Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Individual Bible verses

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep all. Sjakkalle (Check!)  09:17, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Intro
This is a VfD concerning the principle that
 * All Individual Bible verses are/are not automatically noteworthy enough to have separate articles

This VfD more directly concerns Matthew 1:1, Matthew 1:2, Matthew 1:3, Matthew 1:4, Matthew 1:5, Matthew 1:6, Matthew 1:7, Matthew 1:8, Matthew 1:9, Matthew 1:10, Matthew 1:11, Matthew 1:12, Matthew 1:13, Matthew 1:14, Matthew 1:15, Matthew 1:16, Matthew 1:17, Matthew 1:18, Matthew 1:19, Matthew 1:20, Matthew 1:21, Matthew 1:22, Matthew 1:23, Matthew 1:24, Matthew 1:25, Matthew 2:1, Matthew 2:2, Matthew 2:3, Matthew 2:4, Matthew 2:5, Matthew 2:6, Matthew 2:7, Matthew 2:8, Matthew 2:9, Matthew 2:10, Matthew 2:11, Matthew 2:12, Matthew 2:13, Matthew 2:14, Matthew 2:15, Matthew 2:16, Matthew 2:17, Matthew 2:18, Matthew 2:19, Matthew 2:20, Matthew 2:21, Matthew 2:22, Matthew 2:23, Matthew 3:1, Matthew 3:2, Matthew 3:3, Matthew 3:4, Matthew 3:5, Matthew 3:6, Matthew 3:7, Matthew 3:8, Matthew 3:9, Matthew 3:10, Matthew 3:11, Matthew 3:12, Matthew 3:13, Matthew 3:14, Matthew 3:15, Matthew 3:16, Matthew 3:17, Matthew 4:1, Matthew 4:2, Matthew 4:3, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 4:5, Matthew 4:6, Matthew 4:7, Matthew 4:8, Matthew 4:9, Matthew 4:10, Matthew 4:11, Matthew 4:12, Matthew 4:13, Matthew 4:14, Matthew 4:15, Matthew 4:16, Matthew 4:17, Matthew 4:18, Matthew 4:19, Matthew 4:20, Matthew 4:21, Matthew 4:22, Matthew 4:23, Matthew 4:24, Matthew 4:25, Matthew 5:1, Matthew 5:2, Matthew 5:3, Matthew 5:4, Matthew 5:5 Matthew 5:6, Matthew 5:7, Matthew 5:8, Matthew 5:9, Matthew 5:10, Matthew 5:11, Matthew 5:12, Matthew 5:13, Matthew 5:14, Matthew 5:15, Matthew 5:16, Matthew 5:17, Matthew 5:18, Matthew 5:19, John 20:1, John 20:2, John 20:3, John 20:4, John 20:5, John 20:6, John 20:7, John 20:8, John 20:9, John 20:10, John 20:11, John 20:12, John 20:13, John 20:14, John 20:15, John 20:16, John 20:17, John 20:18, and John 20:19

Note. This VfD DOES NOT concern John 3:16 or Jesus wept.

These numerous articles are not intrinsically noteworthy, and should be coalesced into bigger articles such as those listed at List of New Testament stories.

They also violate Don't include copies of primary sources as they contain between them the full biblical text, which is already present in several translations and languages at Religious texts.

The specific merge suggested is that proposed by User:Uncle G, namely


 * Merge and redirect Matthew 1:1, Matthew 1:2, Matthew 1:3, Matthew 1:4, Matthew 1:5, Matthew 1:6, Matthew 1:7, Matthew 1:8, Matthew 1:9, Matthew 1:10, Matthew 1:11, Matthew 1:12, Matthew 1:13, Matthew 1:14, Matthew 1:15, Matthew 1:16, and Matthew 1:17 to Genealogy of Jesus
 * Merge and redirect Matthew 1:18, Matthew 1:19, Matthew 1:20, Matthew 1:21, Matthew 1:22, Matthew 1:23, Matthew 1:24, and Matthew 1:25 to The Birth of Jesus (and fix the existing link for the same in List of New Testament stories, which is currently piped to Jesus)
 * Merge and redirect Matthew 2:1, Matthew 2:2, Matthew 2:3, Matthew 2:4, Matthew 2:5, Matthew 2:6, Matthew 2:7, Matthew 2:8, Matthew 2:9, Matthew 2:10, Matthew 2:11, and Matthew 2:12 to The Visit of the Magi to Jesus (or some such title)
 * Merge and redirect Matthew 2:13, Matthew 2:14, Matthew 2:15, Matthew 2:16, Matthew 2:17, Matthew 2:18, Matthew 2:19, Matthew 2:20, Matthew 2:21, Matthew 2:22, and Matthew 2:23 to Jesus' Escape to Egypt (or some such title)
 * Merge and redirect Matthew 3:1, Matthew 3:2, Matthew 3:3, Matthew 3:4, Matthew 3:5, Matthew 3:6, Matthew 3:7, Matthew 3:8, Matthew 3:9, Matthew 3:10, Matthew 3:11, Matthew 3:12, Matthew 3:13, Matthew 3:14, Matthew 3:15, Matthew 3:16, and Matthew 3:17 to Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist (or some such title)
 * Merge and redirect Matthew 4:1, Matthew 4:2, Matthew 4:3, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 4:5, Matthew 4:6, Matthew 4:7, Matthew 4:8, Matthew 4:9, Matthew 4:10, and Matthew 4:11 to The Temptation of Jesus (which was already a redlink in List of New Testament stories)
 * Merge and redirect Matthew 4:12, Matthew 4:13, Matthew 4:14, Matthew 4:15, Matthew 4:16, and Matthew 4:17 to Beginning of Jesus' Ministry
 * Merge and redirect Matthew 4:18, Matthew 4:19, Matthew 4:20, Matthew 4:21, and Matthew 4:22 to The Calling of the First Disciples
 * Merge and redirect John 20:1, John 20:2, John 20:3, John 20:4, John 20:5, John 20:6, John 20:7, John 20:8, John 20:9, and John 20:10 to The Resurrection of Jesus (and fix the existing link for the same in List of New Testament stories, which is currently piped to resurrection)
 * Merge and redirect John 20:11, John 20:12, John 20:13, John 20:14, John 20:15, John 20:16, John 20:17, John 20:18, John 20:19, et seq. to Jesus' Appearances (which was already a redlink in List of New Testament stories)
 * Merge and redirect the remaining verses in a similarly suitable manner

Note, the Matthew 1 verses were already as subject of a prior VfD - Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 1:verses, which had 14 votes to keep, 19 votes to merge, 2 votes to keep/merge, and 8 votes to delete (+1 to transwiki). This was declared to have failed to reach consensus by the closing admin (although the delete votes and merge votes are effectively the same thing, making a 2:1 majority to merge).

To avoid the problem of consensus not being clear, please vote merge rather than delete if you do not feel the verses deserve individual articles.

'Note:this is a VfD. Those voting merge per above  would be those who agree to the above merge. Those voting only merge  are not, they simply agree that there should be some sort of merge'.

