"), sometimes referred to as the Holy Bible, is the various collections of sacred scripture of the various branches of Judaism and Christianity. It is A FAIRY TALE. The Bible, in its various editions, is the best-selling book in history. [1]

i mean really no one noticed? someone fix it and take it out the immaturity of some people is amazing. Duranu (talk) 07:30, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting it, and registering an account to inform us. That edit survived an hour an a half. John Vandenberg (chat) 07:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Well, even if it was spotted, there was no need to remove a statement of acceptable accuracy for which surely numerous reliable sources could have been referenced. ♆ CUSH ♆ 19:30, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Opening Paragraph was lacking

The word 'various' was used 3 times in the first 2 sentences. It seemed unnecessarily wordy. Also added 6+ billion copies fact, as I think it's important to know the scope of how popular the book is. Could also say published in 2,000+ languages. Here's one of the many fact pages where info can be found: http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/King-James-Bible-Anniversary/ Hope that helps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam00 (talk • contribs) 07:03, 8 April 2011 (UTC)


Wikilink from this article REDIRECT to new article

For anyone with their settings "watching" this article, and therefore the Talk Page, they may wish to be aware of the discussion on Talk:canonical gospels. That wikilink, which is linked from this article, used to REDIRECT from this article to Gospel#Canonical gospels but now REDIRECTs to new article written over the REDIRECT by a single editor. The new article appears to have several issues including:

There is discussion at Talk:canonical gospels of how to proceed and whether to restore the REDIRECT as follows:

In ictu oculi (talk) 20:01, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

"Holy Bible"

I have a quibble with the opening sentence, "The Bible [...] , often called the Holy Bible in English-speaking regions [...]".

This seems to imply that the name "Bible" is common to many languages, while "Holy Bible" is a preferred general-purpose term in English. Neither of these things is true. In most (all?) other languages the word is not "Bible", while amongst English speakers it is only called the "Holy Bible" by Christians or sympathetic people going out of their way to accord it respect. Most ordinary non-Christian or disinterested English speakers would never call it the "Holy Bible". 86.181.204.160 (talk) 01:06, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The Bible is in almost all languages called "bible" or anything else derived from either the sound of the greek "biblia" (books) or the word's meaning (scripture).
The "Holy" thing is derived from the way the KJV has been published with the title "Holy Bible". That says nothing about the work or the book being sacred in any way. In fact it is rather not (just read it). ♆ CUSH ♆ 07:48, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
The anon IP is right, of course the word "bible" is used only in English-speaking countries!PiCo (talk) 11:08, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I never claimed that the word in many languages is not similar to "Bible" or derived from the same source, I said it is not "Bible". If the statement about "Holy Bible" is meant to be explaining that the words "Holy Bible" are often printed on the cover, then that needs to be clarified. At the moment, it reads, as I explained, as if "Holy Bible" is a general-purpose preferred English-language term, which is not the case. Perhaps "called" could be changed to "titled"? 86.179.115.141 (talk) 11:42, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Maybe the reference to "Holy Bible" should be dropped altogether, because the article is about the Bible as the literary or theological work, and not about in what format or with which title it has been published (although a section for that would be ok). ♆ CUSH ♆ 12:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't believe the expression Holy Bible should be found in the opening paragraph, but perhaps there should be a mention of it somewhere in the article. A few years ago, there was an edit war between the regulars who almost unanimously wanted the word Holy dropped and IPs with few or no other edits who performed a drive-by addition of said word. To put an end to that nonsense, I had inserted a comment to the effect that the word Holy wasn't welcome, but my comment had somehow disappeared during my wikibreak, so I've just put it back in. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 14:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I have heard people (probably Christians) in Spanish-speaking countries call the Bible "Santa Biblia." Since Bible (or Biblia) just means "book" I understand why people would call it "the holy book" to distinguish it from all those other books. Of course, simply calling it "the book" or "the Bible" serves the exact same function of singling this particular book out from among other books. My point is that one could just as accurately write, "The Tanakh, often called 'the Bible,'" or "The Old and new Testaments, often called 'the Bible.' "I do think it is silly to say "often called the Holy Bible in English-Speaking regions." Slrubenstein | Talk 14:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Heavens opening, seeing God

I'D LIKE SOMEONE TO HELP ME KNOW ..FROM THE BIBLE, HOW MANY TIMES DO WE SEE THE HEAVEN OPENING AND GOD SEEN/ AND WHO ARE THE PEOPLE WHO SEE HIM? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.202.214.228 (talk) 14:16, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Made this into a new section because it's not connected with the previous thread.
Answer: An awful lot.
Sensible answer: I doubt anyone has ever bothered to count. But it's interesting that God gets scarcer and scarcer as the bible goes on. In Genesis he's forever chatting with humans - Adam and Eve, Abraham, Jacob. Then in the next four books only Moses sees him. After that, a few prophets get to hear him but not see him. Then in the NT it goes back and starts over again - Jesus=God and people of the time can see him every day, then Paul sees him, and then nobody else till Revelation. PiCo (talk) 00:25, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Number of Books

I read <<The 24 texts of the Hebrew Bible are divided into 39 books in Christian Old Testaments, and complete Christian Bibles range from the 66 books of the Protestant canon to the 84 books of the Eastern Orthodox Bible. >> No Eastern Orthodox canon includes as many as 84 books. The canon with the most is the Ethiopian Orthodox at 81 books. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChilternGiant (talk • contribs) 15:10, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

The number of books in a specific Canon depends upon who is doing the counting, how they are counting them, and why they are counting them. Guessing, but the Eastern Orthodox Canon count of 84 was probably derived by including EpLao and 3Cor in the NT, and treating S3YM, Bel, Susanna, and P151 as separate books, giving an NT total of 29 and an OT total of 55, for a grand total of 84. Both The Ethiopian Orthodox Canon (Narrower Canon) and The Ethiopian Orthodox Canon (Broader Canon) contain 81 books, by the usual count that is used for them. However, the Broader Canon contains at least half a dozen more works than the Narrower Canon. Doing the same type of split with the EOC81(BC), as I did with the Eastern Orthodox Canon one has around 95 books. p (talk) 03:11, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

There is a missing citation with regards to the New Testament quoting of Enoch and Jubilees in the section regarding the Ethiopian canon(s). The reference is Jude 9 for Jubilees and Jude 14-15 for Enoch. --66.255.194.4 (talk) 14:21, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Definition of "Bible"

The current definition of the Bible, i.e., the various collections of sacred scripture of the various branches of Judaism and Christianity, seems vague. Why do we need "various" twice in the same sentence? I vote that we change it to something like that in the Encyclopedia Britannica Online, which says, "Bible, the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. The Christian Bible consists of the Old Testament and the New Testament, with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox versions of the Old Testament being slightly larger because of their acceptance of certain books and parts of books considered apocryphal by Protestants. The Jewish Bible includes only the books known to Christians as the Old Testament. The arrangements of the Jewish and Christian canons differ considerably. The Protestant and Roman Catholic arrangements more nearly match one another..." It is much simple, I think. Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 01:56, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Ahh, the virtues of not writing by committee. I agree this is better written (although I think "Hebrew Bible" is used more than "Jewish Bible"). So the problem now is we cannot plagiarize. But if you think you can improve the intro, go ahead! Slrubenstein | Talk 17:27, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
Why can't we just define the Bible as, "the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity," instead of "any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity"? The latter definition makes it sound like there is no one common Bible (as the article currently says), but I would say that there is a common version of the Bible. For all the canons, for example, the majority of the books of the Hebrew Scriptures are in common (even though the arrangement of the books is slightly different), but this article makes it sound like nothing is the same! Additionally, for the several Christian canons, we have the basic OT in common, as well as the 27 books of the NT (I know of no living religious group that adds or takes away from the 27-book NT canon--correct me if I'm wrong.) The only differences are when one adds in the Apocrypha held by the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches, and the Pseudepigraphal and Dueterocanonical books, held by some of those three, and the Coptic Church. But these minor variations should not envelop the probably greater than 90% common material (i.e., pages) between the various canons. If you divide the 66 books of the Protestant Canon by the 81 books of the most open canon, that of the Coptic Church, you are left with 81.5% books in common. Thus the statement, "There is no common version of the Bible," is utterly false, even though it makes sense. It should read something like, "Different denominations hold varying degrees of canonicity for some books, but the majority of the Biblical books are in common. (See Section "Christian canons," below)." Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 00:09, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
Also, Primary religious text is denotation-ally equivalent to sacred scriptures, although they are connotation-ally different. Since the Bhagavad Gita, the Vedas, the Book of Mormon, and the Avesta are defined, respectively, as "Hindu scriptures," "the oldest scriptures in Hinduism," "a sacred text," and "the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism," why should the Bible not be labeled scripture? It seems unfair to not label the Bible as scripture, and besides it would make the first sentence easier to read, because right now its clunky. What is the difference between Primary religious text and sacred scripture or just plain scripture? Therefore, I propose that we define the Bible as, "the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity." Then, say their original languages, then briefly mention the Biblical canons as it is right now. Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 00:09, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Section heading rename

