Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chronological list of Old Testament Saints


 * 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 delete. The WP:OR arguments are compelling. Christian theology is a difficult and often controversial subject that needs high-quality, scholarly secondary sources, not citations directly to the Bible and what look like WP:SPS religious websites of uncertain provenance.  Sandstein  18:16, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Chronological list of Old Testament Saints

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Duplication of the list at List of Old Covenant saints in the Roman Martyrology, with the only addition being unsourced speculation about their lives. Even if proper sourcing were to be provided for each of these figures, the birth/death dates for virtually all of these figures are unknown or contested, making the value of a chronological list dubious. I was originally in favor of just restoring the redirect, but given that the target is not a chronological list and my argument against such lists I'm simply in favor of deletion at this time. signed,Rosguill talk 01:03, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. signed,Rosguill talk 01:03, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. signed,Rosguill talk 01:03, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The article as it currently stands is about 'old testament saints' not about 'old covenant saints in the roman martyrology'. The former includes all people in the Old Testament regarded as saints, including those in the Catholic church, the Orthodox church, the Armenian church, the Coptic church, etc. The latter includes those people who are recognized officially within the roman martyrology issued by the diocese of Rome and not including all saints honoured within the Catholic church. They are essentially not the same thing and a redirect is unjustified. This article forms a part of the series of articles 'chronological list of saints...' for which there is one in every century after Christ and there is this one prior to Christ. If you go and look at those articles, you will also find that virtually none of the entries have direct sources on them and there are also some examples of people on those lists too that have approximate or unknown dates, approximate or unknown places.
 * Could you provide some example of what you think is 'unsourced speculation'? The places of birth and death are recorded in the bible itself for many of them, for others they come from tradition that goes back thousands of years. The ages are based on scholarly estimates widely available for when certain figures, if they existed, are thought to have been placed.
 * The purpose of providing a chronological list is that it gives a reference for people which is useful. They cannot be given exact dates, because exact dates do not exist and the existence of many of these people to begin with is also contested. I don't see any reason, however, why it would be that providing people with no information at all and deleting it entirely is serving a better purpose within an encyclopedia than providing them with approximate figures. Reesorville (talk) 01:16, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. North America1000 01:47, 22 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep per Reesorville's explanation how it isn't a duplicate of List of Old Covenant saints in the Roman Martyrology.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 02:50, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Draftify - It's a different topic from the attempted redirect point, as there's no single list of saints in Christianity, different denominations have different lists, qualifications for sainthood, etc. However, it's incomplete at the moment, far from complete, and needs citations for verification. In response to the point that an exact chronology cannot be presented, a rough one can be made.  The various Old Testament (and apocrypha in the case of the Maccabean era figures) give a general outline of chronology, and if need be, it can be divided into eras, which would be acceptable for figures whose years of birth and death are not known.  It's a good topic, but the current article isn't ready for the mainspace yet. Hog Farm (talk) 03:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * - Would you be fine with a move to the draftspace so this can be finished up before entering the main articlespace? Hog Farm (talk) 03:53, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:OR. A "chronological list" based only of wild guesses as to dates is a joke. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:58, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I think maybe some explanation here is required for where the times come from. The bible itself has a chronology in it which is referenced to particular reigns of kings or particular events that occurred. Some of these things are known to history outside of the bible and scholars have fairly good proximations of when they think they occurred. For example, the Chaldeans conquering Jerusalem is widely believed among scholars to have likely occurred in the early 6th century BC. This event is recorded in the bible and the prophet Jeremiah is presented as being an adult of many years by the time this happens. Therefore, writing that he was born in the 7th century and that he died in the 6th century is not a mere 'wild guess' by any stretch. Scholars will cast doubts on how accurate the narrative is to actual history, but it would be out of place in this article to write out the entire debate on the issue.
