Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Authorship of the books of the Christian Bible


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:56, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Authorship of the books of the Christian Bible

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This is a poor and overly-simple format for this information. There is not a single 'modern scholarly' view on authorship issues. Not only was it recently the site of an edit war but it has been the site of a good deal of fighting in the past. It is impossible for this list to remain neutral, since it is impossible to sum up the vast range of scholarly opinion within a sentence or two. The scholarly views are already discussed on the articles for the individual books. There really is no way this list can be done fairly or neutrally, and it more or less declares what the 'true' view is even though there is no such thing. It is thus grossly misleading, and by its very design as a list cannot be unbiased on this complex issue. RomanHistorian (talk) 14:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete As I said on the talk page, here a table is used to "telegram" or "tweet" a message about each book of the Bible. A terrible idea really. It is like trying to tweet the history of Europe in a table. This is an inherently ambiguous topic on which every viewpoint has support from some scholar, and the debate then focuses on the relative sanity of scholars: an undecidable question really. And mix that with a table and you have a recipe for conflict. This material needs to be discussed in each article where each book is discussed. Unlike Paris Hilton's life, scholarly opinion can not be tweeted. History2007 (talk) 14:55, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - I think it is a valid list. The sources are reliable. The article is not formatted correctly, but that can be fixed. -- Alpha Quadrant   talk    22:10, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Almost nothing on this article is cited despite the fact that it makes some pretty sweeping claims. The problem isn't the quality of the work on the article but the nature of using a list for this purpose. It declares what the 'true' view is even though there is no such thing.RomanHistorian (talk) 22:29, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It declares what's accepted by the mainstream, not what's true. If you see any claim to truth, please remove it immediately and I will support that change. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 01:12, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This article has been nominated for rescue. Alpha Quadrant    talk    22:10, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The sources are infinite. For every source saying one thing, I can find you another saying something else, and then another, and another, and...PiCo (talk) 12:23, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom as an unverifiable list and a gross oversimplification of a much more complex issue. List is unnecessary as the more complex issues are discussed in their relevant articles.  I especially like the heading on the bottom table: "Author according to some modern scholarly thought".  Ha!    Snotty Wong   comment 23:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - This article has a lot to do and doesn't do it perfectly, but without a single place where this information is summarized, Wikipedia suffers a loss of clarity. The very fact that there is such broad controversy over dates, authorship and even canonicity is itself highly notable and educational. In my own church, there are plenty of strong, faithful Christians who still say "THE Bible" without recognizing how sheltered that view is. Ultimately, our job here is not to decide who's right, but to show the traditional views as well as the mainstream range of modern views. I think this is worth doing and very doable. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 01:12, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I have a problem with the title. What is the "Christian Bible", and why do we need an article that focuses on it exclusive? Seems like a POV fork, especially when we are discussing the Hebrew bible books... the table format also seems problematic, and if it is to stay, the article should be renamed to have "List..." in the title, probably. I think an encyclopedic article on the topic of "Authorship of the bible" could be written, even if it is just summarizing the authorship sections of the articles on each individual book of the bible. But these are just generalities, and don't apply to the specific content in this article currently.-Andrew c [talk] 02:05, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Andrew, how would you feel about a title more like "Table of Bible Authorship"? Dylan Flaherty (talk) 03:19, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - Absolutely an encyclopedia-worthy topic. Now, allow me to vent. 1. I despise the color-heavy layout. 2. Title has issues... What other "Bible" is there than the "Christian Bible"? Do we speak of the Muslim Koran? The Jewish Talmud??? 3. The fact that this has been the locus of an edit war is neither here nor there. The topic is inclusion-worthy; whether the current incarnation is ready for primetime is another matter. 4. Sourcing sucks. It should not suck. I assume that there is scholarly debate over authorship of this or that book and this should be reflected. Similarly, attribution should be cited in each and every case.; Bottom line: a very problematic rendition of an absolutely Wikipedia-worthy topic. —Carrite Sept. 24, 2010.


 * Comment: How are you guys going to address the "tweet problem"? History2007 (talk) 09:32, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * One simple way would be to have sub-topics for each book in which the authorship is discussed at length. This article would then become a navigational aid to these sub-articles, while providing a lead and summary of their contents. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:06, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * We already have an article on every book of the bible, and each of those articles discusses authorship. Let's not introduce POV forks.