I renamed the section titled "Development". I understand some people might be upset with that. My concern was that an average lay person looking for information on the history of the book itself, how it was put together from many separate disparate texts and why, won't easily find the three separate pages for that on wikipedia. Hopefully this made it easier. I also re-purposed a redirect of History of Bible to this section as opposed to the much more "Biblical events in history"-ish page The Bible and history. By no means is this a perfect solution, but let's not make wikipedia strictly for very knowledgeable academics who know to search for "development of" instead of "history of" bible. The average person will likely type in "origin of bible" or "history of bible" instead of "development of new testament canon". Feel free to improve on the section heading, maybe scrap the "/" or something, just get the word 'history' in there and make it clear it's about the origins of the book itself, not about things depicted in the book. Pär Larsson (talk) 19:17, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Kabbalah is not part of the Oral Law

The section on "The Oral Torah" contains the following statement: "The Oral Torah has different facets, principally Halacha (laws), the Aggadah (stories), and the Kabbalah (esoteric knowledge)." This statement is false. While the term "Kabbalah" has several meanings - it can, for example, mean "received knowledge" in a very broad sense, so broad as to include the Chumash itself - it specifically refers to the eponymous mystical tradition that evolved hundreds of years after the Oral Torah had been written down. In the quoted statement, the word "Kabbalah" links to a page which describes precisely this mystical tradition. Also, the section on "Torah" contains the following statement: "These commandments provide the basis for Halakha (Jewish religious law)." This statement is inaccurate. It would be more accurate to state that the Torah and the Oral Law (the Written Torah and Oral Torah) together provide the bass for Halakha. 194.90.167.111 (talk) 21:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Dr. Daniel Rohrlich (rohrlich@bgu.ac.il)

I see your point. And welcome your contributions to Wikipedia. Therefore I urge you to consult our core content policies WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:V. I hope after reading them carefully you will still want to contribute to Wikipedia. You can pretty much make any edit that does not violate these policies without worry that someone else will delete them.
However, I should warn you that you cannot delete the views you single out as problematic. According to some, important Kabbalistic texts are part of the Talmud and thus part of the Oral Law. Many of our Judaism articles (like many of our articles on other religions) suffer from the fact that in some cases there are strong disagreements between Orthodox (or fundamentalist) editors and those who favor critical scholarship ... and sometimes between religious and atheist editors. Our NPOV policy is meant to provide a framework for including all significant views. NOR makes sure that we never put in our own views, and V makes sure that the views that we DO put in come from reliable sources. But the inevitable consequence is that our best articles include multiple, conflicting views, and often views we believe (know) to be wrong.
If why I have wrote does not make sense, I ask that you bear it in mind and just read the three core policies and see if it then makes sense. Then, please consider actually editing. (But, be aware of HTML formatting rules that govern these pages ... you do NOT need to be a computer wiz to edit, you just need to learn some basic tricks like, you have to use combinations of text (like the colon) to achieve formatting, not the tab key or multiple spaces for indenting, Slrubenstein | Talk 18:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Hebrew Bible etc.

For some reason User:Cush keeps changing the phrase "Hebrew Bible" to "Jewish Bible" in the article's lede, despite the fact that the Wikipedia article name is Hebrew Bible. He's also changing the fact that the Greek Septaugint is a translation of a Hebrew original to it being a "version", and insisting that Jesus be referred to as "Christ".[3][4][5] Cush, can you explain your justification for these edits? Jayjg (talk) 18:35, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Please stop using "Hebrew Bible" if the article doesn't specifically refer to the Masoretic Text.
Who are you to define what the term means or what the "wikipedia term" is? The lede of the Bible article contains the term "Jewish Bible" several times, so in fact it would be consistent to keep using "Jewish Bible", which is also more accurate. The term "Hebrew Bible" refers almost exclusively to the Masoretic Text, which is a medieval redaction of older Bibles. "Hebrew Bible" has a much smaller and quite specific scope, while "Jewish Bible" refers to all Bibles ever used by Jews. And the Septuagint is not a translation of any pre-existing Bible, because such a collection did simply not exist before the various and often unrelated texts were compiled into one book by the authors of the Septuagint in the Ptolemaic period. The Septuagint is in fact the first Jewish Bible. And I do not insist that Jesus should be referred to as Christ, since that would be a blatantly Christian POV. ♆ CUSH ♆ 18:50, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Cush, Wikipedia has an article called Hebrew Bible. Not "Jewish Bible". The article itself makes clear that the phrase refers to a set or canon of books, not a specific text, and that it is used as a "neutral" term for "Old Testament", not as a synonym for "Masoretic Text". Why are you defining it to mean something else than what Wikipedia articles define it to mean? Moreover, the Septuagint is without doubt a Greek translation (or set of translations) of an original Hebrew text or texts. The first line of the Wikipedia article states "The Septuagint (play /ˈsɛptjuːəˌdʒɪnt/), or simply "LXX", is an Ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible". It's unclear why you would want to deny or obscure that fact. And finally, if you don't insist that Jesus be referred to as "Christ", then why do you keep changing "Jesus" to "Christ"? Jayjg (talk) 18:58, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
A case (Cush) of not seeing the forest for the trees? Functionally I would take "Hebrew Bible" as referring to the common codix of the Old Testament regardless of subsequent canon, variations, applications, interpretations. Hmm... took a peek at the article... hmm... that's pretty much what it appears to be. Neither does "Hebrew" make any judgement as to use in Jewish or Christian theologies. While I can't severely disagree with any specific point by Cush, that does not mean I support the overall contention which the points are intended to construct. Or perhaps I'm taking too simplistic view of this all? PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 19:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
I have never heard of it referes to as the Jewish Bible, maybe this is some Evangelical Christian thing? When Jews are writing in English (relevant, because this is English WP), they usually say "Hebrew Bible" as in here (The Jewish Publication Society is the most established Jewish press); from another press, from our friends at the Catholic Encyclopedia, another source (which by the way promises to make your dream come true!!) ... "Hebrew Bible" is a pretty uncontentious phrase. The problem is that Cush seems to thrive on contentious edits, I am wondering if she is just a typical WP:TE. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
User Cush can, at times, pass human understanding. For sure nothing he (he's a bloke, not a blokette) says is motivated by Christian faith - Cush is virulently anti-Christian. He isn't really very fond of Judaism either. (But he's not an anti-Semite - it's the religion that riles him). Sometimes I get along very well with Cuch, other times not, and this is one of the other times. Cush, the coirrect term, for our purposes, is "Hebrew bible". It means the Bible written in Hebrew, and it's exactly the same thing as the Masoretic text, since the HB is written using that text. And it's also the bible used by Jews, but that's pretty irrelevant really. How about we use some sources - how about starting with Emmanuel Tov? PiCo (talk) 09:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 7 March 2012

Open http://simplebibletruths.net/BiblePublishersAccountableToWho.htm then http://simplebibletruths.net/Wa-In.htm and answer important questions about the Bible and beliefs Especially (3) Name One Bible Penman or Any Hebrew Prophet, Priest, Rabbi, Scribe of Pharisee or Any First Century Christian that Taught That God is a Two in One or Three in One God—Trinity--Two or Three Separate Persons, but Still One God. Is that Fact or Fiction? Name Just One—More If YOU Can, The Bible Penmen Are --Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Gad, Nathan, Jeremiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Mordecai, (David, Asaph, Heman + possibly others unnamed wrote the Psalms), Solomon, Agur, Lemuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter and Jude. From 40_penmen_that_wrote_the_Bible#ixzz1gNllXKRJ FROM http://simplebibletruths.net/


Godyverde1 (talk) 09:30, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Inserting that would violate WP:LINKSPAM, as another editor has explained to you on your talk page. Esoglou (talk) 10:42, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 19 March 2012

I want to add the Book of Temptation to the wikipedia holy bible.