 * Similarly, the reigns of kings of Judah and Israel are recorded in exact years going backwards from the Babylonian captivity up to the time of King Saul. Using those dates as recorded in the narrative, you come up with possible times for the births and deaths of all the figures mentioned during that period. Similarly, this is also true of the judges prior to the kings. The number of years that the Israelites are in Egypt prior to Moses is also given as well, as are the ages of the Patriarchs. Historians have doubts about how accurate this text is to actual history, as they also have doubts about whether these people even existed to begin with. However, as it stands this list is simply just providing a reference for what is typically accepted as the dates, given the above criteria and I don't think it is useful in the article itself to try to present that debate, since it is simply a list.
 * If there is something that needs citation, then I think this would be easy to provide, but so far there is no one here who is actually giving a specific example of what that would be. Again I also point out that virtually none of the entries for the other lists in this series (Chronological list of Saints...) provide citations for their entries either. If this was a change that required weeks to complete, then perhaps making it into a draft has a case for it, but given that I think it would perhaps take just a matter of hours (or even minutes) to pull out these references, I don't think this would make sense. In fact Reesorville (talk) 14:49, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I also should point out again, that this article is just one section of a series of lists and this deletion page is identifying one section of the list for deletion - if including different denominations cannot be included, then the entire series should be deleted: Chronological list of saints and blessedsReesorville (talk) 14:49, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I have now provided a list of citations for most entries on the list. If further is needed, please write a specific request on the talk page. Reesorville (talk) 14:55, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , if the citations were to RS providing exegesis of the texts in question I for one would be satisfied. I don't think that citing the Bible directly is sufficient, as that goes against our OR policy. signed,Rosguill talk 18:14, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Is it OR if the text itself is specifying the person lives in such and such time period or during such and such event, and we simply just tie that to a century using our chronology based on facts that are widely known? I believe I can cite other sources if needed, but one should know that they are doing the same connection as in those notes I included at the bottom of the page. But again how is this grounds for deletion? You could have simply just put this as a discussion in the talk page? Reesorville (talk) 18:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Honestly I was mostly just trying to meet you halfway with my previous comment. I maintain my reservations about whether this list is appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia, but at least if it was supported by reliable sources then it would be more encyclopedic. Part of my concern is that it's not clear that there actually is a consensus among reliable sources as to when various Biblical figures may have lived––if sources do not agree on the chronology, then we don't have any business making a list of it, since making sense of the conflicting dates would be nigh impossible in table form. One possible solution would be to narrow the scope of the article to a specific religious tradition: rather than pretending to represent information about Christianity writ large (or even actual history, as the current framing does not make this explicit), it could specifically document one religious tradition's understanding of the chronology, furnished with appropriate sources documenting that tradition's understanding of the figures listed.
 * As for citing the Bible directly, my understanding of the issue is expressed at WP:RSPSCRIPTURE: it is original research to cite the Bible or any other religious scripture directly as they are primary sources, and particularly difficult and controversial primary sources to boot. signed,Rosguill talk 18:48, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * There is no consensus from a scholarly perspective that most of these people existed at all. However, from the perspective of faith traditions that follow the bible, there is a wide consensus of rough time periods that the biblical narrative was placing them in. There is no disagreement that the book of Daniel is putting the prophet Daniel during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar; there are many people who doubt that Daniel was even a real person or that that story occurred, and many who think that the book was written in a later period... but there is no disagreement that the narrative itself is suggesting that Daniel lived in Nebuchadnezzar's time period. I think the same paradigm is true of the majority of the other figures on the list. Given that this is a list within the wider scope of Chronological List of Saints and Blesseds which is recording a list of people who have been recognized as saints, I don't think there is a need to consider the issues of actual historicity of these figures, but rather just to put down the information as the biblical narrative would hold it. For some figures, the timelines are more contested and you can find differing opinions on things like when Jonah supposedly lived, since there are scant details in the narrative to reference; for this you may have a case that the list is problematic for them, however, I am sure that there is a way to find a solution to this other than deleting the entire article. Reesorville (talk) 19:04, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Also I will point out if you would look the individual articles on Wikipedia for these particular individuals, a lot of them actually include these dates within their text for positing when these figures supposedly lived. Reesorville (talk) 19:14, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) The articles in the series Chronological list of saints and blesseds include individuals recognized as saints in different