Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Genesis 1:1

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was keep. – Mindspillage (talk), 05:15, 9 June 2005

Genesis 1:1
Despite the importance of this verse in creationist theory, I hotly oppose a Wikipedia article on individual verses of the Bible. We already have Psalm 119, and even that is borderline. It should be deleted or merged with articles on creationism. JFW | T@lk  15:53, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * merge with Creation according to Genesis. btw, creationists don't have any theories. Dunc|&#9786; 16:03, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * That is quite untrue. They have theories on how the Bible can be harmonised with scientific findings. JFW | T@lk  20:02, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge into an appropriate article, either as suggested by duncharris (despite his uncalled-for statement) or into Genesis.--M412k 16:10, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * No content worth merging. Redirect to Creation according to Genesis. - Mike Rosoft 16:16, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Good article overall but it could do with actual references in place of 'some believe that..."  --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:55, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep... but if you absolutely have to merge Beta m (talk)
 * Keep - a bible verse (and particularly this Bible verse) is at least as influential as a primary school (and I have nothing against primary schools btw) --Doc (?) 21:12, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Creation according to Genesis. This Bible verse is enormously influential, of course, but there are dozens of extremely important and influential verses (where there are not nearly so many important and influential primary schools), but the question is at least as taxonomical as priority.  Also, we have the entire Bible in Wikisource, so there is no need to have a chapter/verse call.  The verse can be read at Wikisource.  Geogre 21:28, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. See also WP:VFD/Matthew 2:16. -- Jonel 21:54, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Creation according to Genesis. While interesting in its own regard, if Wikipedia had an article on every single Bible verse it would just get ridiculous. This might warrant its own Bible Wiki, or something, though. Hermione1980 23:17, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * What would be so ridiculous? Kappa 23:33, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. More than enough scholorship available to create an encyclopedic article on this verse. --Allen3 talk 23:19, May 26, 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge with Creation according to Genesis. --Carnildo 23:22, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and expand this article on an incredibly important and influential Bible verse. WP:VFD/Matthew 2:16 has also been mentioned. Kappa 23:33, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and compliments to Neutrality on the good work. - SimonP 23:36, May 26, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep as long as the article contains content and not just text. IZAK 00:05, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. I wrote the article. Ridiculous nomination. "Genesis 1:1" gets 103,000 Google hits. Neutralitytalk 00:41, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete! Bad precedent to start articles about individual scriptures/superstitious beliefs. Rlw 00:44, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
 * We already have many precedents, including WP:VFD/Matthew 2:16 and Votes for deletion/John 20. Also a Bible verse seems to be nearly as encyclopedic as a Simpsons episode. Kappa 01:04, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, no. A simpsons episode can be proven to have occurred. Sure, the VFDs you cited are "precedents," but they are bad precedents. Delete. Rlw 04:15, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure it can be proven that someone wrote Genesis 1.1. Kappa 06:46, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and improve the article. Scholarship, philosophy and exegesis on this verse (and numerous others) is broad and diverse enough to warrant an encyclopedia article (albeit a specialized encyclopedia, like much else in wikipedia). Don't reduce the whole issue to a matter of +/- creationism. HG 01:12, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Redirect Aren't many Biblical verses grouped together on Wikipedia? I see nothing wrong with this and the following item being merged and redirecting to Genesis 1:1-5, which would cover a more comprehensible part of the Book. The whole Bible could quite probably be covered sensibly in this way, whereas covering it verse by verse would not be particularly sensible (how much can you say on "Jesus wept" (John 11:35) without referring to the chapters on either side of it?). Grutness...  wha?  01:27, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Dsmdgold 03:33, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Notable bible verse. Klonimus 04:08, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Agree with the general principle. Why shouldn't there be an article on every verse? I have always thought that separating Wikipedia into Wikisource, etc., was somewhat arbitrary anyway. --Ezra Wax 04:11, 27 May 2005 (UTC) -Addendum against merging: This verse is interesting on its own without regard to creation. For example notes about some of the words in the verse and their meaning, why the Torah starts with the letter Beis, why the specific name of God is used, etc.
 * Because, Ezra, then WP, in order to maintain NPOV, will have to have a separate article on every chapter and verse (or analogous) of every single religious text on the planet. Seems beyond the scope to me.Delete before it's too late and WP slides down a slippery slope. Rlw 04:22, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
