Talk:Anan ben David

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Major edits and text deletions
Hey Yoshiah, lets discuss them here first, O.K.? Jayjg 01:24, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Hi Jayig, I dereverted them, but I have no problems with discussing them. One of the major changes was fixing a lot of spelling errors. Such as Ana -> Anan, etc. Another was the viewed by many scholars, in paticular (Orthodox Jew) Leon Nemoy, that the whole exilarch contest never happened, and was a myth that later arose. (If you would like, I will scan his comments on the issue via OCR and paste them here) The idea that Anan ben David said that Jesus was the Messiah and that Mohammed was a prophet was also removed, this idea does not appear until around 500 years after Anan's death, IIRC. I did not include it for the same reasons I do not include the legends of a Rabbinical conspiracy to assasinate him. Are there any changes in paticular you object to?--Josiah 07:10, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Hi Yoshia. Let's go through them a section at a time before entering the changes.  Thanks.  Jayjg 07:30, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * The first edit was made because whether or not you believe Anan founded Karaism, Anan did not merge all the non-Rabbinical sects into one group, some of those sects mentioned lasted until the enlightenment (though in smaller numbers). Additionally, some of those sects in mentioned believed that their leaders (after whom they were named) where prophets, one of them even beliving their leader was the messiah.--Josiah 20:54, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Uniting heterogenous sects
"He succeeded in uniting the heterogeneous anti-rabbinical elements under his leadership, and formed them into a new sect."

O.K., let's start here. Why do you object to this statement? Please bring references. Jayjg 21:35, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Because he didn't form them all into a new sect or adopt the beliefs of some of the sects cited. For example, the Yugdanites (who followed the Isunians) believed that their leader was a prophet and a messiah. The Isunians believed that a man named Obadiah was a prophet. However, in Ya'acov Al-Kirkisani's "History of Jewish sects" he mentions where each resides, and also a few others such as the Malakites. This record was written in 940 c.e., and the parts I just mentioned have been translated by Leon Nemoy in "Karaite Anthology", 7th book in the Yale Judaica series. I may be able to get other references, but it's 11:30pm :P--Josiah 05:21, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * In other words, these sects survived independent of Karaism for some time.--Josiah 05:22, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * So this is Nemoy's view, based on al-Kirkisani's writing? Jayjg 06:10, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Nemoy, and others (I'll look up references in the library if needed) agree with Al-Kirkisani's record. It isn't an inteperetation, it says it right out. I could quote a relevant portion if you are interested.--Josiah 20:45, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * That would actually be quite helpful. By the way, when you say that it "isn't an interpretation", do you mean that al-Kirkisani states it outright? Jayjg 00:53, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Correct. For example: "Next appeared Obadiah, known as Abu Isa al-Isahani, who claimed that he was a prophet... A group of his followers now reside in Damascus and are known as Isunians." "In Ukbara, after Ismail, lived Misawayh al-Ukbari... There are followers of his in Ukbara down to the present day; they are known as Mishawites..." There are other examples as well. If you wish to view them, I'll scan in the pages and temporarily store images of them on my server.--Josiah 03:46, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * No need to go that far, I trust you to quote them accurately. Jayjg 03:55, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks.--Josiah 22:28, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Defense in Caliph's presence
This edit was made because 1) None of the manuscripts I have examined, the latest of which being written some 600 years after Anan's life ended, mention anything in the manner of venerating Mohammed or Jesus. Professor Nemoy does not mention this idea either. I added the next part, because (as was noted by Nemoy), only manuscripts written long after Anan's death mention the incident with the caliph, leading those who have studied this area to believe that it may never have happened.--Josiah 21:30, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Rabbinical or Orthodox?
I'm curious as to why you've changed Orthodox to Rabbinical to some places.--Josiah 03:33, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Because Orthodox is an anachronism; the term wasn't invented until the 19th century. Jayjg 03:54, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I understand, but wouldn't "Orthodox" by a wider audience?--Josiah 22:29, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * It's odd, I thought Karaites would object to the term "Orthodox". More than the term itself being a recent invention, it is often argued that the concept is also a 19th century invention.  In any event, I'm not sure introducing anachronisms in order to accomodate ignorance is the way to go. Jayjg 01:55, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * If taken out of its historical context of mostly post-18th Century Rabbinic Judaism (&ldquo;Orthodox&rdquo;), the term &ldquo;orthodox&rdquo; (non-capitalised) could seem to imply a general tendency to stress the classical scriptures and/or interpretations. This could be argued, depending on one's POV, to be the case of both Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism of the period in question. The term is therefore potentially misleading and should clearly be avoided &#8212; especially to accommodate the wider audience...! -- Olve 02:43, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't see why I'd object to it, the reason I feel "Orthodox" would be better because it can because Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism can all be called "Rabbinical", though I don't know how appropriate it would be for Reform to be labeled such.--Josiah 04:23, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Reform Judaism, while not Orthodox, is clearly Rabbinical rather than Karaite in that it condones candlelighting with a beracha on Friday evening, etc. &#8212; and thus actually &ldquo;the perfect proof&rdquo; of orthodox/Orthodox being an unsuitable collective term for non-Karaite Judaism. I have problems seeing the logic in your arguments and feel that there may be an element of POV polemics involved... (Do feel free to correct me if I am wrong.) My personal view on the matter is that the best would be to use the term Rabbanite rather than either Rabbinical or Orthodox/orthodox. The term Rabbanite is parallel in construction to Karaite, and it does not have the double meaning of the term Rabbinical/rabbinical. -- Olve 06:07, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In the context of comparing Karaism to any of the post haskahala judaism's(reform, conservative, orthodox, recon) it would be best to refer to Rabbinical judaism or Talmudism than orthodoxy which is an anachronism. --Teacherbrock (talk) 20:13, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality concerns
Although the article seems to have been cleaned up from the Jewish Encyclopedia's version, there are still issues here with neutrality. Anan ben David was obviously an insightful person of far-reaching influence, and there need to be (1) well-reasoned explanations of why individual people/groups followed Anan ben David or how his thinking otherwise affected them, and (2) Rabbanite and other criticisms of Anan ben David identified as such. The article still seems to be disproportionately from a Rabbanite and critical point of view, without an explanation that some of the "facts" as presented in the article are criticisms. I don't know how much information survives about ben David, but we still should try to reveal him from different angles.