 * Keep The topic has massive notability, of course. Should this be doubted, please see an entire book on the topic.  That the topic is challenging and open to debate is not a reason to delete.  Please see our editing policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:02, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. People have written whole shelves on each book of the bible, and you want us to try to reduce that to a dozen words? But if the decision is to keep, the table should be dropped and replaced with a prose discussion. PiCo (talk) 12:23, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: I agree with Pico, a table that "tweets decisions" is not going to be accurate and each item would need to be three paragraphs at least. History2007 (talk) 18:13, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If this article isn't deleted this is a good solution to the problem.RomanHistorian (talk) 19:05, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - highly useful for our main readership -- students. Bearian (talk) 21:42, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: I think that brings out what was in the back of my mind: fast food vs fast knowledge. Call me old fashioned, but while I think it is ok for students to grab fast food, I am not an advocate of fast knowledge, specially when it is undercooked. I would suggest a few paragraphs per book at least and 2 separate article: Old and New Testaments. There is no reason for not separating them. History2007 (talk) 21:47, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - This article has been rated of top importance by the appropriate WikiProject. In my opinion that means that, to those interested in the subject think, it is notable. The article may need reviewing or rewriting but as the content of the article is clearly encyclopedial to those interested, I can not even begin to understand why this article has been put up for deletion. -- JHvW  (talk)   12:02, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep this is an unsatisfactory article that needs a lot of work, and is too simplistic. But that is an argument for improvement, not deleton. NBeale (talk) 15:34, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:39, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:39, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - Acknowledging the problems of the title, Authorship of the Books of the Old Testament and Authorship of the Books of the New Testament would both be acceptable, and probably allow for more development. Table format must go, as it lends itself too much to really short descriptions. It generally is possible to have at least some indication of the academic consensus of the authorship of each book, at least in a broad sense, however, so I think a revised article or two, with individual paragraphs indicating the current academic opinion regarding the authorship of each work, is probably doable. John Carter (talk) 19:48, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep It's entirely possible to summarize majority scholarly views, as this tries to do. The article has problems, but for how much of several hundred years of debate it tries to cram into one table, it does a really good job.  Most of what is being proposed as changes to the article seems reasonable, but not tied to a deletion process or outcome.  I suggest the nominator start an RfC on how this information should best be presented, in order to prime people to arrive with opinions other than "keep" or "delete". Jclemens (talk) 20:15, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - Seems an entirely acceptable article to me, if like most it may require some work. Would support adding caveats in the lead section to address some of OPs concerns.  But I see no sufficient reason to delete at all here.  Wiki Dao  &#9775;  (talk)  01:58, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep The subject is clearly notable. If you have a problem with any of the entries, discuss it on the talk page.  Plenty of sources exists discussing where the various books of the Bible come from.   D r e a m Focus  07:14, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - the article topic is clearly notable. The fact that it is in terrible shape is a call for improvement not deletion. -- Whpq (talk) 16:07, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per above, great topic, poor title ("Authors of the Bible" is not ambiguous with anything else except the Tanakh, which is routinely finessed with the word "Bible"), poor presentation. I would like to see some discussion on the Talmudic tradition on authorship and the traditional lists of the 72 prophets of Judaism, as many of them have auctorial status. JJB 07:58, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Although I sympathise with some of the arguments against the article, I see no reason why we shouldn't have an article on authorship. However, the presentation is poor (it certainly should not be in table form), and the title is simply asking for problems as it covers too large a scope. We need separate articles for different parts of the Bible, possibly Authors of the New Testament and Authors of the Tanakh/Old Testament, just to keep the articles manageable. Dougweller (talk) 08:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep I agree thst the article needs a lot of improvement. In particular "modern" ought to be "modern liberal", as many evangelicals will not accept the views of modern higher critical theologians.  There are further difficulties: while Protestants regard the apocrypha as deutero-canonical, Catholics regard them as canonical and Catholic Bibles will not print additions to Daniel (including Judith) as a separate book.  I agree that the article may need to be split.   Peterkingiron (talk) 19:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. The subject is highly notable. If there are factual errors, correct them; if layout is misleading, rearrange it; if there's edit-warring, deal with the miscreant editors. Deletion would not be the most appropriate response to any of those problems. bobrayner (talk) 01:55, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: Clearly the consensus is to keep, but I am sympathetic to the quality concerns of the nominator.  It needs some opening disclaimer about the subject being complex and the modern scholarship theories being subject to debate on a case by case basis, and a suggestion that the reader go to the individual book articles for fuller explanations.   (Alternatively, we could change the traditional column to say "God" and the modern column to say "Man" and be done with it.)--Milowent • talkblp-r  03:21, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - I liked John Carter's suggestions above; they could help address some of the article's problems. bobrayner (talk) 09:44, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep- The question of the authorship of the books of the Bible is a legitimate topic and has been discussed at length in many works of scholarship. So the article is currently pretty horrible. So what? This is nothing that cannot be fixed through normal editing. Reyk  YO!  12:28, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.