PCfreely (talk) 05:56, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Not done: The template is for detailed requests. Wait four days and make ten edits and you will be able to edit this yourself. Celestra (talk) 13:41, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm skeptical of the claims for the Bible's "sales" figures.

'The Bible is the best-selling book in history with approximate sales estimates ranging from 2.5 billion to 6 billion,[5][6] and annual sales estimated at 25 million Bibles.

Is this really the number of Bibles sold, or merely distributed? We know that many are given away free of charge by groups such as the Gideons. The sources cited are hardly scholarly (and one is now a dead link). This is an important point since it is easy to give books away but a lot more difficult to sell them. If no-one can come up with a more reliable link, I will change the sentence to: The Bible is the best-distributed book in history with sales-and-giveaways between ... Hellbound Hound (talk) 02:47, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

First, neither link is dead for me. Second, sources need only be reliable, not scholarly. Finally, your proposed language is unsourced original research. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:57, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Odd. For link [6] I get the following message:The given ISBN does not appear to be valid; check for errors copying from the original source. I'll try to find a source for my proposed language (or something similar).Hellbound Hound (talk) 12:13, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Edit

This article states that "Bible scholar N.T. Wright says "Jesus himself was profoundly shaped by the scriptures."[30]". I propose adding the following citation to expand on this:

"The New Testament quotes from all Old Testament Books except Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon .. and Jesus himself quoted from 24 different Old Testament books."
-- http://www.bible.ca/b-canon-old-testament-quoted-by-jesus-and-apostles.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.161.244.193 (talk) 18:14, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
An obvious red flag is how it implies a definitive list of OT books exists, contrary to the easily established fact that different people and organisations accept different canons. This bias is confirmed by its assertion that it wasn't people who decided the [sic] canon. That page seems averse to letting us know the identities and credentials of its authors and authorities, it appears to be the self-publication of one particular religious group. We can't just go around unduely advocating all the mutually-contradictory viewpoints of every netizen who merely claims (without verifiability) to speak for yet another nameless global non-organisation.
So no, I don't think a reliably-verified attribution of a view of a leading bible expert should be distorted with the addition of semi-anonymous sectarian POV-pushing. Cesiumfrog (talk) 23:55, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Bible story (stub)

Bible story is a stub. Bible stories redirects there and I have now re-targeted Bible Stories (capital) to redirect there also, rather than here. All as it should be unless and until the stub Bible story is deleted and redirected here.

Talk: Bible story links to some past content and talk. --P64 (talk) 19:59, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

"Canonical"

It is perhaps a rather sweeping statement that "complete Christian Bibles range from the 66 books of the Protestant canon to the 81 books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Bible". Omitting the 14 books of the Apocrypha that make the total 80. The KJV of 1611 was NOT a Roman version, and - despite assertions that the Apocrypha is 'deutero-canonical' or Roman, it is misleading to ignore the undoubted fact that these 14 books are included in every major version from Wycliffe on.Including the KJV and the Revised Version, in which they form a volume (printed in 1894). Can we truthfully say that 'Bel and the Dragon' is 'less canonical' than St. Matthew's Gospel? Historically, these 14 books were first omitted (i.e. nearly all Bibles now on sale are incomplete or abridged) by the British and Foreign Bible Society for FINANCIAL reasons only - in order to make Bibles affordable to missionaries, around 1814.There was no church decision to alter their status. This Bible Society presented King Edward VII with a specially-bound Bible for use at his 1902 coronation; on finding it incomplete, he refused to accept it and ordered another one.I would suggest that anyone purchasing a KJV or RV Bible with only 66 books, should get a refund.Or if asked to swear on it as a 'Bible', should instead demand the complete version.125.239.109.191 (talk) 04:54, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Going from the lowest range to highest range is a generally accurate way to do a sweeping statement. The Ethiopian Canon includes the books in the Catholic Canon. Most Protestants do not consider those part of the Bible, no matter how much anyone argues that they are. This is not a forum to argue what correct belief is, only documenting what different groups are observed to believe. See WP:Neutral point of view. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:08, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Masoretic text

Is this something worth getting into in the lead? Or is that too far down the rabbit hole?--Tznkai (talk) 05:45, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

God as main character

For what its worth, my impression is that the Bible as a narrative with God as the main character is a mainstream, scholarly view of secular Bible scholars. I'm trying to track down a source, but would appreciate any help from someone who has academic database access.--Tznkai (talk) 04:46, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

  • For what its worth and a "rather bizarre and fringe descriptor" according to some, but does the statement below lead to the understanding the Bible is a narrative with God as the main character is a view of at least these two professors and their two followers.....

Much of the Bible is written in narrative form where "in the biblical story God is the protagonist, Satan (or evil people/powers) are the antagonists, and God’s people are the agonists".

[6]A View From Above – The Bible’s Big Picture - Greg Chaney

[7]How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth - Gordon D. Fee - Douglas Stuart - Harper Collins Publishing


Any relevance here to your question? And by the way, thanks for all you do for the betterment of wiki. All Worlds (talk) 01:15, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Changes by All Words

Look, maybe I'm being an old fogey here but usually "not an improvement" is not an adequate reason to undo someone else's hard work without even an attempt to incorporate it in the pursuit of a better wiki-article. Can someone explain to me how these are so bad that nothing can be salvaged?--Tznkai (talk) 06:10, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the changes: in the ketuvim section a bunch of sources appear to have been added to previously tagged statements, which looks like an obvious improvement. In fact, the changes appear solely to be additions of references. And the sections in question seem to be ones that have banners requesting such addition of citations. I think the burden is on Editor2020 to explain what specifically was the non-improvement? Cesiumfrog (talk) 01:58, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I also notice Dougweller objected ("something a lot more recent please") because one of the added references was authored in the 19th century. That is not a valid reason to remove the reference entirely, especially for a passage already tagged in need of referencing. Such a revertion is obviously counter-constructive. If Doug would prefer a more recent reference then he is free at any time to contribute a better reference himself, although frankly, more recent does not necessarily imply better (in particular, the older work is often more authorative if we're concerned with what was the traditional view rather than just singling out an instance from among the massively-broad range of recently-published views). Cesiumfrog (talk) 02:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I concur on the traditional view point. If there are more recent sources that have a more refined or scholarly view on what the traditional view is, by all means use them.--Tznkai (talk) 02:36, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
So the two of you believe that a quote " by long standing "popular opinion" is adequately referenced from just one source dated to 1826? Really? And as it took him 40 years to write, he might have written that in the 18th century. And that was "singling out an instance" of early 19th century opinion, right?
Then we have "King Solomon is believed to have written Song of Songs in his youth, Proverbs at the prime of his life, and Ecclesiastes at old age" which is clearly pov, not giving alternative views, and sourced to one Rabbi and a self-published book (thus not an RS) titled "TRANSFORMATION of an Individual Family Community Nation and the World" by someone who doesn't seem to have any credentials as a biblical scholar.
For the statement about Jeremiah we have a very different situation, a reliable source completely misrepresented. Saying that he "is thought to have written Lamentations since he "had been present at the time and who had agonised over the imminent collapse of Judah, was the most probably author" ignores the many statements that dispute this, eg "take. It is true that Lamentations seems, at first glance, to be homogeneous—alphabetic structures, similar language throughout etc., but it does not follow that the units were written by the same person, any more than that similar psalms were written by the same pen. It may simply mean that (as with the psalms) a similar focus has led to a degree of imitation, as I have argued elsewhere/' It seems to me that these poems were composed in connection with the commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 586 BCE; that is to say, the purpose of the compositions was liturgical. The commemoration of the destruction of the first temple" That alone is worth a warning for misrepresentation of sources.
So, given the problems I've outlined above, do the two of you really think the version that was reverted should not have been reverted, and if so, specifically why. Dougweller (talk) 07:45, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Doug, I'm not sure whether you've read the version you had reverted to? It already contained the same text that you're objecting about here, it was just written without any citation whatsoever. Cesiumfrog (talk) 13:29, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I think what Cesiumfrog and I are saying here (and correct me if I am wrong) is not that these sources are the best sourcing in the world, but they are preemptively an improvement over the status quo of no sources at all until demonstrated otherwise. I would also note that writing an encyclopedic article about the Bible (any of the Bibles) is going to have to cover, at a minimum, the popular and mostly still extant traditions that have informed the practices of believers (including the traditional authorship of the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the wisdom books, the pastoral epistles and so on) as well as what modern scholars have been discovering since the German academe cracked the whole thing open a couple centuries ago. Now, if you believe in particular that some text needs to be changed (I just made one) or some sources need to be improved, than go for it. But I prefer some sourcing to no sourcing.--Tznkai (talk) 13:43, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Actually bad sourcing is probably worse than no sourcing. And I see no comment on the major misrepresentation of sourcing. Of course the traditional authorship has to be mentioned, but it also has to be made clear that there are disputes. I've rewritten it, copied some text from some of the articles, removed some of the bad sources (there are more in the article). And I only made one minor revert before, the use of a 2 century old source used to tell our readers about popular opinion, an example where a fact tag is better than a useless source. Dougweller (talk) 15:36, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm not here to argue someone else's work for them, but the process only works if we improve, rather than revert. Anyway, there is a continuum of bad sources, and I'm saying, unless there is a particular reason a source is harmful (misrepresented, unqualified, disavowed) rather than just sub-ideal (old, foreign language, minor scholar) I'd prefer a weak source over no source. At the very least it behooves us to go and find better sources rather than reverting - and yes, I know you, Dougweller, have in fact only done a small revert, and have improved the article significantly. I am just making the broader point, since the Bible is a particularly difficult topic to write on.--Tznkai (talk) 16:31, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Oral Torah