9 July 2005 14:58 (UTC)

Votes
Please leave comments in the comment section for clarity of the vote.


 * Merge     9 July 2005 14:58 (UTC)
 * Keep Harmil 9 July 2005 15:45 (UTC)
 * Keep, this is an inapropriate use of vfd, and comments are being inapropriately moved away from the discussion. Kappa 9 July 2005 15:47 (UTC)
 * Merge Delete Abstain Aaron Brenneman 9 July 2005 15:48 (UTC)
 * My feelings on this have not changed, I'm trying to embrace the need for consensus. I underestimated the depth of feeling this topic would engender. brenneman (t) (c)

Geogre 19:57, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, VfD is about deleting pages, not debating contested merges. There is obviously a need for a discussion over how these verses should be formatted, but the proper venue for this would be at WikiProject Bible or Category talk:Bible verses not here. Also within the last two weeks we have had two VfDs on this same issue Votes for deletion/Matthew 1 (strong consensus to keep) and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 1:verses (no consensus, plurality in  favour of merging), not to mention four other previous VfDs on this same issue. - SimonP July 9, 2005 15:54 (UTC)
 * Keep this proposal is not well thought through - see my comments below --Doc (?) 9 July 2005 15:56 (UTC)
 * Keep. All verses within a well known text are notable. -- Natalinasmpf 9 July 2005 16:15 (UTC)
 * Merge. I shudder to think of the consfusion that would be wrought by articles on every bible verse. This has nothing to do with notability (not in my view a criterion for deletion) and everything to do with coherence. Francis Davey 9 July 2005 16:23 (UTC)
 * Keep. 24 at 9 July 2005 16:26 (UTC)
 * Merge. Encyclopedias are about context. Individual verses out of context are bumperstickers, like single lines of Shakespeare or anything. This does violence to the writers' intent. --Wetman 9 July 2005 16:35 (UTC)
 * Keep Merge in some fashion other than the above (per message posted by     above). This is a poorly conceived proposal. Some of these consist only of various translations of the scripture; they should be removed. I think it is slightly abusive to categorize every scripture except John 3:16 as NN, since they vary and no hard and fast rule can apply. (see comments below)--Scimitar 9 July 2005 16:40 (UTC)
 * Merge -- Darwinek 9 July 2005 16:42 (UTC)
 * Merge Wyss 9 July 2005 16:45 (UTC)
 * Merge Abstain. The exact merge logistics should be a separate voteing process and not confused with this one, unfortanatly its going to force many voters to vote Keep who dont agree with the details of the merge :( Somthing needs to be done, I agree not every verse should have its own article, I am not sure an on-going edit war is the right spirit for me to weigh in with. Waiting for a more neutral and level headed forum where both sides agree before its put to public vote. Stbalbach 9 July 2005 16:46 (UTC)
 * Transwiki to The_New_Testament. Dcarrano July 9, 2005 16:53 (UTC)
 * Transwiki as above. It is relevant, but perhaps not encyclopedic. --Blu Aardvark 9 July 2005 17:08 (UTC)
 * Merge as per Uncle G. While the matter on a large scale is encyclopedic, separate articles for every verse is Biblecruft.   &mdash; J I P | Talk 9 July 2005 17:16 (UTC)
 * Keep. While I would be open to people merging some of these, with 100+ verses up for deletion I think that a blanket keep is the best idea and if people want to be bold and merge smaller articles that are part of small passages then they can do so.  JYolkowski // talk 9 July 2005 17:25 (UTC)
 * Keep. I am voting mostly to insure that some other admin gets to sort this vote out.  Beyond that, the text of the New Testament contains too much information and has developed too much scholarly analysis over the centuries to be reasonably contained in articles broken at the book or even chapter level.  As the traditional division by verse is the de-facto standard for subdividing bible text below the chapter level, it seems like the most reasonable way to organize Wikipedia's articles on this very important religious, literary, and historical work. --Allen3 talk July 9, 2005 17:37 (UTC)
 * N.b. for those that don't quite understand the context of the first sentence, Allen 3 was the admin who closed the Matthew 1:verses VfD and declared there to have been no concensus.     9 July 2005 17:46 (UTC)
 * Merge, Transwiki, or Delete (and I'd prefer one of the second two--no, I have not carefully evaluated each particular element of the proposal). Every time 'what's encyclopedic' gets expanded (most recently elementary schools) recent changes and newpages patrol gets even more overtaxed. I'm finding much more weeks- or even months-old vandalism and crap edits than I did a year ago. I firmly believe this inclusionism is a serious threat to the integrity of Wikipedia. If everyone voting "keep" commits to spending at least an additional 10 hours per week on recent changes patrol, I'll consider changing my vote. Also, what JIP, Wetman, Aaron Brenneman, Ril, Dcarrano, and Scimitar said. Niteowlneils 9 July 2005 17:43 (UTC)
 * Keep them all; there has been an enormous amount of commentary on individual Bible verses in the last two thousand years, much of it of encyclopedic value, and I think it's best organized at the verse level. Since we're not paper I think it's the way to go. Antandrus  (talk) 9 July 2005 18:02 (UTC)
 * Merge per Uncle G's suggestion. It's the best compromise between keeping them separately and deleting them all. --Angr/undefined 9 July 2005 18:06 (UTC)
 * Keep - this is too many changes to reasonably evaluate all at once, each merge/deletion needs to be considered on its own merits, and I think many of these verses are notable enough that they should have be organized as separate articles. --Mysidia 9 July 2005 18:09 (UTC)
 * Keep Although I generally support the idea of some restructuring here, I strongly feel VfD is not the forum to resolve this, per SimonP. Xoloz 9 July 2005 18:53 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect. Although a more comprehensive policy should be set, this proposal is the best available, so I vote merge. Blank Verse   &empty;  9 July 2005 19:18 (UTC)
 * Keep - Every individual verse in the Bible already has multiple chapters written on them in Bible commentaries. Wikipedia should attempt to summarize that information and cite references as the current verse articles are doing.  Wikipedia should be the de facto first commentary on the internet. Samw 9 July 2005 19:23 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep. The merits of the articles aside, this is an inappropriate nomination as VFD on some of these just closed DAYS ago. Nor is VFD the place to discuss details of planned merges. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:58, 2005 July 9 (UTC)
 * To quickly note the basis for a keep: substantial volume of scholarly work on Gospel verses, extreme importance of the text as a whole, etc. Notabiltiy is significant and these articles are well-referenced. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:07, 2005 July 9 (UTC)
 * Merge, but let's slow down. Our naming conventions require that articles be at their most common names, and most of the episodes in the life of Christ have standard names.  These are where people would expect to find them.  I don't know them all (but can research them), but I know a few.  I'm signing here and at the end of the list below. Geogre 19:57, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * "The Birth of Jesus" = "The Incarnation"
 * "The Visit of the Magi" = "The adoration of the Magi" (n.b. the lower case for terms beyond the initial one)
 * "Jesus' Escape to Egypt" = "The flight of the Holy Family"
 * "The Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist" = "The commission" and "Baptism of Christ"
 * "The Temptation of Jesus" = "The temptations of Christ"
 * "Beginning Jesus' Ministry" = ? There is a term for it that's commonplace, but I don't know it.
 * "Calling of the First Disciples" = ? ibid.
 * "The Ressurrection of Jesus" = "The Resurrection" (capital letter because it is a pronominal event)
 * "Jesus' Appearances" = "Manifestations of Christ" or ? (another term that I've forgotten, but the catch phrases at the top of a KJV should tell us).
