Talk:Carbon dating the Dead Sea Scrolls

Calibration
The 1997 calibration scale is a bit dated. An online interface to the 2004 scale is here:. Zerotalk 04:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Has someone published date ranges for these scrolls based on later recalibration? An editor is limited to secondary sources (WP:NOR). -- Ihutchesson (talk) 13:48, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Not that I know of. But I wonder if it would come under this rule:
 * "This policy does not forbid routine calculations, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age, provided editors agree that the arithmetic and its application correctly reflect the information published by the sources from which it is derived." WP:OR
 * The conversion from radiocarbon age to calendar date for a given calibration scale is according to a fixed published algorithm. If we have no discretion concerning the answer, it seems to be rather similar to converting pounds into kilograms.  Zerotalk 01:38, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Makes sense. Wanna add an extra column from the 14C age and based on the latest calibration? -- Ihutchesson (talk) 04:21, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Eshel & Broshi contra Knohl
I remember that Eshel and Broshi had at least one text carbondated as a response to Israel Knohl's book the Messiah Before Jesus. If anyone has a reference to the dating, it would be useful for this article. Thanks. -- Ihutchesson (talk) 01:05, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Merger with Dead Sea Scrolls
Its seems annoying to me to have two seperate articles. A collapsable table with a few paragraphs of information in the main DSS article should be sufficient. Please let me know if there are any objections. Eagletennis (talk) 16:13, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

One day after proposing a merge the article is merged! People who deal with the content of DSS related material don't work here that regularly. I put a place-marker intro to C-14 in the DSS article, so that there is some basic info in that article to allow the irregular development of this. (There should also be an article on palaeography as it relates to the DSS, but someone has to write it, but it requires hard work.) -- I.Hutchesson  ► 08:58, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, I reopened the merger proposal and will let it sit for a few weeks. Two articles is not warranted at this time as there is simply not enough information relevant in wikipedia summary style to warrant such a change - in my opinion of course. Eagletennis (talk) 22:01, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Who says it not warranted to maintain a separate article for scrolls C14 dating? And what do you mean that "there is simply not enough information relevant in wikipedia summary style to warrant such a change"? What change? Your merge? I don't understand what you are saying.

Here you have in one place the information relating to the carbon-dating of the scrolls, including all the relevant texts. It is normal to include a general discussion of the issue on a main page, but here it is possible to go into greater detail than one would expect in a general article. You wouldn't expect the C14 data there (and you had it hidden in a collapsed table), whereas with a specialized page one could expect it. Merging this with the DSS article means that the texts get merged with the general bibliography. It's easy to find the information from any DSS related page from the navbox at the bottom of the page. There is also a link to here from the general intro in the DSS article. This valuable information and should be easily accessible. -- I.Hutchesson  ► 08:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I erred in adding a comment to the section on the DSS Talk page a week ago, rather than here. My comment there was " I am ok with a merged article or with these being separate articles. I can see the value in having a separate article as the CD article is mostly (useful to a small few) data, and the current DSS article is quite hefty as it is. In fact, I would be OK with having the "Fragment and scrolls list" become a third article leaving a much shorter and more superficial section in its place in the DSS article. Just IMHO. " I would clarify that comment to say that I decidedly lean much further toward having the articles separate rather than merged, and the same could be said about the mentioned "Fragments" section being spun-off, as well. I would also say I agree with details of Ihutchesson's argument in support of them being separate.
 * — al-Shimoni  (talk) 02:53, 22 July 2012 (UTC)