Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biblical Archaeology Review


 * 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. 78.26 (spin me / revolutions) 02:19, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Biblical Archaeology Review

 * - ( View AfD View log )

Seems to fail WP:NJOURNAL. Though it has a high circulation, this is among ideologues and so WP:FRINGE applies here. Is it identified as a notable fringe journal? I do not see that as being the case. jps (talk) 23:46, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academic journals-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 23:46, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Bible-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 23:46, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 23:46, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 23:46, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Archaeology-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 23:46, 21 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Hershel Shanks. After hunting through Google Scholar, I couldn't find that this journal gets cited much. Not notable, although its founder might be based on significant coverage. ~Anachronist (talk) 00:22, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep -- What is "among ideologues" supposed to mean in this context?? The purpose is to present archaeological research related to things Biblical to a non-specialist audience, and it's achieved a fair degree of success doing it (not to mention its role in unsealing the Dead Sea Scrolls etc.). It's a lot like "National Geographic", "Scientific American" etc. (though with a more limited audience).   Of course it's not going to have a high scholarly citation index, since it's not the type of publication for which that's relevant.   Does "National Geographic" have a high scholarly citation index? AnonMoos (talk) 03:29, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The difference is that Scientific American and National Geographic are demonstrably notable publications. I cannot find evidence that this one is in the same league. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:55, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I said it had a smaller audience, but that's not necessarily a reason to delete the article. I'm not too impressed by the fact that you didn't really know what type of publication BAR was when you nominated its article for deletion.  Have you ever actually seen and looked through an issue of BAR? AnonMoos (talk) 04:03, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not too impressed by the fact that you failed to notice that I didn't nominate the article for deletion. ~Anachronist (talk) 04:05, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * keep The very first GHit for Hershel Shanks is his NYT obit, which strikes me as plenty good enough a source for the notability of the magazine. WP:FRINGE doesn't apply; anyone who had actually read the magazine much would be aware of that. Mangoe (talk) 04:16, 22 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment:, since when is notability inherited? --Randykitty (talk) 07:58, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Did you even read the obit? Mangoe (talk) 12:17, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, I did and I agree it is an interesting source that could be used in an article about BAR, but I think it may be just about the only source we might be able to use. Can you find any others that provide the context we would need to write an article about this publication? I'm trying to imagine writing an article solely on the obituary of its founder, and that doesn't strike me as a reasonable endeavor. jps (talk) 17:57, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm actually rather surprised at the difficulty in finding discussion of it, but then, I'm currently beset by people insisting that articles on housing subdivisions be kept on thinner support. The obit mention does contain an assertion of notability right along our lines. Mangoe (talk) 19:25, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I was never one for the "notable keep" arguments that didn't explain how to write an article, but I understand that in other venues this is not uncommon. For me, the problem is exactly what we are discussing. Using this obit as the sole source for the article strikes me as maybe indicating that this is better as a subsection of some other article. jps (talk) 21:16, 22 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep notable publication/journal, passes WP:NJOURNALS easily (indexed in scopus and many other). &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:40, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per Headbomb. The nomination seem very close to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. StAnselm (talk) 14:19, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: I note this article is 16 years old. StAnselm (talk) 14:26, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Journal has been around longer than Wikipedia has. Jclemens (talk) 15:27, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * To the nom's suggestion that WP:FRINGE applies, I find it entirely too polemical for serious consideration. The belief that the Hebrew Bible represents, in all or substantially all of the included accounts stated to be historical, actual history which would in turn leave archaeological evidence consistent with those accounts, is held by well over a billion Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, and adherents of various other faiths. WP:FRINGE is not for things that have historically been mainstream, regardless of whether or not it is currently fashionable to disbelieve them vehemently. Jclemens (talk) 15:46, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * So by extension, creationism is not fringe biology? And flat earth theory is not fringe physics? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 16:09, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a non-sequitur WP:WAX argument that doesn't follow from my comments, so Mu (negative). Jclemens (talk) 16:44, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't follow, then. All those theories have "historically been mainstream". Or is archaeological knowledge uniquely subordinate to what the faithful believe? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 18:04, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Mu (negative). Jclemens (talk) 19:49, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Biblical archaeology is one thing, fringe biblical archaeology is another. The real question is whether the claims of this publication are actively being noticed by outside sources, or whether it is just devotional literature of a sort. I haven't been able to find good sources which indicate much more than they seem inclined to publish attributions and archaeological finds that are dubious at best. Now, fringe journals can still be notable, but we require independent sources to show their notability lest we end up with WP:SOAPy articles much as we are finding we currently have. The way to argue against my point is to offer sources, not to complain about what billions of religious believers may find interesting about the publication. jps (talk) 17:54, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that you are far too focused on one article (which I admit, were I Shanks, I would not have published). I subscribed for a long period back in the 1980s and '90s, and at least then, it was exactly as I have described: a sober, popular journal presenting information on archaeological discoveries in the Middle East from patristic to early Christian times. It's not, as is implied by some negative responses here, a journal dedicated to a "biblical" mindset. As a popular work one would not expect it to be cited except for its faux pas (e.g., the mention of the black Egyptians flap back in 1989, which is mentioned in a Wash. Post article on the larger issue), and, well, one gathers there weren't a lot of them that caught the eye of people willing to devote ink to them. It isn't as though they promoted the Gospel of Jesus' Wife, for example. Mangoe (talk) 19:25, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I am very happy to grant you this is the story, and as such I would love it if we could write about this in the article. Of course, it is always interesting when journal capture happens or when something like a shift from mainstream to fringe occurs. I am just coming up empty on finding any sources that discuss the journal. That's my frustration here. jps (talk) 21:19, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I am not sure what fringe biblical archaeology is, as opposed to mainstream biblical archaeology, but am relatively certain that if there is a distinction, that BAR is substantially not fringe, at least for the majority of its early heyday, as noted by Mangoe above. I've never made a habit of engaging with much of fringe since I did some repair work on Acharya S back in 2008; I've certainly not made a Wikipedia career of it, nor have I ever had to navigate a topic ban from the area, so I grant that there may be some nuance I'm missing here. Jclemens (talk) 22:21, 23 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete I don't think WP:FRINGE applies here, as the article does not contain far-fetched claims. The main problem is that the article lacks sources, and does not include anything substantial about the magazine's impact. If we can not flesh out the article, there is no point in keeping it around. Dimadick (talk) 22:06, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * So, could you take a gander through what's noted in the Google Scholar AfD link and let us know what sorts of the many references there would seem to be best/most useful to expand the in-article sourcing? Jclemens (talk) 00:13, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Here's some that could stand to be looked at a bit more closely, , , and . Perusing through the first few pages of the Google Newspaper links shows that BAR seems to be cited extensively in popular press articles on relevant topics. How should such coverage best be incorporated into the article? Jclemens (talk) 00:33, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Simply incorporate reasons why the magazine was cited in the press, along with which publications cited it. Dimadick (talk) 06:10, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi Dimadick, thanks for participating. For clarity, it is not a requirement than an article be the best version of itself (or even a good version) to not be deleted. Per WP:ATD, "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." Per WP:BEFORE, "If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a candidate for AfD." You can read more at WP:RUBBISH. Suriname0 (talk) 18:43, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep - There's a substantial discussion above about belief and FRINGE that seems largely irrelevant to whether the article should be kept. In addition to meeting WP:NJOURNALS, the article meets WP:GNG: the bylined NYT obit, other coverage from the Times, and other news sources identified above together provide sufficient evidence of notability. Suriname0 (talk) 18:36, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep or at least Redirect to Hershel Shanks per keepers. But I see no reason at all why WP:FRINGE should be invoked. Very weak nom. Johnbod (talk) 01:30, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. Famous magazine for popularizing archaeology. It is too sympathetic to biblical maximalism for my liking, but that's not a deletion reason. It is also, unlike the claim, cited a fair amount, but it is a magazine rather than a scientific journal so citations don't have the same meaning. One reason it is hard to find citations is that it is usually just cited as BAR instead of spelling out the name. The fact that everyone who publishes in archaeology or middle-east history knows what BAR means is evidence of notability. I'll add that as well as articles that would make any atheist cringe, there are plenty of serious articles by serious scholars. Often articles are popular versions of the technical articles that the same authors have published in the academic journals. It is definitely not the case that this is a religious magazine, and that wouldn't be cause for deletion anyway. Zerotalk 14:15, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep It's quite a well-known publication - popular rather than scholarly, but certainly not fringe. It appears in many public and academic libraries. And it is a site where debates in Syro-Palestinian are given a public forum. I think it is definitely noteworthy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.236.141.162 (talk) 17:13, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep with the coverage in the NYT, Publisher's Weekly and others there is enough coverage for a pass of WP:GNG so that deletion is unnecessary in my view, Atlantic306 (talk) 23:35, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. Passes GNG per Atlantic306.4meter4 (talk) 02:12, 27 September 2021 (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.