 * Hmm. Those are not precisely the "common names" that I would have chosen. I don't have any of my books with me at the moment to look them up, but I suspect that we'll find that there are some differences in common usage in different Christian traditions (for example, those that don't use KJV). If we end up going with names like this, we'll probably want to find some source that can be agreed to be reasonably authoritative and go with that for consistency. -Aranel (" Sarah ") 21:53, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - The Bible is the single most important document in the history of western civilization. There has been more commentary on the Bible that any other work.  (In other debates on this subject, the Magna Carta has been brought up as a counter example of a foundational work of westen society that is not treateds at this level of granularity.  I can, upon request, provide bibliographic information on commentary of every book of the bible from every century since the 3rd century and from every country in the west.  Of no other dococument can such a claim be made.)  Please not that if the consensus is to delete, or merge, that Matthew 1:18 has a significant amount of information of art historical importance that cannot be merged easily in any suggested plan.  Please note that the artwork in question pertains to the letters of the text, not the birth of Jesus. Dsmdgold 20:01, July 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep there is no valid reason for any of these to be deleted. The very fact that all Bible verse pages are being lumped into one vfd entry simply proves that this vfd is ridiculous. freestylefrappe 20:18, July 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep for reasons already listed. --Idont Havaname 20:25, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge, allow articles on notable individual verses. I also strongly agree with Wetman (about the importance of context) and Francis Davey (about coherence). On a similar VfD I have pointed out that the division into verses is a highly arbitrary and not particularly helpful way of cutting up the text of the Bible. &mdash; mark &#9998; 20:37, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong keep after looking at a few of these articles, it seems that there is enough to say that's encylopedic about many individual Bible verses. (To be fair though, I'll say that may have a pro-Bible bias and this may be influencing my vote.) You (Talk) 20:56, July 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge. This would make a great commentary (I'm not sure that it's at all encyclopedic, but whatever). Even most print commentaries will have more than one verse per section. It makes more sense to discuss a passage as a whole (or even a significant portion of a passage) than to isolate individual verses, anyway. You can then say things that are more interesting and relevant. The verse numbering is long-standing and convenient for reference purposes but fairly artificial as a way of breaking up the text. -Aranel (" Sarah ") 21:53, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Atheist votes keep CalJW 23:20, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge per above and transwiki. I'm convinced we should have a wikibible. &mdash; Phil Welch 23:22, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Transwiki to Wikibooks or a Wikibible or whatever, leaving appropriate interwiki links and redirects to general pages here on wikipedia. Failing that, merge in some form, as above or otherwise. kmccoy (talk) 01:39, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge. Jayjg (talk) 04:04, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge or Transwiki. Not suitable to keep every article above. Alex.tan 04:51, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge. Individual Bible verses really aren't encyclopedic on their own (with few exceptions), they are best addressed in the context of others. -R. fiend 07:01, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep David Sneek 07:39, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Individual articles need to be judged on their own merits for VfD.  Those listed are keep.  Samw 10:30, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * USER HAS ALREADY VOTED     11:44, 10 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Strong keep as important literature with a large corpus of accumulated commentary, much of which is notable in itself. SimonP does excellent work on all these articles. Although there may be some possibilities for merging, I don't think this is the right place to discuss that. Uppland 11:21, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Transwiki or merge. —kooo 15:34, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge as suggested by initiator. Verses are important in their context, which can be far better described in a smaller number of somewhat longer, more coherent, and less repetitive articles. A whole mess of redirects will still allow someone to search by individual verse, and no information need be lost. A merge will substantially improve Wikipedia's coverage of individual verses. CDC   (talk)  16:02, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep em all. Biblical verses are part of an notable and well-established body of belief. Please be advised that I intend to vote keep for all mass nominations of articles as I do not have the time or inclination to look at each article. Mass nominations are not the best way to establish policy. Capitalistroadster 01:23, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge as suggested above. Individual Bible verses are not inherently notable outside of the context in which they are occur.  Kaibabsquirrel 01:24, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is not what VfD is for.  The merging proposal is interesting, but it should be discussed in the appropriate place. Factitious 03:06, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Almafeta 03:43, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete as per George's commentary below. JamesBurns 06:40, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge or keep. --  user:Zanimum
 * Merge. individual bible verses not automatically notable. Wikipedia is not a biblical concordance. carmeld1 18:35, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep Passages from the Bible are notable and have a high degree of cultural and historical significance. Organizing content by chapter/verse makes perfect sense.Tobycat 21:47, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a library! Nova77 22:48, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia doesn't need articles about every single verse in the Bible. Merge any useful content, basically as per UncleG's suggestion. - Mike Rosoft 23:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep I originally voted to merge on the Matthew 1 verses VfD, but having read most of the articles in question now, I think they are encyclopedic, neutral (or at least represent most points of view) and I learned things from most of them. If we can have pages on each Governor of Ohio or each US Secretary of the Treasury, or a list of asteroids, why not each verse (or other unit) in various sacred writings? Ruhrfisch 00:26, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * the above user has 1 previous edit - almost definitely a sockpuppet      01:16, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The reason Governor of Ohio or each US Secretary of the Treasury, or a list of asteroids, are seperate articles is because they are noteworthy in their own right. Matthew 1:9 is not.     01:18, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I am not a sockpuppet (and had to look up what the accusation meant). I just joined as a member, although I have been doing minor edits anonymously for a while. I found these verses on a random article link, voted on a previous VfD on this topic (my first vote), and was sent a message asking me to vote on this VfD. (I don't know how to send a message to another User, hence this edit back to User:-Ril-). I am not opposed to merging in some other manner (say by blocks of like verses in a given book) or transwikiing them to an annotated Bible, I just think Uncle G's suggestion is too crude an instrument for merging these as they currently stand. If there were a Geneaolgy of Jesus article established, for example, I can see a later vote to split it in two, into a Matthew version and a Luke version. Ruhrfisch 17:21, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * You have 3 edits at the current time, 1 is the previous vote you mention, 1 the vote above, and 1 your comment above. You have 0 edits to articles 0 edits to other VFDs 0 experimental edits 0 edits to absolutely anything else. Further, your comments above feign a need to learn how to edit, despite your ability to produce the edit User:-Ril- without copying the whole signature   , and a feigned lack of knowledge which nevertheless indicates that you know that users can have messages sent to them. Indeed, your speech is classic "I am definitely not a sockpuppet, signed --sockpuppet". This is the perfect example of sockpuppet behaviour.
 * I am aware that I sent you a message to vote, but I did that to everyone else as well whose vote may have indicated that they supported Uncle G's proposal, of which only part covered the previous VfD, and thus they had to vote again, here, for it to cover all of his proposal,, and I wasn't paying careful attention to sockpuppetry at the time. What is notable is that you made edits between those two times, and you still have 0 edits not related to this VFD or the prior one.     22:07, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I signed up as a member to vote on the original VfD (and not to be called a liar). I am new to Wikipedia but I have been doing html for 10 years and started doing it with a line editor, so copying the first part of "[ [User:-Ril-" and adding two square close brackets "] ]" did not tax my skills too much. I like Wikipedia and joined to vote on something on which I had an opinion. I have now set up a User:Ruhrfisch page. As usual I forgot to sign in when I did it, then did so with a later edit, so you can check my home ISP number and see I have made other edits (like the description of the photo on the Cologne Germany page or adding the word chemist to the Primo Levi page lead sentence). As a new user, I can see why people complain about nobody joining if this is what my simple votes get. I repeat, I know about messages from other users because I was sent one, turns out by my new friend User:-Ril-. Thanks. Ruhrfisch 23:44, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * User:-Ril- says "your speech is classic "I am definitely not a sockpuppet, signed --sockpuppet". This is the perfect example of sockpuppet behaviour.". I would say this is classic sockpuppet paranoia. Amazingly enough, both sockpuppets and real users deny that they are sockpuppets when challenged, so it's a Catch 22. Perhaps in future -Ril- could just cite the edit history and let the closing admin decide how much to weigh the vote. Kappa 00:39, 13 July 2005 (UTC)