denominations, hence why would we need to limit the scope of this article to a single denomination? Those pages are also not restricted to a single denomination and they also include figures that are questioned historically 2) The denominations that recognize these figures to be saints have disagreements about many things, but there are no serious disagreements about most of the basic facts on this simple list as it is presented. The denominations the recognize these figures to be saints include Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglicans, Lutherans and a few others - none of them are contesting things like Isaiah was supposedly living at the time of Hezekiah or that Moses was supposedly born in Egypt 3) there are historical questions about the existence of many of these persons, but that is outside the scope of this article or of this series of articles. If necessary, a simple note could be added to the top that says something like 'the actual historicity of these figures is contested by scholars, but the following is a list of old testament figures considered to be saints and details concerning them' 4) The fact that most of the dates and locations are not contested regarding the characters as presented in the bible (as opposed to the actual historical persons) is not only proven by the bible itself and by outside sources, but Wikipedia's own pages on these biblical figures use these same dates and locations for their supposed existence. 5) Deleting this page would basically amount to deleting one part of a series arbitrarily, and without explanation as to why this page should not exist but all the other pages for later centuries should. As I already wrote above, those pages are also not restricted to a single denomination and they also include figures that are questioned historically. Why is it that this series should not be allowed to include a page for saints of this particular period? Reesorville (talk) 15:22, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) The articles in the series Chronological list of saints and blesseds include individuals recognized as saints in different denominations, hence why would we need to limit the scope of this article to a single denomination? Those pages are also not restricted to a single denomination and they also include figures that are questioned historically 2) The denominations that recognize these figures to be saints have disagreements about many things, but there are no serious disagreements about most of the basic facts on this simple list as it is presented. The denominations the recognize these figures to be saints include Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglicans, Lutherans and a few others - none of them are contesting things like Isaiah was supposedly living at the time of Hezekiah or that Moses was supposedly born in Egypt 3) there are historical questions about the existence of many of these persons, but that is outside the scope of this article or of this series of articles. If necessary, a simple note could be added to the top that says something like 'the actual historicity of these figures is contested by scholars, but the following is a list of old testament figures considered to be saints and details concerning them' 4) The fact that most of the dates and locations are not contested regarding the characters as presented in the bible (as opposed to the actual historical persons) is not only proven by the bible itself and by outside sources, but Wikipedia's own pages on these biblical figures use these same dates and locations for their supposed existence. 5) Deleting this page would basically amount to deleting one part of a series arbitrarily, and without explanation as to why this page should not exist but all the other pages for later centuries should. As I already wrote above, those pages are also not restricted to a single denomination and they also include figures that are questioned historically. Why is it that this series should not be allowed to include a page for saints of this particular period? Reesorville (talk) 15:22, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sulfurboy (talk) 14:00, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Comments - I removed a tag, because it is now sourced. I don't think it's necessary, but I can see how students might be looking for this article. Count me as not voting. Bearian (talk) 20:51, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete I have no doubt that the article author is making an entirely good-faith attempt at an article but there is no way to save this on WP:OR grounds. The only possible source for such a "chronology" is faith-based interpretations of religious text.  The Bible is indisputably a primary source for its own claims. All analyses and interpretive or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary or tertiary source, and must not be an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 03:49, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * This really isn't an issue: there is no claim written in the text that can't be found in secondary sources. The point I made was that those sources are doing nothing different than just using the details mentioned in the bible for placing them. Furthermore, I point out again that the dates and times on the article are already found throughout Wikipedia on the pages for these particular figures - they are not contested. Reesorville (talk) 11:15, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I have just added secondary sources for most of the entries on the list. If more is needed, I believe it can be done. Reesorville (talk) 11:54, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * , I don't think you meant to do so but you just pointed out that the "secondary sources" really aren't. If they "...are  doing nothing different than just using the details mentioned in the bible..." then they are not actually secondary sources. I.e., they are not performing independent  ...analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources... and aren't adding anything as sources.  As to the presence of these items in other articles, please see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS; just because they haven't been challenged elsewhere doesn't mean that they are appropriate in a compiled article. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:43, 6 May 2020 (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.