I also added this article to WikiProject Judaism and assessed its completion state and importance. Please let me know what you think. --AFriedman (talk) 19:53, 1 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Any edit proposal that begins with the term "obviously" is one we should worry about. It simply does not matter whether a ikipedia editor thinks Anan was insightful or not.  What we need to know is whether there are reliable sources that make it clear that there is a significant view among Jews that Anan was insightful.  If so, we cn add that view, if not we cannot.  I agree that views of rabbis must be presented as views.  I agree we should try to provide different angles - IF and only if it can be demonstrated that a different angle is a significant view. If the mainstream view happens to be that of the rabbis, then we need to feature that view prominently.  To do so would not be disproportionate, it would be proportionate. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 10:47, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

First off, nice to see you here. I'm glad you read my post on F & W's talk page. :)

OK, I admit that back in May I was overcompensating for the article's bias with the word "obviously" :). What I meant to say is that Anan ben David seemed to have had a unique set of ideas about Judaism, and his substantial influence suggests that many people agreed with him.  I think there is a significant view, even today, that Anan was an original thinker or at least an original synthesizer of a number of ideas that existed in his time.  Proponents of this view might be Jewish historians and Karaite Jews.  See, for example, the chapter about Karaite Judaism in _Jews, God and History_ by Max I. Dimont, which attempts to describe ben David from both the Rabbanite and the Karaite perspective.

The Jewish Encyclopedia is online and I've read a number of its articles, and personally I think the entire encyclopedia has serious issues with NPOV. You might want to look at its articles about St. Paul and about Reform Judaism, for example.

Another issue is that accurate and detailed information about ben David is difficult to find. I find it hard to believe that members of rival Jewish traditions, who seem to have written the article in the Jewish Encyclopedia, could have been certain about the unflattering details of his interactions with Abu Hanifa that were put in the article. There's plenty of Jewish folk tradition that can't be verified as historical fact, and perhaps his interaction with Abu Hanifa was in that category. --AFriedman (talk) 20:47, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I fully share your concerns about bias in EJ. I read and enjoyed Dimont but I do not think he is taken seriously as a Jewish historian; at best he is way out of date.  I would urge you to look at other professional Jewish historians - there is the classic one volume book by Marx and Margolies, there is the one volume tome edited by Israeli historian Ben Sasson, there is the classic Great Ages and Ideas of the jewish People ed. by Leo Schwartz that has review essays by people who were the leading historians at the time ... this is all form more than 20 years ago and there may be better more recent scholarship on Anan ben David.  I do not have any time to look through these now, but if you cannot I can try later.  Even better is if you could find out who the top historians NOW are, and what they have published.  The only thing that is important to me is that any claims about his ideas, unique, insightful, original, profound, whatever, should come from established scholars - Rabbis AND Karaites, but also professional historians who ought not to have any ideological ax to grind.  Have you thought of e-mailing professors of Jewish history at major universities to see what are considered to be the best sources on Anan?  There may be stuff out there you (and I) do not know about! Slrubenstein   |  Talk 22:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't know this about Dimont. Even so, he's probably a reputable source about basic information on Jewish history and probably better than Encyclopedia Judaica on NPOV. My field is not Jewish history--actually, it's biology, but because I work in it at a professional level I have some idea of how academic scholarship is conducted. Thanks for the source info. Interesting idea, to look into Jewish history sources and figure out who the scholars are. Actually, that's related to the main thing I'm doing on WP right now--trying to get the Judaism article to good or featured article status. I think it's a shame that the main Judaism article is only "B" class. A major section of the Judaism article is about Jewish history and even if you have just a bit of time to find good sources, I think that's a reasonable way to develop our foundation in the subject before we really branch off into a more specialized article like this one. Then we can figure out who else wants to work on this article and what sources we can use. In the meantime, if you can think of little things to change on this page, that would be very helpful. One doesn't need to know anything about Anan ben David to reword the text so it isn't slanderous, just pay attention to the tone of the article and the subtle hints about aspects of him and his movement that don't quite fit the picture Encyclopedia Judaica was trying to paint. (He said Jews could carry little things on Shabbat and eat meat with dairy...can you find others?)