This section describes another topic. Bible allways refers to canonical written holy scriptures, which form the foundation of the religious tradtion. The oral torah is not written in its early stages and represents some kind of explanation or comment to the torah/ tanakh/ bible. It has not the same authority as the tanakh and it is something else but not the bible, although it is canoncal writing for some people. So it is enough to mention this oral tradition and the talmud and other writings with one sentence + wikilinks and focus on the main thing. Bible does not include oral torah and oral torah is not part of the bible.--Giftzwerg 88 (talk) 11:03, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree that Oral Torah isn't properly under the umbrella of "Bible" although it'd be worth rolling into an umbrella Hebrew Bible paragraph.--Tznkai (talk) 14:31, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
fits to Torah or Tanak.--Giftzwerg 88 (talk) 21:46, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

There remains thirty "citations needed"

There remains thirty "citations needed" on this page. Should any of the statements in the current sentence struture be changed in any of these requested citations or should they all be left as is and attempted within the current structure of the sentences to find proper references for them? All Worlds (talk) 00:05, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Expansion of section Septuagint

Imho this expansion is too much. All the details should remain in Septuagint and this section should be limited to the main issues of the septuagint. Septuagint is important when it comes down to the subject, which books belong to the bible.--Giftzwerg 88 (talk) 13:28, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Please feel free to condense it down a little. Editor2020 (talk) 18:28, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Estimated sales

"The Bible has estimated annual sales of 25 million copies,[3][4] and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West where it was the first mass printed book."

This estimate was cited from a New Yorker magazine article which states a "conservative estimate" to be over 25 million copies bought by Americans. Should the text not read "in America alone", and include the common understanding that the Bible is the best-selling book of all time?

"The familiar observation that the Bible is the best-selling book of all time obscures a more startling fact: the Bible is the best-selling book of the year, every year."

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/12/18/061218fa_fact1#ixzz2ATdF3QGh — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rickinchina (talk • contribs) 06:10, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Then one must also take into account the number of Bibles that are given away free annually. Take the Gideons for instance, who just last year distributed over 80 million free Bibles. Božidar 08:51, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Monotheism?

Lyrics word in Bible indicates named the three supernormal being.
--Rod Sacketts (talk) 00:59, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source for that? Ian.thomson (talk) 01:09, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
I suspect his "reliable sources" would be Acts 7:55-56,  Luke 3,  Mark 1,  Matthew 3,  John 17,  and John 20:17 ; relating to Tritheism and the Trinity.
Since monotheism isn't mentioned in the article, I see no need to include the Trinity (perhaps a link in the 'See also' section?).
74.60.29.141 (talk) 00:41, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
Where is Trinity mentioned in the article? It isn't. --Musdan77 (talk) 01:01, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
So... you agree?   (...that there is no need to mention Trinity, since monotheism isn't mentioned)  ~E: ( 01:50, 16 March 2013 (UTC):[Clarified: 74.60.29.141 (talk) 02:06, 16 March 2013 (UTC)]

Dead Sea Scrolls

The article mentioned:
"The oldest Tanakh manuscript in Hebrew and Aramaic dates to the 10th century CE,[1] but an early 4th-century Septuagint translation is found in the Codex Vaticanus."
What is ignored is the Dead Sea scrolls. They are much older. There is a wiki article that discusses the dead sea scrolls. CreateW (talk) 05:30, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Delete bible from page

108.184.36.208 (talk) 21:53, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. No edit was requested. Begoon talk 23:46, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 9 July 2013

4th paragraph: By the 2nd century BCE Jewish groups . . .

Should this not be ACE (AD)? BCE is before the common era (BC). This would be before much of the Bible was written. 173.167.246.156 (talk) 02:12, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Pretty much all of the Old Testament was well finished by the 5th to 3rd centuries BC. The sentence could use a "later" before going on to the Christians. Ian.thomson (talk) 02:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm not clear on where "later" would go in that sentence. At any rate, there doesn't appear to be consensus for the requested change, and no source has been provided, so I'm closing the request for now. Noting for the record that I can't find anything in the body of the article that explicitly supports that sentence in the lede. Rivertorch (talk) 04:09, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

"considered sacred in Judaism or Christianity"?

Shouldn't this read "considered sacred in Judaism and Christianity"? I am not a regular contributor to this article and see it is protected. Though I could make the change myself, I think someone who is more familiar with the history of edits in this article could make the change... My name is Mercy11 (talk) 12:45, 9 July 2013 (UTC), and I approve this message.

If I had to guess, I believe the reasoning behind "or" was that Judaism and Christianity use different Bibles. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:23, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
I appreciate your guess/response. However, I fail to see how that would be enough reason to change what would be an otherwise correct statement if "and" was replaced for the "or". My name is Mercy11 (talk) 19:41, 9 July 2013 (UTC), and I approve this message.
It wouldn't be correct if "and" were substituted for "or" because, as Ian told you, Jews and Christians use different bibles. If we were to say "and", it would knock the New Testament out of the Bible because it's not considered sacred in Judaism. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 01:19, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposal

I am not saying Ian is incorrect in his statement that the Jewish and Christian bibles are different. What I am saying is that we cannot assume that the reader knows that it says "or" because different bibles are used in each of those two religions. What I am saying is that we cannot assume that the reader knows that saying "or" is Wikipedia's way to not knock the NT out of the Bible. So, because the two bibles are different, perhaps the wording could be improved to reflect better the fact that their contents are different. How about if we reworded that first paragragh to read as follows:

" The Bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία, tà biblía, "the books") is a canonical collection of texts considered sacred in Judaism as well as in Christianity. The term Bible is shared between the two religions, although the exact contents of each of their collections of canonical texts is not the same. Different religious groups include different books within their canons..."

I am curious to know if this would accommodate your concerns? My name is Mercy11 (talk) 03:17, 10 July 2013 (UTC), and I approve this message.

No further comments??? Then implementing the tweak as discussed above. My name is Mercy11 (talk) 02:48, 23 July 2013 (UTC), and I approve this message.