 * It's a bit like the old witchcraft test 'if they admit it - burn them. If they don't - well then they are obviously witches since witches always lie!'. Once the accusation is made you're damned. However, in fairness to User:-Ril-, it does seem like a common assumption here. --Doc (?) 00:47, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * If sockpuppets are such a problem, why not introduce the Wiki equivalent of the franchise, i.e. in order to vote users must have a verifiable email address (which could still be kept secret), have had their user ID at least some minimum period of time (a month?) and have made a minimum number of edits (10?). My guess is this has been all discussed before, so this will be my last word on the VfD page. Sorry for any confusion my well intentioned vote caused. Ruhrfisch 14:53, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
 * The current equivalent of what you suggest is generally considered to be 1 month prior to the VfD starting, or at least edits prior to the VfD starting, and a minimum of 200 edits. Opinions on the matter vary however, although these are the most standard.     19:24, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * So if I understand the above discussion correctly this is what happened: User:-Ril- asked User:Ruhrfisch to vote here, despite the fact that Ruhrfisch had made only one previous edit, because on the basis of the previous VfD he expected him to support the proposal to merge. Ruhrfisch however changed his position and voted keep, causing -Ril- to challenge his vote - because of a lack of previous edits - and accuse him of being a sockpuppet. Wow. David Sneek 17:52, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Basically, I asked everyone to vote here who had voted a certain way on the other VfD simply because their vote appeared to be for a suggestion (Uncle G's) that actually covered more than just that VfD, so if they wished their indicated wishes at that VFD to be carried out in full, it would be necessary for them to vote here as well. I.e. everyone whose vote was technically, or appeared to be, for a wider vfd than existed at that point, but was covered by this vfd. This included Ruhrfisch. Since issues touching on ideology like this one are intrinsically liable to attract sockpuppet votes by people of that ideology, I have been checking out votes that could be such sockpuppets, discovering Ruhrfisch to be amongst them.     19:24, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * This is perhaps a good time to point out the Wikipedia tradition of assuming good faith. While we need to be vigilant about sockpuppetry, it must be done with a measure of balance and compassion. Tobycat 18:45, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Indeed - I truly pity the sockpuppets.     19:24, 14 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete Albatross2147 02:53, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. A single VfD page, while far better than dozens of individual VfD pages, is not the proper way to dispose of such a large number of articles. As I have said a few times now, start a policy consensus discussion, so that we can get down to principles, rather than articles. NatusRoma 05:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge per my comments below. Wesley 05:03, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. I don't see how the existence of these verses in Wikipedia could be a problem. Note we have articles on single TV show episodes - are they more important than Bible verses? Karol 19:03, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
 * The question is not are they more important to you, but are they more notable to knowledge. I.e. does Matthew 1:9 merit discussion in an encyclopedia. Note that I wrote encyclopedia and not bible commentary.     22:43, 13 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Strong Transwiki or Delete -- no question that we can't be this microscopic in Wikipedia or we descend into an impossible depth and server burden. Ask yourself, not how important is the Bible, but how much should a general user with no knowledge of Christianity expect to find when they look up the Bible or a book of the Bible in an encyclopedia. For consistency, I also would merge or delete or Transwiki all individual TV show epidodes, individual characters in video games, individual characters in LOTR, individual chapters in any other book, individual anything that isn't an important individual. DavidH 22:53, July 13, 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep This is a very useful resource to have for people who are reading the Bible. Christian or not, the Bible is a very key part of western culture.  Also, a series of articles like this for every single Bible verse is easy enough to do; there are many Bible commentaries that cover every single last Bible verse which are old enough to be public domain. Samboy 00:46, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I do agree. But that is, in a way, my point. This is an encyclopedia, not a resource for people who are reading the Bible. That would be a Bible commentary or concordance, which belongs in WikiBooks.     06:44, 15 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep. These are not just copies of a primary source, but include high-quality commentary. – Smyth\talk 11:12, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * But wikipedia isn't a commentary. It is an encyclopedia.     11:38, 16 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep Valuable knowledge for people who are interested in the bible verses. The merge/keep decisions should be made by the primary editors, not people who may be unfamiliar with the subject Sam Vimes 16:26, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge. Gadzooks. There are plenty of online bibles around and it serves no encylopedic purpose to reproduce mostly unnotable individual verses here. older&ne;wiser 21:16, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * In general, keep. Certainly doesn't damage our credibility, and can be valuable. I'd be perfectly willing to see these merged together in larger units (e.g. Biblical chapters) when appropriate, but I Bible verses in general as appropriate topics, which seems to be the issue here. Ditto for the Koran and any other comprably important religious works. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:12, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * I have been discussing the ambiguity (voting to keep in general but merge into larger units) of the above vote with the above user, and they have said (see my -     - talk page) that the above vote is to be understood as a vote to merge non-notable verses, but to keep notable ones.      21:21, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I am not sure that accurately represents my view: I think it is very hard to determine a priori which Bible verses merit articles. For example, a seemingly trivial verse might merit an article on the basis of controversy over its translation, or Kabbalistic significance, or for being the sole occurrence of particular Hebrew or Greek words in the Bible, or for alluding to a person or event for which we have non-biblical evidence. I personally am not interested in looking at the list of individual verses listed above to see if any of them merit inclusion. I think we need to form a policy on this, and I think VfD is a blunt instrument with which to do so. With respect to such a policy: I doubt that every verse of the Bible merits an article (though probably every chapter does); I think there would be a range of sane policy here. Certainly, though, not every verse deserves a standalone article: at most, some should be redirects to larger, more useful articles. I think that making them redirects has the merit of making less likely the re-creation of trivial articles in the future. As a vote, any keep or merge with redirect will satisfy me. I am opposed to deletion of the material, open to its consolidation, and&mdash;in the event of such consolidation&mdash;weakly inclined to support the retention of the existing titles as redirects. If this is too complicated to count as a vote in this VfD, so be it. As I said, I think we need to form a policy on this, and I think VfD is a blunt instrument with which to do so. -- Jmabel | Talk 16:59, July 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep (conditional) but only if the verse can be supported with an actual article then fine, keep it, but if the verse is just left "hanging in the air" with nothing or hardly anything to it, it should be merged until such time as it can be "fleshed out" and shown to have meaningful content worthy of a Wikipedia article (isn't that the way things work in general all over Wikipedia in any case?) Or maybe it's just a case of legitimate stub articles. Please do not rush to judgment! IZAK 05:38, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge as proposed. No Account 21:31, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge because the versus make sense in context and Uncle G has preserved treatment of topics. If his divisions are not perfect they can be altered later to the satisfaction of the community (in a policy consensus if it comes to that). Davilla 12:56, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * This was the above user's 35th edit. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:57, 2005 July 18 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... I believe the policy says something about "mutual respect" and welcoming newcommers. I'll remove my vote if it's not allowed. Anyways it's not a democracy, so it might be better to just add support:
 * The division of verses is quite arbitrary and wasn't originally part of the bible anyways. Each being so short, separate entries turns Wikipedia into an annotated list of quotes. Davilla 17:32, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * You should leave your vote, but it will probably be discounted by the closing admin. There is nothing preventing you from commenting, but votes from users with under 200 edits, and less than 1 months edit history, are usually treated as suspect. While this unfortunately cuts out any newcomers, it also cuts out Sockpuppets created to sway a vote.     19:45, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Okay, that makes more sense. I've seen those allegations thrown persistently. In that case, is anyone else voting here from an ISP in Taiwan? Davilla 20:43, 19 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Merge per Ril/Uncle G. Context is the key to understanding the bible at times.  Breakdowns of individual verses is not really helpful or encyclopedic; Re-wordings in plain english might be useful, but this is not the place for them.  However, I do support articles on verses such as John 3:16, since it has a history in popular culture as well.  humblefool&reg;Have you voted in the CSD poll yet? 16:28, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep or Transwiki to wikibible (or whatever, ifever that project gets off the ground).  To me at least, the "source text" argument is unconvincing.  I haven't looked at all the articles in question, but from what I've seen, there is more in each of the articles than just the source text, and in light of the nature of the articles, it would be a nuisance to the reader to not include the text of each verse.  Tomer TALK  20:33, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge. Jonathunder 22:02, 2005 July 18 (UTC)
 * Merge. Verses need context to make complete sense. - Nabla 01:47, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete this should go on some related wiki project. drini &#9742; 03:59, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. It seems to be an incredibly poor idea that the Wikipedia should contain particular pages on particular verses of the bible; except with really important cases. There's nothing important about this one. We really don't need the Wikipedia to become the bible; we have the bible for that. WolfKeeper 16:41, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Akubhai 20:03, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Comments
Please avoid regurgitating the discussion previously held at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 1:verses.


