Talk:History of Jerusalem

POV lede
The new text added by contravenes the lede's own exhortation about "the selectivity required to summarize more than 5,000 years of inhabited history". It is unreasonable to give Jewish history five times the emphasis of Islamic history; we can see clearly at Template:Graphical Overview of Jerusalem's Historical Periods that this is inappropriate.

Onceinawhile (talk) 21:29, 3 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Because the article is about a city's history, a historical overview makes perfect sense for the lede. Do you feel that the Islamic period is not sufficiently covered? It's great that you saw that. Now, you should fill in the missing information, instead of deleting material that is well-sourced. Tombah (talk) 07:40, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it is a bad idea to use the Graphical Overview template to compare Jewish history to other historical periods; in my opinion, the entire diagram should be discarded. During the Persian, Hellenistic, and early Roman periods, the city had a majority Jewish population, culture, and character. With the Second Temple at its center, it served as the capital of a Jewish autonomy within larger empires, and was known globally as a Jewish city. The "non-Abrahamic" nonsense is just confusing, Conquered populations are not defined by the national or religious identities of their conquerors. Tombah (talk) 13:01, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree it would be good to have an overview in the lede. It will be hard work to agree one which we all think is balanced, but we should try. The act of typing it is the easy bit – we could pick any of the bullets from Timeline of Jerusalem and string them together into a narrative.
 * Shall we start by agreeing rough proportions across the relevant periods? Onceinawhile (talk) 07:46, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I've added the 'Section sizes' to the top of the talk, and here is the very rough % breakdown of the current body (and an example prospective word count for a 500-word summary):
 * Ancient period ~21% (105); Classical antiquity ~13% (65); Medieval period - Early modern ~36% (180); Late modern ~30% (150). Iskandar323 (talk) 10:59, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * While I agree with the need for a breakdown, I reject the proposed section sizes. Jerusalem reached a peak in population and size during the late Second Temple period (1st century CE) not reached again until the late 19th century, so dedicating such a small portion for the city's history during that time is purely wrong, and I'd may add, embarrassing. Ideally, serious editors here are not supposed to cut down significant time periods to achieve a **false** "balance. Tombah (talk) 13:01, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Then all you have to do is write Jerusalem reached a peak in population and size during the late Second Temple period (1st century CE) not reached again until the late 19th century, assuming there is a source for it. Leave off the accusations that other editors are not "serious" if you please. Selfstudier (talk) 13:28, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 March 2023
I would like the following paragraph to be included in the section on the history of Jerusalem during the Israelite period:

It has been argued that recent archaeological discoveries at the City of David and the Ophel seem to indicate that Jerusalem was a significant city during the 10th century BCE. Potatín5 (talk) 21:06, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: "significant city" is unclear, could you rewrite to be more specific? Actualcpscm (talk) 12:07, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Actualcpscm: Ok, this is my new proposal:
 * It has been argued that recent archaeological discoveries at the City of David and the Ophel seem to indicate that Jerusalem was sufficiently developed as a city to be the capital of the United Monarchy in the 10th century BCE. Potatín5 (talk) 12:57, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * That is an inaccurate reflection of what the source says. The para that begins "On the one hand, the relative paucity of finds from the City of David between the 15th and the 9th centuries BCE is evoked by some scholars as clear evidence that the city was small in area with limited construction and population and thus relatively insignificant in the Land of Israel’s geopolitical map.....
 * and a bit later in the same para "In contra, there are scholars who maintain that Jerusalem was nonetheless a significant city during those periods, though perhaps not of the scale and importance one would expect based upon the written sources." Selfstudier (talk) 13:32, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Selfstudier: Nope, the source clearly states on page 12: "The latest discoveries of royal building remains at the highest part of the City of David and at the eastern Ophel brought about a dramatic revolution in the archaeological understanding of the appearance of Jerusalem in the 10th century BCE. The massive construction complexes uncovered from this period attest to the urban and political importance and power of Jerusalem as capital of the United Monarchy."
 * The source clearly argues that the recent discoveries at the City of David and the Ophel support the existence of Jerusalem as the capital of the United Monarchy at that time. Potatín5 (talk) 13:54, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It continues "At the same time, it appears that until all of the archaeological data has been published, the debate will continue." (the debate I referred to above). There is not even agreement among scholars that the United Monarchy existed.
 * I'm not prepared myself to make the requested edit, maybe someone else has another opinion. Selfstudier (talk) 15:01, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Selfstudier: My proposed edit does not state that there is agreement among scholars about anything, it only describes what has been argued by the source. That's all I want the article to mention. Potatín5 (talk) 15:05, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Since even this source makes clear that this is not unambiguous, it's important that this is reflected in the article. At the same time, WP:DUE is an important consideration; we don't want to go on a tangent for a fringe theory. I think this theory is held by such a small minority that it should not be included. "Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views." However, my background is not in this field, so I might be misjudging the positioning of this argument. Actualcpscm (talk) 16:33, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * If the unequivocal talk of 'Unite Monarchy' did not already make it obvious, this is not peer-reviewed journal standard material. It is rather more chatty stuff aimed "at a general audience", as it notes. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:52, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Iskandar323: Our current article employs a paper from Haaretz as a source for describing the different opinions on the status of Jerusalem at that time, so I do not know how my source (authored by the Director of the Israel Exploration Society) cannot be as legitimate as that. In any case, if what you want is peer-reviewed journal standard material, you can start reading something like this source. Potatín5 (talk) 19:59, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Do you have access? What does the peer-reviewed stuff say? Iskandar323 (talk) 04:10, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The article was previously available after it was written, but it seems that this is no longer the case. Now you may have to log from some academic institution if you want to access it. In any way, I remmember when I read it and I did not see anything from the peer-reviewed stuff saying that the article was bad or any kind of that sort. Potatín5 (talk) 11:08, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Can we talk about that mural?
In the "Late Antiquity" section, Jerusalem mural depicting the Cardo during the Byzantine period, why is there a kid in sneakers and a backwards baseball cap? 50.45.243.241 (talk) 07:24, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Ancient states and regions of the Levant
WikiProject Navigation templates participants (AnemoneProjectors, Painting17, Sm8900, Llewee, Wil540 art), Hello, I added Jerusalem to Template:Ancient states and regions of the Levant because under Abdi-Heba it was a kingdom. I would like to make sure that this (and not the main article about the city) is the right article to add the template, because I don't see any navigation templates here. Thanks in advance, פעמי-עליון (talk) 11:44, 1 July 2023 (UTC)


 * @פעמי-עליון that sounds totalyl fine to me. I encourage you to go ahead and do so. Sm8900 (talk) 14:16, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks Sm8900! Can you please do it? This page is protected and I'm not an extended confirmed user... פעמי-עליון (talk) 15:00, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Can someone please add template:Ancient states and regions of the Levant to this article? פעמי-עליון (talk) 21:43, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Already done on 6 July here. Xan747 (talk) 01:55, 15 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Oops, didn't notice, I am not used to English wikipedia; thank you both! פעמי-עליון (talk) 10:38, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Typo request
In the section about the Israelite period, at the end of the fourth paragraph, this is found:

According to the bible, Jehoshaphat of Judah was allied to Ahab of the Northern Kingdom of Israel at this time.

The fourth word should be capitalized in agreement with the rest of the instances in the article. Dismalscholar (talk) 19:35, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7C:EC51:BC00:D82C:D1A3:4054:839E (talk) 05:36, 21 January 2024 (UTC)