IS THE BIBLE A TRUE HISTORY

Shouldn't this bible be classified in the fiction section along with the muslims Koran? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vcorani (talk • contribs) 05:38, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Most Christian denominations believe the Bible to be true. In my mind, it would be unfair to the believers in the Bible to classify it as fiction when so many accept it as the true word of God. I would be vigorously opposed to this proposal. --Jgstokes-We can disagree without being disagreeable (talk) 06:08, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
  • But the bible and the korans contents have many contradictions + unproven claims - otherwise shouldn't then a book on 'santa claus' also be classed as 'true' as the bible?
Webster definition of fiction, "something invented by the imagination or feigned; specifically : an invented story". Provide reliable sources that state the authors of these texts meant for them to be regarded as works of the imagination and then come back and discuss. --NeilN talk to me 17:08, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
We have mythology and religion categories --which include some articles about narrative and other texts-- so that fiction:history is not a dichotomy.
That said, mythology may not be handled uniformly. Christian mythology is under C. folklore, hence under C. in popular culture. Thus it is segregated from C. texts (inclg Bible) and C. fiction (inclg Bible fiction) which are side by side under Christian literature. Contrast Jewish mythology and Norse mythology in relation to literature and fiction.
The category structure is so complex, and not a pure hierarchy, so my hasty observation is errorprone.
(Torah in Islam is in some Christian categories, which seems to me a mistake.) --P64 (talk) 18:51, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't think it should be specifically categorized as fictional or true. There's no reason to make a specific statement one way or the other.—Kww(talk) 19:03, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Construction

I started a section on "Development". It might be better called something else, but it seems needed. It will have to be written carefully to not focus too much on one particular religion (Judaism or Christianity), but a general overview of how the Old and the New Testaments were constructed would seem to be a useful part of an article on the Bible. I don't have time now to expand the section. Other editors can, or I will probably eventually get to it. Airborne84 (talk) 10:39, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Not all Christians believe their particular Bible is the inspired work of God

All the statements that suggest all Christians believe their Bible is the inspired work of God are wrong. See Biblical inspiration. Dougweller (talk) 17:25, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
I see the quote there "A 49% plurality of Americans say the Bible is the inspired word of God but that it should not be taken literally". Do you have any statistics that suggest what percentage of people who identify as Christians reject the idea that the Bible is the inspired word of God (quite apart from questions of literalness)? StAnselm (talk) 20:49, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

The Eastern Orthodox Church would not consider the Bible the 'Word of God' but would consider it inspired by God. The Church also does not, as a matter of dogma, take the Bible literally. The Orthodox Church has nearly always interpreted the Old Testament, metaphorically through typology and the New Testament, literally. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.127.77.100 (talk) 17:28, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Where is your source for this? Wikipedia thrives on verifiability. Without a source, that is just your opinion and not considered valid for WP purposes. --Jgstokes (talk) 22:35, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Divine inspiration section: "the Bible" vs "their Bible"

This section says "Christians believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God", given that Christians do not share a common biblical canon for the old testament the use of the singular "the" is incorrect (it implicitly assumes there is only one such Bible). Even changing it to "their Bible" would still be odd, perhaps "their denomination's Bible"? 86.26.236.107 (talk) 16:52, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

My proposal to use the Westminster confession of Faith as a secondary source to verify this point was rejected by an editor. Are there any other creeds that can be added as an acceptable resource to fill the citation needed void? Possible choices are: the Nicene Creed and the London Baptist confession of faith. We can also use a combination of creeds to represent a larger cross-section of Bible believers. Since this article is part of the English Wikipedia, I propose that we only consider supporting English-speaking Christians when choosing citations. None of the 66 books of the Bible can be used as a citations since they are all primary sources. Edwardjones2320 (talk) 13:38, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Need section on dating of composition

It is very difficult to find information in this article, or in the connected article Historicity of the Bible, concerning the dates of composition or redaction of the different parts of the Bible. Surely an article of this level of detail should provide that information!Wwallacee (talk) 12:28, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

See Biblical criticism. The dating of various parts of the Bible, and of the final editing of individual Bible books, especially the Pentateuch (the Books of Moses), the Prophets and the NT gospels, is a scientific field of its own with widely differing asessments and theories on just about any issue. And many confessional scholars who believe in divine inspiration of the word plainly reject the idea that these books were ever really edited or put together from earlier source writings. 83.254.151.33 (talk) 16:44, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Most scholars date the composition of the Old Testament between the 8th century BC and the 2nd century BC, and the composition of the NT between 50 and 130. This should be said somewhere in the article. ChercheTrouve (talk) 08:14, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
True, especially if we're talking of the final editing of entire books - and in any case, few academically respected Biblical scholars and exegetes after WW2 would have contested that much the larger part of the OT, even a major share of the Pentateuch, is later than 750 BC. There's a sizable (and outspoken) bunch of post-seventies scholars who claim that very little of any part of the OT as we know it was written or composed before 600, not even as oral traditional sources.
The trouble is, if we add a section with general and fairly sweeping statements about when the OT (its books in general) was written, then it could soon become an invitation to edit warring. You'll get on the one hand people who want to add in that the scholars they trust consider most Biblical books as close to the actual events as they can have it (adding citations and quotes from those scholars and no one else), and on the other hand people who have read outspoken recent scholars and who will want the article to say that "it is now recognized by the consensus of science that nearly all of the Old Testament was composed sometime between the 6th and the 2nd century BC by people with little or no knowledge of actual pre-exile Judaic history". That kind of late-dating was certainly not accepted a couple of decades ago and it's still quite controversial.
The vogue of overall downdating of much of the actual writing and editing of the OT until after the Babylonian Exile (van Seters, Lemche and others), or even after 400 BC, is a recent phenomenon and exegetics as a scientific field is populated by scholars who often tend to be guided as much by (or more by) ideological presuppositions and by methods and theory tools that are in fashion within human sciences and archeology in general as by the scientific data they're working on, by looking at those data themselves and putting them in context (and this is true irrespective of what kind of relationship the scholars in question have to any confession, or being linked to no confession at all). It's not like in physics or chemistry where you can often basically take it for granted that "the latest consensus results are best, the most reliable": Old Testament exegetics and Biblical criticism form a heavily politicized and "research fashion"-injected field littered with big and brash egos and careers supported by this or that "new school". Sure, the article could well point out that current scholars most often tend to see the editing and a large part of the writing of the Old Testament as occurring sometime between 800 and 250 (excluding the OT deuterocanonic/"apocryphal" books, which are somewhat later, mostly 4th to late 2nd century BC), and that it's a long-established consensus that almost no single book of the OT as we know it existed in anything like its present form before at least 720 BC - but it should also point out how many books and pre-existing sources and traditions are still controversial in terms of date and origin, and that the whole field is constantly geting racked by conflicts relating both to scientific results and to circumstances outside of science. 83.254.151.33 (talk) 23:48, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Jesus of Nazareth

(request transferred from Portal talk:Contents/People and self) --Stfg (talk) 21:05, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Change this line from : Jesus is its central figure. Plz, change this to Jesus of Nazareth is its central figure. There a lot of people named Jesus we want to make sure it is the one from the Bible. Put here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible just under New Testament 68.230.32.148 (talk) 21:30, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

This seems rather unnecessary, as the name is wikilinked directly to Jesus so there is no risk of ambiguity. Anyone else have an opinion? -- LWG talk 22:31, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
I agree. (I just transferred it here without closing so that editors who have worked on this article could have a say.) --Stfg (talk) 23:50, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
Not done: we need to close this, and there doesn't seem to be any consensus to change. Most people would understand "Jesus" to refer to J of N unless some other qualifier is present, especially in the context of an article about the Bible. --Stfg (talk) 14:29, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Late to this, but it might be instructive for the future. There is some controversy over whether Jesus was a fictional character. Within peice of literature "the Bible", there is a section concerned with a character, "Jesus". "Jesus of Nazareth" is a specific person understood by most historians to have existed. There is argument about whether or not Jesus of the bible and that historical figure are usefully conflated. The most neutral, and equally accurate, and only slightly less precise result for this article is to refer to "Jesus", unadorned.--Tznkai (talk) 20:15, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Reverting recent changes to wp:Lead section

User:Tznkai has requested on my talk page why I reverted his recent changes.

Old text:

The Bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία, tà biblía, "the books") is a canonical collection of texts that are considered sacred. The term "Bible" is shared between Judaism and Christianity, but the collection of texts each considers canonical is not the same. Different religious groups include different sub-sets of books within their Biblical canons, in different orders, and sometimes divide or combine books, or incorporate additional material into canonical books.[1]

The Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, contains twenty-four books divided into three parts: the five books of the Torah ("teaching" or "law"), the Nevi'im ("prophets"), and the Ketuvim ("writings").