 * I would vote yes for a couple of the proposals, but this change is too sweeping, and some of those verses are the basis for entire sects of christianity. -Harmil 9 July 2005 15:45 (UTC)
 * Please note that the above rationale was amputated from my vote. It was not a separate comment, and I consider this an abuse of the VfD process which explicitly states that the rationale should go with the vote, and is perhaps more important than the vote itself. By moving my rationale away from the voting section, other voters are encouraged not to consider the reasons for previous votes. At best this vote is highly irregular.... -Harmil 9 July 2005 16:23 (UTC)
 * Abject apologies. No Offense intended. Aaron Brenneman 9 July 2005 16:31 (UTC)


 * this is an inappropriate use of VFD. Kappa 9 July 2005 15:47 (UTC)
 * Please read the discussion previously held at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 1:verses, and not that that, much more limited proposal ended in lack of consensus. -Harmil 9 July 2005 15:55 (UTC)
 * This comment of mine was also moved, and its current position is wildly innapropriate (I was not responding to Aaron Brenneman, but to the opening text in this section. This move also seems to be inspired by a desire to change the flow of conversation for the reader, and render comments by those opposed to the merge far less coherent. At this point, I simply must join those calling for the invalidation of this VfD. -Harmil 9 July 2005 16:36 (UTC)
 * Actually, that was me shooting myself in the head and the toe at the same time. (This is easy with your foot in your mouth, by the way.) The refactor I apologised for was the same one that pushed this comment down, if I understand your objection. I blame the drugs. Aaron Brenneman 9 July 2005 17:36 (UTC)
 * Ok, sorry for jumping to conclusions. I retract my comments which were based on rash assumptions about the move that I could have resolved for myself by looking at the history. Thanks for explaining -Harmil 16:42, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

(I second the above objection). This proposal is also too crude. I agree that All Individual Bible verses are not automatically noteworthy enough to have seperate articles. But some are - and I might argue some of these are. I also think that some of these verses should be merged into articles on the passage or chapter they concern rather into Ungle G's suggestions. This proposal is too detailed for a yes/no vote. Unfortunately I can't see any way round considering each verse (or group of verses) individually on their merits. So, although, I'm broadly in favour of merging - I will oppose this --Doc (?) 9 July 2005 15:54 (UTC)


 * I've changed my vote from the weak-kneed Merge I gave them before to the Delete I reckon they actually deserve. If a particular verse has encyclopedic merit, write a nice fat article about that verse.  Lists are bad for Wikipedia.  Have a look at this to see the kind of vacuous content lists eventually get filled with.  Strike them all out.  I'm trying to avoid wikistress over this, but barely succeeding.  Try and imagine that this was a list of (for example) Buddhist scriptures. A very long and detailed list, with each paragraph having its own article.  Do you imagine that would receive much support when it reached VfD?   Aaron Brenneman 9 July 2005 16:28 (UTC)


