Talk:Shepherd

Crook

I had a question in coming to the page, a crook or staff of some sort seems to be a ubiquitous tool of a Shepherd, across cultures. So what use does it serve? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.189.49.160 (talk) 23:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The crook or staff has two purposes, one to draw the sheep back and the second to break the leg of disobedient sheep. A sheep who keeps leaving the flock. The shepherd would break the leg of the sheep so it couldn't run off, and carry it on his shoulders while the sheep healed, caring for the sheep and building a bond with the sheep, so the sheep would love the shepherd and not leave him. It sounds cruel yes, but what is more cruel, letting the sheep go free and be killed in the wild (they are defenseless) or correcting it and keeping it safe? Much like us with our children and God with us. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.200.214.22 (talk) 14:36, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

In religious art, the Crook is a fairly common symbol (History, Principles and Practice of Symbolism in Christian Art 2nd Edition; F. Edward Hulme; 1892). It has been viewed as a symbol of divine guidance, which is supposed by some to have, on occasion, a "being harsh to be kind" nature, as suggested by the previous post.Thirdsigil (talk) 12:37, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

A nonsense folk tale, surely. I don't believe any shepherd would harm a sheep like this – if you need to restrain a wandering sheep, why not hobble it with a bit of string? Shepherds have better things to do than carry sheep unnecessarily. If a sheep gets a leg broken accidentally, then yes, it would be carried.

Crooks are for catching sheep – either around the neck or by the leg, depending on type. I use mine to catch calves too. Richard New Forest (talk) 22:15, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. A Shepherd NEVER breaks the leg of any of his sheep. He tends to about 1,000 to 1,200 sheep at a time. Devoting most of his time on one with intentionally broken legs is detrimental to the entire herd. A shepherd will "brake" the leg of a constantly wayward lamb by placing a weight on the leg so that the sheep is slow to wander off. Once the shepherd teaches this lamb to stay with the herd, the brake comes off. Apparently, the first pastor to teach this sermon in 1957 misunderstood this concept and has been spreading this lie ever since. Even good, strong Christians have bought into this load of hookey. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.208.133.209 (talk) 02:43, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

The shepherd carried a staff to ward off predators in case of an attack to strike a wolf or any animal that tried to attack the herd, the staff has never been used to break the leg of a sheep that is ridiculous. Sheep are extremely vulnerable and would most likely scatter at the witness if a fellow sheep being struck, it would most likely cause panic between the flock and would cause them to flee or scatter I personally would assume but the shepherd had a stick a staff to make sure that if a predator attacked or posed a threat to the Sheep the shepherd has a weapon to protect himself and his flock. It had nothing to do with striking a Sheep people just make stuff up not knowing what they're talking about the Bible has never ever mentioned any such thing in the scriptures. A shepherd was a kind and loving and caring notvto mention strong agile alert and ready to fight to protect his flock Maria Livingston (talk) 22:31, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Images

The images were put on this page to illustrate. Therefore, they were put in the sections that they illustrate.

Putting them all in the front of the article so they stream down the side of the article without regard to what section they appear next to is not "tidying up." Goldfritha 00:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that my edit was not very well done, sorry for that, but the article as it is is messy with the pictures overlapping other sections. I'll have another go :) Tony 00:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)Tony

Removed

this text, because it appears to be WP:MADEUP: google returned not a single relevant citation for any of the terms. restoration with sources is welcome. 67.68.240.172 05:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC) ok — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.222.59.118 (talk) 13:36, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

In ancient times shepherds made cheese

..."In ancient times shepherds also often milked their sheep, and made cheese from this milk" I would think that this is still going on around the world and it is not just an ancient practice —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.199.51.95 (talk) 14:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The Isaiah line is irrelevant

"Atheists, agnostics and other freethinkers regard this as showing that believers are expected to follow religious dogma like sheep rather than to question and reason like humans. [2] However, such an argument may not take into account other Biblical themes, such as God's invitation to man "Come, let us reason together..." (Isaiah 1:18)"

This really isn't the place for that last line. I mean... really? I'm not an atheist, but do you really want to have such fallacious reasoning in a wiki article? This isn't really the place to place your evidence against people who you do or do not agree with. You can start up your own one-sided debate website for that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.168.52.222 (talk) 09:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Since the first sentence was also not really based on an article (although it was made to look like it was), I deleted that too. Mikaelsenp (talk) 07:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Limited to sheep?

Shepherds tendt to sheep right? The first picture doesn't portray sheep. So, why is it there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coching (talk • contribs) 21:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Which picture do you mean? The first picture is this one, which does show a lot of sheep with their shepherd. All the other pictures are also related to shepherds. Richard New Forest (talk) 08:37, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The original comment was made in May 2008, at which time the first picture was of goats; it was corrected here. 69.3.72.249 (talk) 17:10, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

  I was wanting to know if sheep grazed in the winter and did shepherds tend to flocks in the winter  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.193.144.20 (talk) 10:38, 17 December 2011 (UTC) 

Popular Culture

Made some grammatical changes to this section with regards to the Spenser section. It read pretty poorly and didnt make sense.24.246.120.57 (talk) 16:48, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

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Is this true?

"Unlike farmers, shepherds were often wage earners, being paid to watch the sheep of others." Im pretty sure that farmers that worked for the land owners were paid wages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:5790:1810:ECF4:5492:5FF5:66AC (talk) 18:03, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

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