Christian Bibles range from the sixty-six books of the Protestant canon to the eighty-one books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church canon. The first part of Christian Bibles is the Old Testament, which contains, at minimum, the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible divided into thirty-nine books and ordered differently from the Hebrew Bible. The Catholic Church and Eastern Christian churches also hold certain deuterocanonical books and passages to be part of the Old Testament canon. The second part is the New Testament, containing twenty-seven books: the four Canonical gospels, Acts of the Apostles, twenty-one Epistles or letters, and the Book of Revelation.

By the 2nd century BCE Jewish groups had called the Bible books "holy," and Christians now commonly call the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible "The Holy Bible" (τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια, tà biblía tà ágia) or "the Holy Scriptures" (η Αγία Γραφή, e Agía Graphḗ). Many Christians consider the whole canonical text of the Bible to be divinely inspired. The oldest surviving complete Christian Bibles are Greek manuscripts from the 4th century. The oldest Tanakh manuscript in Hebrew and Aramaic dates to the 10th century CE,[2] but an early 4th-century Septuagint translation is found in the Codex Vaticanus. The Bible was divided into chapters in the 13th century by Stephen Langton and into verses in the 16th century by French printer Robert Estienne[3] and is now usually cited by book, chapter, and verse.

The Bible is widely considered to be the best selling book of all time,[4] has estimated annual sales of 100 million copies,[5][6] and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West where it was the first mass-printed book. The Gutenberg Bible was the first Bible ever printed using movable type.

Revised version:

A bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία, tà biblía, "the books") the canonical collection of sacred texts with a religion. "The Bible" is a term shared within Judaism and Christianity to refer to one of several competing canons of texts. Some version of the Bible is also held sacred by Samaritanism, Islam and the B'ahai faith. Different religious groups and sects have different sub-sets of books within their Biblical canons, in different orders, and sometimes divide or combine books, or incorporate additional material into these books.[1]

The Hebrew Bible, called the Tanakh within Judiasm, contains twenty-four books divided into three parts: the five books of the Torah ("teaching" or "law"), the Nevi'im ("prophets"), and the Ketuvim ("writings"). The Christian Biblical canons range from the sixty-six books of the Protestant canon to the eighty-one books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church canon. Christian Bibles are divided into two parts. The first is the Old Testament, which contains, at minimum, the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible divided into thirty-nine books and ordered differently from the Tanakh. The Catholic Church and Eastern Christian churches also hold certain deuterocanonical books and passages to be part of the Old Testament canon. The second part is the New Testament, containing twenty-seven books: the four Canonical gospels, Acts of the Apostles, twenty-one Epistles or letters, and the Book of Revelation.

By the 2nd century BCE Jewish groups had called the Bible books "holy," and Christians now commonly call the Old and New Testaments together "The Holy Bible" (τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια, tà biblía tà ágia) or "the Holy Scriptures" (η Αγία Γραφή, e Agía Graphḗ). Many Christians consider the whole canonical text of the Bible to be divinely inspired. The oldest surviving complete Christian Bibles are Greek manuscripts from the 4th century. The oldest Tanakh manuscript in Hebrew and Aramaic dates to the 10th century CE,[2] but an early 4th-century Septuagint translation is found in the Codex Vaticanus. The Bible was divided into chapters in the 13th century by Stephen Langton and into verses in the 16th century by French printer Robert Estienne[3] and is now usually cited by book, chapter, and verse.

The Bible is widely considered to be the best selling book of all time,[4] has estimated annual sales of 100 million copies,[5][6] and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West where it was the first mass-printed book. The Gutenberg Bible was the first Bible ever printed using movable type.

The tone of the introduction just seems so wrong like "A bible" makes it seem like it's fiction. I'm pretty sure that the B in Bible is always uppercased since the Bible is a title of a book, and the Wiki article is called Bible. This "the collection of sacred texts with a religion", is also unusual because is sounds like a non-reglious person added this which sounds like a pushing move. The worst part of this section is "Many Christians consider the whole canonical text of the Bible to be divinely inspired" which I find that really violates WP:NPOV. Overall, this change done by Tznkai does nothing but causes issues such as how the article is introduced and the tone of the section entirely via violation of WP:IMPARTIAL and WP:WORDS using WP:WEASEL. -- ♣Jerm♣729 05:21, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
First off, the section you have a problem with is in the original as well. Since global numbers are impossible to get, we appear to be stuck with the vague fact, but it needs rewriting. As a matter of fact, "bible" is used in the English language in two ways, in lower-cased type. 1) to refer to the sacred writings of any religion, as in "the Pali canon is the Hindu bible", 2) to refer to any authoritative book even in non-religious contexts, as in "Le Guide Culinaire is the bible of French cookery". Capitalized, it usually referred to just the Christian Bible, but now it also refers to the Hebrew Bible/Tanakh. The new lead was a bit unwieldy, but reality is considerably more unwieldy.
My writing POV here is neutral, and what I mean by that is academic, historical, and comparative. In that context the "Bible" is not a book, it is a canon of books. There is no grouping of texts that is universally agreed to be the canonical Bible across all notable religious groups, which include the diversity reflected in the paragraphs. It is not our job to decide which of those groups are right, or whether or not they are arguing over fiction or history.--Tznkai (talk) 15:44, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
You have a point there. I didn't know the original had the same context so sorry about the violations. The introduction needs some work such as removing WP:WEASEL texts etc. -- ♣Jerm♣729 16:38, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
I'd like it shorter (1 paragraph lead, move majority to body), or at least more logically organized, but my start on that was reverted, so here we are.--Tznkai (talk) 17:18, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
"A bible" is still wrong because the article is called Bible, and the article is talking about "the Bible" specifically. -- ♣Jerm♣729 18:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
As previously discussed, there are conflicting definitions, and the article may be titled "bible". All article pages have capitalized first letters. A naive reader will have some confusion because of the differing . Now, it might be worth starting up an etymology section or just a disambiguation for the lower cased sense, but we still have two different religions which refer to their scriptures as "the Bible" and these are related, but significantly different volumes. So when any believer refers to "the" Bible, the outside observer has to respond "which one?" the same way "the nation" or "Korea" can be ambiguous. I'm open to other ways of writing it, but I'm not convinced the old text captures the very real linguistic ambiguity.--Tznkai (talk) 18:33, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Many words have more than one meaning, but Wikipedia is not a dictionary and articles concentrate on only one concept. This article is about the Bible. If you would like to create a page about (lower case ) bible, you are more than welcome to do so, but it is more probably more appropriate to use wiktionary ( See wikt:bible and wikt:Bible). Editor2020 20:49, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Even ignoring the lower-cased sense of bible, as it stands the article refers to both the Christian and Hebrew Bibles. So which "the Bible" do you mean?--Tznkai (talk) 21:21, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
As the article says "The term Bible is shared between Judaism and Christianity, although the contents of each of their collections of canonical texts is not the same." The usage has been extended to cover the Tanakh, calling it the Hebrew Bible. Editor2020 23:40, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Map deletions

There's a discussion at Tuqu' talk, and Halhul talk, and Dura talk that may interest some of you.

In short, the 3 articles discuss the history of the locations from Biblical times.

But when a map reflecting the text was added, the map was deleted (e.g., here) on the basis that the map was: a) not related to archeological evidence; b) undue; and c) "probably" a "myth".

Similarly here the views expressed by a professor were deleted, as "mythology".

Views of the community might be helpful. Epeefleche (talk) 02:03, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Christian Bible

Why is there an article titled Hebrew Bible but none titled Christian Bible? What classic Wikipedian sub-text is going on here? I realize that the Christian "Bible" (capitalized) is regarded as fairly insignificant, modernly, but at least from a historical standpoint it might merit an article of its own. The joining of the Hebrew Bible and Christian Bible in this article while giving the first a separate article seems to have an agenda all its own, or at least gives the appearance of doing so.

I'll be happy to change the title of the article or start a new one. :-) Dynasteria (talk) 07:51, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

In the English langauge "Bible" almost always includes the New Testament. In fact, there are WP articles on Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, and Old Testament, reflecting different nuances in terminology. "Christian Bible" does not have the scholarly use that "Hebrew Bible" does. (Note also that it is never "Jewish Bible" - "Hebrew" refers to the language.) StAnselm (talk) 08:17, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's kind of a classic Wikipedian non-answer. Clearly, obviously, unambiguously, in the English language "Bible" almost always includes the New Testament. Also, I'm not asking about "nuances in terminology" and I have no idea why you are bringing up the fact that the term "Jewish Bible" is never used. Can you please address my inquiry?