 * I take it that all those voting merge have considered each of the specific merge proposals before them and agree that in each and every instance this is the most appropriate merge?? Gosh, what a lot of though must be put into every vote. --Doc (?) 9 July 2005 16:33 (UTC)
 * Some of these deserve merging; no question. Some of them don't, so I oppose the proposal as a whole. Each scripture article should stand or fall on its own merits, and although scriptures aren't automatically notable, some have had an impact as a single verse that implies that they are. If an encyclopedic articles can be written about a verse, it should be. For instance, much theory about the trinity rests on John 1:1 (though I notice it doesn't have an article). Obviously, though, some of these need to be merged. --Scimitar 9 July 2005 16:48 (UTC)
 * I still think that Transwiki to The_New_Testament is the right move here. This is so clearly an annotation project!  What it's going to do is reproduce the text, and discuss various interpretations of it.  That's exactly what an annotation project is, and there is a section of Wikibooks called THE ANNOTATED NEW TESTAMENT that no one is using!!  I really don't get it.  Another big issue is that, although UncleG has done a good job of dividing the first couple of books of Matthew into subject headings... is he, or anyone else, prepared to do that work for every book in the Bible??  The whole thing just does not belong here, and would be a FANTASTIC addition to Wikibooks. Dcarrano July 9, 2005 17:00 (UTC)
 * This is a tough call. Certainly Wikibooks would do well to have an annotation project, especially since their current "The New Testament" is up for speedy deletion. However, I'm not sure that I see how or why that would preclude WP having an entry for the verses which have been influential (just to pick a random example, let's say Matthew 3:1, introduces John the Baptist, and has some interestingly controvercial wording). WP might xfer to the Wikibooks articles as authoritative (if they were), but ultimately, I think the major verses need to have encyclopedic coverage. -Harmil 9 July 2005 17:23 (UTC)
 * I don't see why we can't have both projects. The Gospel of John: Chapter 1 is vastly different from a page like John 20. We also have an entire project dedicated to cataloging species. Does this mean we should begin mass deleting our biology articles? - SimonP July 9, 2005 17:57 (UTC)
 * Point taken. After the transwikifying, I would then not object to Wikipedia-appropriate articles -- concentrating on the historical significance of those relatively few notable verses, rather than reproducing the text and giving religious interpretations of every verse -- being re-created over here.  (Agree with Geogre below that this would often take the form of reference in another article, rather than an article specifically devoted to the verse.)  Dcarrano July 9, 2005 18:06 (UTC)
 * SimonP, the major difference being that there is a huge body of factual information to be presented about biological entities. I don't believe explaining or commenting or annotating Bible versus has the same weight as factual information, and I don't believe the verses themselves are factual in the same sense. You are comparing actual apples to religious verses about oranges. DavidH 01:56, July 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment Note that this is a VfD. Those voting merge are not automatically agreeing to the proposal above, but simply agreeing that the articles should be merged. Those voting merge per above  would be those who agree to the above merge. Those voting only  merge  are not, they simply agree that the articles should not be completely seperate.      9 July 2005 17:01 (UTC)
 * As it stands, there are too many articles on which to vote. It's not reasonable to expect people to read dozens and dozens of articles, even short ones, for a single VfD. If you want to create a consensus for individual articles, create a policy consensus discussion. Something like Individual Bible verses would cover the scope, and we wouldn't have to go through this discussion on the VfD page every week. NatusRoma 9 July 2005 18:30 (UTC)


 * Comment: Any verse that has an exceptional doctrinal significance (e.g. the verse that is the rationale for the concept of Purgatory) could have an article, but it is more natural for the article on the doctrine to refer to the verse and to reiterate it. Thus, there is no real need to have articles on individual verses with all the roles played by those verses.  We have the whole KJV at Wikisource, so deletion policy would direct us to just flat out delete the lot of them.  Merging them is much better. Geogre 20:00, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. John 11:35. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:19, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I stated in the intro that Jesus wept was not being threatened whatsoever by this VfD     11:54, 10 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I second the objections of others. Some articles herein were nominated on VfD just days ago.  VfD does not seem the appropriate forum to resolve a policy issue of this significance.  It is unclear what those voting simply "Merge" want exactly (given ~ 's boldface instruction) and no single admin should (or probably would want) to resolve this complex issue.  For all these reasons, I think this vote is out of order.  Of course, I also believe a no consensus result is all but inevitable.  Xoloz 08:19, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I support Uncle G's merge plan. However, it may be worthwhile to open up a discussion and add it to Votes_for_deletion/Policy_consensus, that's what it's there for. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 09:00, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * That's the best option I've heard yet. There's no way this VfD can hope to accomplish what it wants to, and looking through all these listed articles and proposals just makes my head swim. I feel sorry for whatever poor admin has to close this monster. --Dmcdevit 09:20, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment and alternate proposal Here's an alternate proposal. It's more work, but a) I'm willing to help and b) it would eliminate complaints over major VfDs like this
 * Categorize all verse pages into:
 * Notable verses that have encyclopedic information in their articles (define criteria up-front)
 * Non-notable verses that simply describe the language of the verse
 * Create category pages (as suggested by this proposal) for major events and storylines, referencing the notable verse articles where appropriate, but otherwise providing simple capsule synopses of the previous content.
 * Find all pages that reference non-notable verses and, where appropriate, move the reference to the category pages.
 * For all non-notable articles with no remaining references, put up individual VfDs, referencing the project article, which should describe the whole process, and the criteria for non-notable biblical verses.
 * The above VfDs may be too numerous. An alternate way to do this would be to group them into related verses and VfD 10 or so at a time.
 * The end result would be roughly the same, but would leave notable articles like Matthew 3:1 intact. My first-pass approximation of criteria for notability would be: a) there is substantial disagreement among scholars about the importance, wording or meaning of the particular verse b) the verse introduces an important person or place for the first time c) the verse involves a direct quotation from a major person or entity d) there is any sect which bases its differentiation on the verse e) the verse's text is commonly (or was historically) used outside of biblical context (e.g. "eye for an eye", "turn the other cheek", etc.) -Harmil 17:04, 10 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't understand this vote. If you want to merge these articles, be bold and merge them. If you meet opposition on the pages themselves, you can sort it out there, not here where it is utterly inappropriate. You don't want them deleted so why are you having this process? Keep all the articles in question, obviously. Do not relist them. Just do the merges and deal with the fallout. Grace Note 01:42, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Please note that this is the comments section not the votes section.     08:34, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was a comment. I'm sure the closing admin can figure out what's happening. -- Grace Note