 * We have an article on every day of the year, and on every year, and on every tiny town in the United states, and on every minor character of many TV shows, books, films, and comic strips. What slippery slope were you concerned about? There is plenty of storage space. There were thousands of photographs uploaded to the Wikipedia commons. There is no problem of article collision, because no other article will be wanting to use those titles. I have no problem with having an article on each verse for each religion either. Why can't there be ten or even a hundred articles on each verse? Disk space is cheap.
 * R1w's argument is spurious. Deleting Bible verse 'to manitain NPOV' is silly - shall we delete articles on US TV episodes to maintain NPOV with other cultures, which don't have so many entries? The Bible has had an enormous cultural, religious and literary impact, rivaled by no religious text (other than the Qu'ran). There are fewer verses than schools in the US - and I suspect most of them (and certainly Gen 1:1) are more universaly notable. (I do, however, think that the parrallel translations should be deleted). Do not redirect to creationist debates - that would be POV! --Doc (?) 13:31, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep I am hotly in favor of of keeping commentary articles on Bible verses. I completely disagree with any attempt to cast this as creationist article only. You could just as well redirect to Paradise Lost. -- Decumanus 05:22, 2005 May 27 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Creation according to Genesis. Megan1967 05:22, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Creation according to Genesis Kaibabsquirrel 07:24, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Creation according to Genesis. JamesBurns 11:54, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and I'm sure this could be expanded. I agree with Decumanus. Falphin 02:54, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
 * This should probably be mentioned on this page. Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 2:16Falphin 12:46, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Redirect to the Book of Genesis. This article says nothing that couldn't be said there. Giving the text in 10 different translations is a job for Wikisource, not an encyclopedia. - Nunh-huh 03:00, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Eleven, actually. Neutralitytalk 08:00, May 31, 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge into articles covering groups of verses. Unless someone is able to expand this into a larger article without overstepping the NPOV.
 * Transwiki. There do live Biblical Studies projects in English Wikibooks. --Puzzlet Chung 14:15, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. We are not voting whether every verse needs an article, we are voting on this verse and it deserves an article. At its current length, I do not think it would be user friendly to merge this into a longer article. DS1953 22:34, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep...this is an important verse in western civilization and has far reaching influences outside of the creation/evolution debates. KHM03 20:26, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why not Wikisource?
In terms of the Bible verses articles (a perfect eg of a content issue!), my opinion (to get some list of opinions started) is that they are a waste of time/space on Wikipedia. Something like this belongs more on Wikisource, as it is in essence the presentation of an extended primary text with detailed information about every part (assuming people add more verses...) - I saw a large article which did not contain much information that can't be found in other Wikipedia articles - and yet it covered so little of what could be said about the verse. If this keeps going, it will engulf Wikipedia. On Wikisource though, something in the style of the Mishna project (see http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Mishnah as an example) (with user contributed public domain translations, see The Open Mishnah Project at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:The_Open_Mishnah_Project) and concise summaries of commentaries, the uses of the verse in Jewish texts etc would be a good idea and I'd probably like to contribute to those. As it stands, I think deletion or relocation to Wikisource is the way to go. Frikle 11:47, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Excellent idea. Wikisource (or wikibooks, the Bible is a book isn't it?) Radiant_* 08:19, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikisource is not an encyclopedia. Also the bible is not a textbook, so wikibooks is not appropriate. Kappa 08:23, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Books other than textbooks might be fine. Wikibooks already has b:Jokebook. --Puzzlet Chung 13:40, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

In the beginning ... of a proposed rewrite
Just revised the article on Genesis 1:1 substantially. Hopefully it is an improvement w/NPOV. (Except I am unable to do justice to the subsection on Christian exegesis, please edit and add.) I already voted to keep articles by key verse(s). The rewrite attempts to demonstrate why the article should not be merged (esp not w/Creationism) and why such articles would be useful to keep. It also conforms somewhat to the format proposed in the Talk section on 1:1. Would welcome more such Talk. HG 17:03, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
 * The key overarching point of my proposal has been reverted/removed already. I had restructured the article to differentiate scholarly vs. religious views, and -- within religious views -- between Christian and Jewish (and Moslem, etc). Instead, the article showing now has sections entitled "Analysis" (aka Christian w/some academic) and "Jewish interpretation", with attendant POV issues. If you are interested, my proposed structure and initial implementation may be seen in the history of the article. Best wishes,  HG
 * This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.