What, then, is the scholarly use of Christian Bible versus Hebrew Bible? I mistakenly assumed that "Hebrew Bible" meant the Torah.

OK, let's get clear, here. I see that the Torah has its own article but the Christian Bible does not. I see that the "Quran" has its own article but the Christian Bible does not. (Not only that but the "Quran" has its own idiosyncratic, if not idiot-bulschizistic, spelling.) Obviously, all the religions of the world that are based on text will have an article on that specific text, EXCEPT FOR CHRISTIANITY. This is not arguable. It is a fact within Wikipedia.

By the way, St. Anselm, I took a minute to look at your personal pages and I see you have a pretty impressive editing record and you apparently have started a lot of new articles here on Wikipedia. Wouldn't it make sense to have an article strictly on the Christian Bible? I just don't get it. I feel like the Wikipedians here are maintaining a joint effort to keep Christianity out of the news. And I'm not exactly some Christian soldier, I just came here to get some information. Dynasteria (talk) 08:39, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

If the suggestion is to create an article called "Christian Bible" separate from this one, while leaving this in place, that would be fine, in my opinion. John Riches states in the The Bible: A Very Short Introduction (OUP) that, "there is no such thing as 'the Bible': there are a significant number of Bibles, which differ both in the books included and in the order in which those books occur". To me, that means that we should be precise about which "version" of the Bible we are talking about here at Wikipedia. We have a Catholic Bible article, so I see no reason why there couldn't be an article between this one and the Catholic Bible called "Christian Bible", in concept. Working out the details and deconflicting them might take some time. Airborne84 (talk) 09:10, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Um, the Catholic Bible is a Christian Bible, so I can't see how you could do this. Yes, there are a number of Bibles, eg the Ethiopic Orthodox Canon, the KJV, various other Orthodox Bibles, etc - all of them Christian Bibles. There is no one Christian Bible. Dougweller (talk) 10:53, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Then the large section within this article called "Christian Bibles" should be deleted. But I disagree with that, and we're really just asserting the same premise but with different conclusions. That section could simply be split into a separate article called "Christian Bible" which would comprise the various Bibles within Christianity similar to the section in this article. If there is concern that the singular wording of "Christian Bible" would not accurately reflect that there are many, one could simply point to the singular title of this article and the many types that it covers. Airborne84 (talk) 14:27, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Airborne: the "John Riches" link is to a cricketer.

With regard to the fact that there is no single version of the Bible used by all Christians, this is not seriously any kind of plausible argument against an article on the Christian Bible. You must be aware that Wikipedia has an article titled "Dog", despite the fact that there are many different breeds of dogs. This statement, "there is no such thing as 'the Bible': there are a significant number of Bibles, which differ both in the books included and in the order in which those books occur" is something I just happen to disagree with, as it is untrue. If you said "There is no SINGLE thing which we refer to as the Christian Bible ..." it would be true but irrelevant. Clearly, obviously, and unambiguously there is such a thing as the Christian Bible with many incarnations, you might say. It exists. You can walk into a church and hold one in your hands, You can buy one on Abe Books. If you went back in time, you could talk to Mr. Gutenberg or Mr. Luther (in German) about it. Dynasteria (talk) 15:59, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Once again, lest I be unclear, I am unambiguously accusing Wikipedia of disparate or prejudicial treatment of Christianity by its not having an article on the Christian Bible. Dynasteria (talk) 16:24, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The discussion is moot, and you are wrong in your premise. We have that article. It's called Christian biblical canons and it's mentioned in the "Christian Bibles" section. Which you would have found if you had searched for Christian Bible which takes you to that section. Which you've read, so you should have seen that article. Of course I never said there is no such things as a Christian Bible, I've got a couple on my bookshelf. The lead starts "A Christian biblical canon is the set of books that a Christian denomination regards as divinely inspired and thus constituting a Christian Bible." Dougweller (talk) 18:15, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Lol. Sorry about the link to John Riches. The John Riches I quoted is a Biblical scholar. Oh well. In any case, there seems to be quite a bit of room to compromise here, and many possible options. I'm going to step out, but I recommend the two sides simply discuss concretely what these options are and what might be acceptable to editors here at Wikipedia. For example, you could make the case to rename Christian biblical canons to "Christian Bible". There are other possibilities. Best wishes. Airborne84 (talk) 19:26, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Dougweller: "The discussion is moot, and you are wrong in your premise." ??????? Who are YOU? "We have that article." You have an article titled "Christian Bible"? I am arguing for an article titled "Christian Bible". Please respond to my actual statements.

"and it's mentioned in the "Christian Bibles" section. Which you would have found if you had searched for Christian Bible which takes you to that section." Hmmm..... When I type Christian Bible into the search box it brings me right back to this article. What the hell is a Christian canon? Is that something that goes BOOM with a lot of aromatic incense? Or BOOM when you get really angry and incensed? Dynasteria (talk) 19:52, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I think I get what you are saying. Yes, when I search for Christian Bible it takes me to the section in the article which I am currently arguing for the nonexistence of. Yes, that makes sense. I'm arguing for a separate article because a mere section in an illogical article is insufficient for all of Christianity, and Dougweller's response is that the "section" already exists and, further, that an article already exists which nobody will ever Google or understand. I think this is what is usually called getting the "runaround".

Let me make myself perfectly clear: I am arguing for an article titled "Christian Bible".

Airborne84: "In any case, there seems to be quite a bit of room to compromise here, and many possible options." ??????? The discussion hasn't even begun yet and people are stepping out. I have no idea what a compromise would look like since no one has responded to what I've actually said. Dynasteria (talk) 19:54, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

And how would your article differ from Christian biblical canons? And how about some good faith? No one is giving you the run around. Dougweller (talk) 20:30, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm talking about the name of the article, not the actual content. I will assume good faith. I simply would like a response to my question: Why is there no article titled "Christian Bible"? I have attempted to make the case for it. I assert that the name has substantive ramifications. Please respond. I will look into bringing this up in the places that have been suggested on my talk page and elsewhere. Thanks. Dynasteria (talk) 02:06, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The Bible is ...

Regarding my change in the first sentence of the article: You can't say the "Bible" is something and then go on to say there is no such thing as the Bible. Dynasteria (talk) 17:38, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Please see WP:LEADSENTENCE. It would be better to remove the words "a term which means" in the article's first sentence in light of this. If this version is acceptable to the editors here, that is. Airborne84 (talk) 19:30, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure which part of the WP policy you think my change is in violation of. My point here is that the article is about a concept, not a thing. There is no such thing as the Jewish/Christian Bible or the Christian/Jewish Bible. Nevertheless, that is what the article is about. There is, however, an abstract concept of "Bible" (perhaps) in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and that is what my edit is intended to point to.

The fact that this is so difficult to explain suggests to me that the article is false in its premise and needs to be renamed to Christian Bible. There is in reality no such concept as "Bible" which applies equally and coterminously to Christianity and Judaism. Dynasteria (talk) 20:04, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Seems pretty clear the article is covering a thing. --NeilN talk to me 20:34, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

But you provide no example of this thing Mr. NeilN who feels it his right to undo my edits. Can you spend some time here and let us know who you are, or is this a wham-bam-thank-you-m'am moment. Ugh. I feel it whar it 'urts, guvnor. Dynasteria (talk) 21:00, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

"The Bible is widely considered to be the best selling book of all time..." Does that help? --NeilN talk to me 21:10, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I see your remark as a non-sequitur. If the Bible "is widely considered to be the best selling book of all time" it should merit its own WP article, no? Dynasteria (talk) 21:26, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Which is this one. --NeilN talk to me 21:28, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Are you joking? Are you some kind of wikipidiot???? I am talking about how inadequate this very article is and YOU cite it as some authority?!?!? What universe are we in? We are clearly not even in the same galaxy, much less solar system or on the same planet. READ what has been stated BEFORE you try to join in. Dynasteria (talk) 21:45, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