 * SimonP's behaviour is to instantly revert anything which reduces the content in his articles. Therefore merging the articles and dealing with the fallout without any consensus that the articles should not exist seperately is unfortunately not an option.     08:34, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Disputed merges should be discussed on article talk pages. Christopher Parham (talk) 16:18, 2005 July 11 (UTC)
 * Merge. Should not have to discuss the merge on each individual verse article's talk page, that's part of the problem. It's not that the verses aren't noteworthy, but that in most cases they are better dealt with in groups of verses rather individually. Notice the huge amount of duplication among the John 20: verse articles for instance, because they're discussing the same passage. I do think that Ungle G's merge plan should be tweaked slightly; for instance, Temptation of Jesus could refer to the Matthew 4 temptation in the wilderness, or to the much later temptation of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was tempted not to accept crucifixion. Wesley 16:37, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * If that is a vote, could you possibly move it to the votes section to make it clear to the closing admin?     19:28, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I think Uncle G's choices are due to guesswork as to what the titles of articles at List of Bible stories refer to. They look like they probably need tweaking a bit.     19:28, 11 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I still think we need to hammer out a unified policy on individual bible verses. Almafeta 22:03, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * That is probably what WikiProject Bible is for. I have mentioned this project at least 4 times in the last month when people raise the question of discussing a unified policy. It is informative that the WikiProject is still static, and no-one has joined it to discuss unified policy. Since this is the case, I am forced to question the motives of those suggesting this must be discussed elsewhere first.     22:20, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Then lead us in posting there! I agree that that is a much more appropriate venue for this discussion, but I only see one edit that you've made to the talk page. Since you have started this discussion, please start it again in a more proper venue. Moreover, instead of impugning the motives of others, please assume good faith. I, for one, haven't seen everything you've written, or followed every link you've bracketed, so I've missed most, if not all, of the four other times you've mentioned WikiProject Bible. Now that I know that it exists, I await a revival of this discussion at that more fitting venue. NatusRoma 05:13, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * You still haven't joined the WikiProject, and nor has anyone else. It needs members to have discussion. The members listed have been there for ages and seem to have faded.    22:21, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It appears that neither one of us has joined the WikiProject at this point. You have nominated all of these articles for Deletion or Merging on VfD. Please take the first step on WikiProject:Bible. NatusRoma 00:53, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I already have - I added the related note on the WikiProject talk page.     19:29, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I seek a discussion, not a poll. I seek a consensus, not a majority. NatusRoma 01:00, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Moreover, the survey regards the inclusion of source text in Bible chapters, and has nothing to do with the nature or the existence of articles on individual Bible verses. NatusRoma 21:11, 16 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Please see this. Changed vote to Abstain pending this discussion. brenneman (t) (c)  00:46, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Note that on another Wikipedia (the Interlingua wikipedia), this came to a discussion, and it was found that individiual verses of the Bible were not encyclopedic. I don't know if that'll count as precedent in the English wikipedia, however.  Almafeta 12:40, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The problem with the English wikipedia that others do not suffer is that there is a large systemic bias favouring the views of fundamentalist Christianity. This is merely because a large population of the English speaking world, and particularly of en-wikipedia is from the US, a very large % of which (compared to the remainder of the world) is composed of fundamentalist Christians. Since the other Wikipedias are mainly composed of people who do not edit the en-wikipedia, it is difficult to balance this systemic problem. The only real solution is to take questions like this to all wikipedias at once, and consider only the total vote over all of them (admittedly this has problems with duplicate accounts), however, there is not yet such a procedure for issues stemming from systemic bias predominantly affecting only one wikipedia.     22:50, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * nod* So it's probable that the English wiki is going to have a full copy of the Bible on it, but the book of Mormon, the Koran, the Talmud, et multiple cetera, will be 'not notable enough' for Wikipedia.  :/  Joy.  Almafeta 11:41, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Its a shame we can't split the english wikipedia into US and non-US versions (which would also be pointless - controversial articles would be edited by parties from both versions, since both can read and write english). Maybe this will cease being an issue when Spanish becomes the US national language.     19:32, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * There is truth in what you say. Not that all supporters of "keep" on this VFD are American or evangelical or even Christian. But we are at a time, especially here in America, when a loud minority feel compelled to insert the Bible, prayer, and religious symbolism into absolutely everything. We can't have science without the Bible, we can't have politics without prayer, we can't have courthouses and public squares without the Ten Commandments. It's obvious that these articles are questionably encyclopedic and could be perfectly handled in Wikibooks or the previously mentioned annotation project, but some people won't rest until Wikipedia is thoroughly innoculated with every word of the Bible. Their Bible, that is. I'd like to see them fight as hard for all the holy books of every other important world religion, but I won't hold my breath. DavidH 02:09, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * Sounds like for all its purported "freedom of religion", the USA has become the most fundamentally Christian country in the western world.   &mdash; J I P | Talk 06:51, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * DavidH would you care to provide any evidence for these accusations of bias? Kappa 11:02, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * As I see it, the minority that's creating problems here is not the one that attempts to put the Bible and religion into absolutely everything it possibly can. It's the one that attempts to eliminate the Bible and religion from everything it possibly can.
 * unsigned comment
 * Note that I am suggesting to merge the articles. This is quite different from eliminating them. Please read carefully rather than jump to conclusions that are easy for you.     17:31, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * If I wanted to see Christian people saying "they can't take our faith away" and otherwise acting like martyrs, I'd read the letters column of our local freebie newspaper.   &mdash; J I P | Talk 13:15, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Regarding another point addressed above, there's a misleading idea being presented here that educated Americans have some fundamental bias in judgment that means the population of the enwiki somehow cannot be trusted to determine rationally what is encyclopedic. This is, naturally, not the case, and does not seem to me the sort of "systemic bias" we should be addressing. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:44, 2005 July 15 (UTC)
 * If we wish to be seen as unbiased, we must address all systemic bias.     20:26, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * -Ril-, you haven't made a credible case for Christian fundamentalism in any way influencing the keep voters, and you misrepresent not only the voters who disagree with you but the whole issue by implying that fundamentalists would even like to keep these articles, which are based on works by scholars representing a historical-critical and philological interpretation. In fact, the only person in any of these votes clearly representing something reminiscent of Christian fundamentalism, User:Wesley, voted "delete", claiming that these articles inevitably would be dominated by "atheist 'academics'". --Uppland 20:52, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Urm, Wesley is Greek Orthodox. I'm not really sure how that counts as fundamentalist?     22:23, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I wrote "something reminiscent of Christian fundamentalism", and I'm sure you realize that it doesn't make any difference exactly which church somebody belongs to, as the significance lies in the opposition between a historical-critical analysis of the biblical texts and one primarily serving to uphold the dogma of the church in question or of Christianity in general. The articles we are discussing here are clearly in the former camp. Don't you agree? --Uppland 22:47, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Wesley's edits don't really suggest a fundamentalist attitude either.
 * The articles should be historical-critical but they aren't.
 * Having the articles individually serves the purpose of Bible study, concordence, and commentary, but does not serve the purpose of an encyclopedia, which is what Wikipedia is.     08:51, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * My reason for putting "systemic bias" in scare quotes is that I don't think any systemic bias exists that is relevant to this vote.
 * Systemic bias probably accounts for the lack of comparable articles on the Koran or other similar books. Commentaries on the Koran are less likely to be understood or read by English speakers, because they are not in the language and because fewer English speakers are Muslim. This is what I would describe as systemic bias, stemming from exogenous factors like the allocation of research by languages, etc. For the enwiki, creating articles on the Koran is simply harder. The Wikiproject, by advertising and finding qualified people, can help remedy this problem.
 * On the other hand, here we are trying to determine whether these articles are encyclopedic (or propertly organized). You are claiming that because many of us are Christians, we somehow cannot do this well. But there's no clear reason why this would be the case. Christians, like anyone else, are fully capable of rationally assessing an article and determining if it should be kept or deleted or merged.
 * Not when it comes to their own holy book. Likewise for Muslims and the Quran. But for other things, I agree. If we were discussing, for example, if individual flavours of cat food merit their own articles, it doesn't matter a toss if the voters were Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Cthulhu worshippers.   &mdash; J I P | Talk 19:30, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * However, if they were in charge of marketing for "cat foods inc.", then it would be a different matter.     19:42, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The problem with your viewpoint is that for both sides, it destroys the notion that we are having an intellectual discourse. Instead, we are all consciously or unconsciously voting based on our religious beliefs. On the contrary, I believe that the vast majority of the voters here are making votes based on a rational assessment of the issues, perhaps informed by different notions of what is encyclopedic and so on. I think an individual can come to a rational conclusion regardless of his race or religion; I think a group can come to a rational conclusion regardless of its demographics. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:21, 2005 July 15 (UTC)


