Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gary Knoppers: the Chronicler (a summary)


 * 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. Jaranda wat's sup 06:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Gary Knoppers: the Chronicler (a summary)

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

This seems (and I say seems because I still don't quite get what the article's aiming for here) to be part Bible plot summary, part OR and part advertisement/plot summary for a non-notable book by a professor. Unsalvageable and unsightly, I urge deletion for this article. Hemlock Martinis 07:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, does not appear to meet WP:BK in any way, and appears to be originally researched POV. --Core desat 07:59, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete so is this a plot summary?? I'm not quite sure what to make of this. Corpx 16:35, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * DeleteStrong Keep This article apparently attempts to condense Knopper's commentary on the books of Chronicles, which may be interesting but doesn't appear to me to be appropriate for WP. No need for this article, everything appropriate is already covered in Gary N. Knoppers and Anchor Bible Series. Capmango 05:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Argument below has swayed me somewhat. Purpose of this article needs to be more clearly stated, but then it may be a Keep.
 * With its new introduction, the article is clearly appropriate and notable and should remain in wikipedia. Capmango 18:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm brand new to the these pages, so hope I do this correctly. I can see you puzzling over this article on Gary Knoppers' Chronicler, it is rather deep stuff, so will attempt to unpack it a little bit. Knoppers literally has had thousands of pages published on the books of Chronicles and, in the company of Sara Japhet and H. G. M. Williamson is probably one of the three or four leading scholars on Chronicles in the world today (back in May 2005 the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies granted the R. B. Y. Scott Award to Knoppers for his two-volume Anchor Bible commentary on I Chronicles). Chronicles scholarship is on the cutting edge of Old Testament work these days, though it was largely ignored for centuries. I have attempted to condense those thousands of pages down to approximately 12 pages so that Wikipedia readers who are interested in academic biblical scholarship can get an overview of some of Knoppers' primary findings. They may later attempt to read those thousands of pages, but I felt they might find an brief overview (as encyclopedia's traditionally give) helpful. Knoppers' two-volume commentary on I Chronicles totals 1045 pages, and is pretty mind blowing. Two Wikipedia articles are suggested as adequate to cover this matter: (1) Anchor Bible, which is simply a listing of book titles and gives no genuine indication of content, and (2) Gary N. Knoppers which simply describes the career of the writer and academic along with a list of titles of his published works (a rather long list), but does not really have the available space to attempt to give a brief summary of his thought and research. I have begun to attempt to link this article Gary Knoppers: the Chronicler (a summary) into relevant pages such as Books of Chronicles, Chronicler, Ancient Israel and Judah, Kingdom of Judah, Documentary Hypothesis, Priestly source and other biblical studies oriented pages so that people locating those pages can see this brief overview of Knoppers' books. I was wondering if it could be categorized under headings like "Hebrew Bible" and other categories related to Old Testament research. I hope that you can help me to save this article, as you can see I've put a bit of effort into it. Please help. Best regards, Randall Barlow [[User:Randall Barlow|Randall Barlow 17:04, 12 July 2007 (UTC)]] 16:25, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * A plea to keep the article Gary Knoppers: the Chronicler (a summary)
 * I think your article does not give enough of an introduction to the topic. A few introductory sentences about who the Chronicler was, and why Knoppers' views on him are important, might help us understand why this is a notable topic.  Also, the title should be changed to something like "Knoppers view of the Chronicler". Capmango 16:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for listening to my plea. I am happy to comply with both requests.  It may take me a day or two to formulate the introductory sentences (whenever I can get a bit of spare time). I would appreciate some instructions on how to change the title as I've never done that before.

Sincere thanks, Randall Barlow Randall Barlow 20:53, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Renaming is a bit of a pain, maybe the admin can do that when closing this AfD. Capmango 21:28, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I've now added an introduction which attempts to answer the questions which were posed. I've tried to keep it short, however if it needs to be made yet more brief then let me know and I will attempt to pare it down.  As noted above the chief difficulty remaining (hopefully) is getting the new name in place. Randall Barlow 15:45, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Also a related question, what happened to the article on the Chronicler? I did not write that article, but it was there in June and now it seems to no longer exist. The Chronicler ranks right up there with the Deuteronomist and Paul the Apostle as a writer of prodigious and major biblical content, and now he's been deleted. I'm rather surprised and just curious to know what happened to his article. Randall Barlow 17:45, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Delete one book does not deserve an article like this. PatGallacher 20:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Keep — ''what are the grounds for deletion? The Anchor Bible is a standard in the field. Those wishing to delete this article seem to me to be flippant and dismissive of award winning scholarship from no less than the Anchor Bible series (!). Notable scholars like R.E. Friedman, B. Halpern, H. Shanks, and F.M. Cross and D.N. Freedman all have articles in that series, to the best of my knowledge. These are the "heavy weights" in the field of Biblical Scholarship. An accessible summary of their work is a precious contribution. Please keep. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.68.244 (talk • contribs) 08:04, July 20, 2007


 * Delete. Does not meet the standards of WP:BK, and is written with an enthusiastic, promotional tone, rather than neutral language. Looking around at other articles in this area, I think Books of Chronicles is pretty good, Gary N. Knoppers is weak and written like a resume. I think the scholar Gary Knoppers is probably notable and the effort to fix up his biographical article would be worthwhile. The present article, basically a 'plot summary' of his book on Chronicles, is hopeless. EdJohnston 05:40, 21 July 2007 (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.