First you ask me if I'm a moron and now you ask me if I'm a wikipidiot. Rather presumptuous questions from someone with a grand total of 94 edits. Hint: Disagreeing with your opinion is not an indication of either condition. --NeilN talk to me 21:52, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Please look at our Automobile and Encyclopædia Britannica articles. We do not say, "An automobile, autocar, motor car or car are terms for a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers..." or "The Encyclopædia Britannica (Latin for "British Encyclopaedia") is a term for a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc." despite it having multiple editions. --NeilN talk to me 22:00, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I apologize for calling you a moron and wikipidiot. I have been trying to get people to respond intelligently. Now that you have, do you have anything to say about the idea of having an actual article titled "Christian Bible" on Wikipedia? I mean, seriously, I have been trying to make the case for this and have been getting a lot of nonsense in return. Please don't keep making the Wikipedian non-intellectual arguments for incomprehensible crap that seems to pass for ... whatever. Dynasteria (talk) 22:37, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I have no objections to such an article provided the content is different from what is in this article and Christian biblical canons. You'd get better responses if you'd sketch out what the article would contain. --NeilN talk to me 22:47, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

In response to your Automobile example, there is no Bible which your article actually can point to under its own rubric. That article talks about a bible in the abstract. Can YOU show me a Jewish/Christian Bible? OTOH I can walk you out into almost any street and show you an automobile. Dynasteria (talk) 22:45, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

If you asked any educated English-speaking person, "show me a Christian Bible" they'd point you you to something like these --NeilN talk to me 22:54, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

So you are agreeing that there should be an article titled "Christian Bible"? Let's do it! As you have aptly pointed out, I am a novice here on WP, so I appoint you, NeilN, to start the article! I await with bated breath. Dynasteria (talk) 23:05, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

No, I said I have no objections to an article existing based on certain conditions. If you want the article to exist then it's up to you to start it or you can ask at Wikipedia:Requested articles. --NeilN talk to me 23:17, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Ah yes, it isn't free, it is NOt noT oPEN and AVAilable TWo the PUB lick it is like TAXES on the PEOPLE quam publicum — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dynasteria (talk • contribs) 23:45, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

"I have no objections to an article existing based on certain conditions." You fail to state exactly what conditions you feel would be appropriate for this hypothetical article, NeilN. This is an utterly meaningless Wikipedean statement and a very good example of why I feel so free to use the terms "idiot" and "moron" in my discourse here. Thank you, NeilM, for being an idiot and moron here on Wikipedia. Dynasteria (talk) 02:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Look above: "I have no objections to such an article provided the content is different from what is in this article and Christian biblical canons." Quite an erratic attitude you have there. Swinging from insults to apologies back to insults. Makes it even less likely that anyone will listen to your points. --NeilN talk to me 02:19, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, NeilN, thanks for your patience. And you are showing quite a bit of it. I'll admit to being erratic, though not entirely without reason. My point is that the primary article should be titled "Christian Bible" and have ALL the same content as "Christian biblical canons." My point is precisely that "Christian biblical canons" is misnamed and to some extent not properly purposed. Once again, Wikipedia has an article on the Torah and on the Quran; if the Buddhists and Hindus had their own holy scriptures between two covers and with a name, there'd be a WP article on those books. Why not just break down and have a WP article titled "Christian Bible"? I am asking a legitimate question. Your answer so far has been that I should be required to come up with a new and different article with different content. This is unsatisfactory to me. My counter-suggestion is to re-title the "Christian biblical canons" article to "Christian Bible." Dynasteria (talk) 04:25, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

In that case, see WP:RM for your next steps on that talk page. --NeilN talk to me 04:30, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Good suggestion for a new direction to head in. Part of the reason I jump to seemingly unwarranted rudeness here on Wikipedia is exactly responses like yours. You do not answer my direct questions. You do not engage in debate that is spirited, encompassing, and seeking of answers. You redirect me to a committee (ugh! ugh! ugh!). However, I am trying to realize that you are being sincere and that I come off as flippant. This is also a debate I started to engage in a few years ago and I was told by another Wikipedian, basically, "Don't bother, these people are way too entrenched in their beliefs ever to change." I have made several good arguments for change but you have not countered. Dynasteria (talk) 09:12, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Your language has made it difficult to even want to respond. But I see now that you agree with me that we actually have the article you want, but you don't like the title or to some extent the purpose (I'm not clear about that but it's a discussion for the 'canons' talk page. We'll see what happens with a move request if you go that route. Dougweller (talk) 10:40, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
On the contrary, I gave you a clear, direct answer to your question. You want to rename "Christian biblical canons". The discussion around that needs to happen on that article's talk page and needs to be publicized (thus the pointer to WP:RM). You and I discussing it here won't accomplish anything even if we do come to an agreement. --NeilN talk to me 13:26, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

NeilN-You said this above: First you ask me if I'm a moron and now you ask me if I'm a wikipidiot. But I don't think I used the word moron till afterward, when I actually used it pejoratively against you, which again I apologize for. However, I don't see where I initiated the attack except for asking rather snarkily about the second term. Can you show the original moron statement to me?

In any case, my main question is why is there no article titled "Christian Bible" on Wikipedia? Is there some response I have overlooked?

I will look into starting the discussion elsewhere. Thanks! Dynasteria (talk) 01:58, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Here. You seem to keep changing your goal.
  • Do you want to create a new article? If so: "I have no objections to such an article provided the content is different from what is in this article and Christian biblical canons. You'd get better responses if you'd sketch out what the article would contain."
  • Do you want to rename an existing article? If so, start a requested move discussion on the talk page of the article you want to re-title.
Although there are millions of articles on Wikipedia, there are probably millions more that could be created or expanded from stubs. Asking why an article doesn't exist will probably get you an answer of, "Because someone hasn't put in the time to create one following Wikipedia policies and guidelines." --NeilN talk to me 03:02, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what I am looking at when I follow your link to "User talk:NeilN: Difference between revisions" but I'll take your word for it.

My goal is to pursue an enquiry and arrive at some conclusions, so that hasn't changed. Should there be an article titled "Christian Bible" since that is what the overwhelmingly vast majority of the planet thinks of? I saw somewhere that Wikipedia policy is that an article should be titled according to common usage. Is the common usage "Christian Bible"? Dynasteria (talk) 03:41, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I'll answer one of your questions. The policy is WP:COMMONNAME. I would strongly advocate that "Christian Bible" is not the common usage. If you look at English newspapers, magazine, books, etc., they use Bible without the Christian qualifier to refer to the Christian Bible. Kind of how United States is used to refer to the United States of America. --NeilN talk to me 03:50, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Think of it this way. When a WP-reader search for "Christian Bible" here, it´s not certain what he/she is after. It could, for example, be any of the articles Bible,Christian biblical canons or King James Version. So the place you get when you search "Christian Bible" is probably helpful to more readers than just arriving at for example Christian biblical canons. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:35, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Come to think of it, perhaps readers would be served by a "Christian Bible (disambiguation)" page? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

So, NeilN, this statement argues that the "Bible" article (here) should deal exclusively with the Christian Bible and have a link to the Hebrew Bible:

I would strongly advocate that "Christian Bible" is not the common usage. If you look at English newspapers, magazine, books, etc., they use Bible without the Christian qualifier to refer to the Christian Bible. Kind of how United States is used to refer to the United States of America.

You can't have it both ways. Either "Bible" refers to the Christian Bible first and foremost and almost entirely, or it does not. BTW, do Jews go into Temple and ask for a copy of the "Bible"? What do Jews call their sacred writings? I daresay that "Bible" was a term that was invented in the beginning to refer exclusively to the Bible of Christianity. Dynasteria (talk) 07:19, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 November 2014

Changes to References and further reading section:

Dead link:

  • Berlin, Adele, Marc Zvi Brettler and Michael Fishbane. The Jewish Study Bible. Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-19-529751-2.

Suggest linking to Google books instead:


Dead link, incomplete title:

Suggest linking to Google books instead and providing complete title:


50.53.46.59 (talk) 12:41, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

 Done Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. --Biblioworm 21:18, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. --50.53.46.59 (talk) 23:16, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
  1. ^ http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-the-bible/what-is-the-bible/what-is-the-bible-2/
  2. ^ a b Ash, Russell (2001). Top 10 of Everything 2002. Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0789480433, 9780789480439. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) See also Google Link
  3. ^ http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-the-bible/what-is-the-bible/what-is-the-bible-2/
  4. ^ "The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church". Ethiopianorthodox.org. Retrieved 2010-11-19.
  5. ^ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/which
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