 * Who wants to make an article on every little section of the Mahabharata next? :) --Dmcdevit·t 08:28, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
 * I'll vote Keep on every one since we now have precedent. Almafeta 10:06, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * There are 100,000+ aren't there. So that would increase Wikipedia's size by about 1/4 at the current number of articles.     11:40, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It would increase wikipedia's article count by 1/4, not its size. But luckily Wikipedia is not paper, so that wouldn't matter anyway. Kappa 12:08, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Many of the articles noted above are impressively well-referenced and encyclopedic.  The Bible has been so over-analyzed over the centuries that a full-length article could almost certainly be written on every verse.  That applies to a number of other canonical texts in the world as well-- and if someone creates a bunch of quality articles on individual verses in the Quran or the Pali Canon, I'll gladly vote to keep them as well.
 * Unsigned vote above by User:Visviva. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:36, 2005 July 18 (UTC)
 * Keep While the import of specific articles on specific verses may be called into question, this blanket delete is overzealous. Amicuspublilius 23:12, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * N.b. it's a blanket merge rather than a blanket delete.    07:13, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep At first glance, looks pretty useful. Tintin 08:05, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Tomer TALK 03:41, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * While the result is fairly clear, we need to wait until a user who has time to remove over a hundred VfD headers comes along. - SimonP 04:54, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * It still ought to be possible to closed the VfD, and even to announce the result, before dealing with the articles themselves.NatusRoma 05:03, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * While the result is fairly clear, the result that is clear is that there is no consensus. I have added up the votes, and the amount of votes to keep the articles is slightly less than those to do something else with them. The difference is negligable, however, thus requiring the VFD to remain open to gain consensus. A result of no-consensus, would just cause the VFD to be re-opened immediately after closing, to determine consensus. It will be re-listed on VFD if it fails to achieve consensus in the next 4 days (as it will drop off the VFD backlog at that point). N.b. consensus is generally regarded as 2/3 majority, or at least a noticable (as opposed to by 1/2 votes out of 60) majority.     06:58, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm going to go out on a limb and disagree with you. The vote is CLEARLY opposed to deletion, therefore the VfD should be closed.  There is a great deal of support for transwikiing to a currently non-existent project, but that does not minimize the fact that there is a grand total of FOUR patently "delete" votes.  I move that the nominator be assigned with the task of removing the VfD notifications, and that interested parties be invited to constructively commence formation of the widely supported biblewiki project.  My guess is that most of those who voted in favor of transwikiing thereto lack the technical expertise to actually accomplish such a transwikiing (myself included), but that once the project were up and running, that the superfluous material would happily disappear from the WP project to its more appropriate home.  Meanwhile, stalling in order to try to gain more and more votes is patently ridiculous.  How long do y'all plan to leave this open?  It's already going on 2 weeks.  A month?  2 months?  3?  4?  18???!  Close this already, and let's move on to constructively address the clear consensi:  (a) do not delete and (b) start biblewiki (or whatever).  Tomer TALK  07:20, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't know if you noticed, but this VFD was primarily about merging the articles rather than deleting them. The vote is required to determine whether consensus is to keep the articles as individuals or to merge them together or move them somewhere else. What is being VFD'd is their individuality. I.e. I put their individuality up for deletion. Merge, transwiki, and delete votes are all agreeing that they should not be individual. There needs to be consensus as to whether they should exist seperately in wikipedia (rather than eslewhere - e.g. WikiBooks) or not.     07:50, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * N.b. The technical expertise required to transwiki is to add a tag to the article. Someone who is able to transwiki it will them perform the transwiki after a week or so.      07:50, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Nah...I noticed that it's more about merging that deleting...I still think the whole kit 'n caboodle should be transwikied&mdash;but it would be inappropriate to send it to wikibooks or wikisource. If someone knows how to make wikibible, I'll be more than happy to help remove the VfD tags on the articles.  That said, I still think it's ridiculous that the VfD is still open.  Tomer TALK  17:28, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikibible would be a book amongst Wikibooks. There is already a project there. I think it's called Wikibooks:New Testament     17:39, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikibible would be a book amongst Wikibooks. There is already a project there. I think it's called Wikibooks:New Testament     17:39, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Merge but not as outlined above. The 31,273 Biblical verses are not individually important enough to deserve seperate articles. --68.175.29.38 06:07, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

vote summary so-far
The exact totals so far (as of 20:24, 21 July 2005 (UTC)) are


 * Discounted
 * Keep x 1
 * merge x 1


 * Vote breakdown
 * Abstain x 2
 * Keep x 31
 * Merge x 21
 * Transwiki x 3
 * Merge and transwiki x 1
 * Merge or Transwiki x 2
 * Merge, Transwiki, or Delete x 1
 * Transwiki or Delete x 1
 * Transwiki or Keep x 1
 * Merge or keep x 2
 * Delete x 5
 * Keep (conditional) x 1


 * I.e.
 * Abstain x 2
 * Keep as individual articles x 32
 * Don't have as individual articles x 34
 * Either x 3


 * Overlapping Totals


 * Abstain x 2
 * Keep x 34
 * Merge x 27
 * Transwiki x 10
 * Delete x 7
 * Keep (conditional) x 1


 * I.e.
 * Abstain x 2
 * Keep as individual articles x 35
 * Don't have as individual articles x 44
 * n.b. this second grouping includes overlaps (e.g. "merge OR transwiki" = "merge" x 1 + "transwiki" x 1), so some votes counted twice

07:04, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


 * What was done with those "Merge or Keep" votes now? And the "Transwiki or Keep"? I must question the value of this "analysis."  Xoloz 02:12, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * This second count - "overlapping totals" - includes each part of such votes, i.e. they overlap. A "transwiki or keep" vote is here converted to a "transwiki" vote and a "keep" vote, etc. Note that, as mentioned, some people's votes are thus counted in two locations.
 * The value of this is simply to see which of those alternative votes is the favoured outcome. I.e. in the event of the merge/transwiki/keep/delete votes not having a clear consensus, which is favoured by these more ambiguous votes. From the above, it is clear that, after keep, it is merge, and the second favourite is transwiki.     08:02, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

comments continued...
Some parties have opened up a further discussion at Merge/Bible verses. 08:05, 22 July 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.