Also, Anan ben David is not the only early Karaite scholar whose WP article has neutrality issues because of text taken from the Encyclopedia Judaica. He's just the most extreme example I've found. --AFriedman (talk) 02:21, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
 * This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
 * There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
 * It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
 * In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:42, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

811?
Could we have some discussion on Anan ben David's dates please with sources? F.Tromble (talk) 16:06, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The article is currently tagged as lacking sufficient reliable sources, which is in my view correct. The base article from which the material was copied in the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia does not give specific dates, pointing only to the second half of the 8th century. And likewise the 1980s Encyclopedia Judaica. I have no idea where these specific dats were taken from. warshy (¥¥)  20:16, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

The recent deletion of this page.
Excuse me. The article had 2 tags in it, one from 2010, and a second one from July 2022 (not so old at all). The material that is currently in it is obviously not properly sourced (that's why it had the two tags), but it is sound in general, in my own view and knowledge of the subject. You could add additonal "cn" tags to each paragraph that looks not good to you, but otherwise, the two tags at the top of the page already account for that. In my view, it would be preferable to leave the content there, with the tags of course, until someone finds the time to source them, or to remove them if they can't be sourced. I don't think that simply deleting 95% of the content of the page improves the encyclopedia in this case. I think that my suggested course of action would be better and more productive. Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 19:12, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I am disruptive? I opened this thread for discussing my suggested course of action, and I begged for you to discuss here before you just revert me again, all to no avail. You won't even give me a chance to discuss the matter with you. I don't have time for edit warring on WP. I should go and complain about you in the Admin notice board, but frankly I don't have time for this games, and this is not what I'm here for. I mean, the fact that would not even try to answer my arguments above is really disappointing. Oh, well. Have it your way this time. Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 00:25, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I mean, the simple courtesy of giving a direct answer to my questions on the talk page, even if it was to just brandish your "policies" on my face again. But at least the decency to do it talking directly to me here, not in edit summaries. Never mind. Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 00:33, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Never received the first ping, or else I would have responded. Sorry, it's been tagged for years without improvement.  VERIFY and BURDEN are pretty specific.  And while you may be sure that the material is "sound", that's called WP:OR.  Onel 5969  TT me 00:42, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * So the two tags that are there are not enough, in your view. This is certainly not my WP:OR, so I don't have an interest in it. You could have tagged specific paragraphs or even entire sections, if they looked really fishy to you, as I said. I have some knowledge of the subject, it is a subject that I have studied sometine. My guess is that you don't know much about the subject or the area. You are just blindly applying policies, without any regard to other considerations. Well, again, I don't think that this is the better way to improve WP on this specific subject/area. Never mind, maybe I'll get sometime to look at it in more detail, maybe not. WP is left in the meantime with what you gave it. Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 00:53, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

I think the "Rules for slaughtering", "Rules for sabbath", and "Science" sections are all sourced back to the PD-notice'd Jewish Encyclopedia, just as a general reference, because they have not significantly changed from the original version of this article in 2003, which was an edited version of the Jewish Encyclopedia article. I think those can be safely re-added, preferably with inline citations to the Jewish Encyclopedia and checking that the content lines up. I may do that myself at some point if no objections are raised.

Also, is there policy backing behind removing the majority of an article which is sourced to a general reference? Skarmory  (talk •   contribs)  06:21, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank for chiming in . I needed to check precisely that, i.e. how much the article was originally based on the Jewish Encyclopedia (what is "PD?"). Any content that came from there can be immediately reinstated, as that is a completely reliable source regarding WP. 80% of the articles on Judaism and Jewish History, according to my estimates, are still just straight reproductions of the entries there. I have been working on updating as much as I can to include at least some content from the Encyclopaedia Judaica too, but that is a rather long process. Anything here that is based on the EJ should be immediately restored, with the general template used to poing articles to it, which apparently was missing here. I just didn't have the time yet to check that. Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 17:09, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I just checked, and the Jewish Encyclopedia template was appropriately placed at the bottom of the page, and still is. All that content that was there and was inappropriately deleted by is indeed originally from there. And that is a 100% kosher reliable source regarding WP. So I am restoring all the material that was inapropriately deleted, since it is all from the Jewish Encyclopedia, precisely as the tag/template at the bottom of the page says. Thank you, warshy (¥¥)  18:25, 15 May 2023 (UTC)