Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Martin Luther and the persecution of witches


 * 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. —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-07 04:07Z 

Martin Luther and the persecution of witches

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POV fork of Martin Luther. This section has been repeatedly reinserted and deleted from the main article. (The consensus is that it doesn't belong there.) It's trivia more than anything else. BigDT 18:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete: per nom. Also, Luther had no interaction with witches at all. The passages quoted are simply theory emerging from commentary on Bible passages that command capital sentences for witches. They are the sum total of his comments on the subject. As far as I know, no biography of Luther takes up the subject. --CTS Wyneken (talk) 19:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete: I would have said merge with the Martin Luther Article, but as you say, it doesn't really belong there. GhostPirate 19:32, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Forced POV interpretation. I don't see any encyclopedic content worth merging to the main article. Leebo 86 20:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Contra Deletion Many Lutheran pastors, theologians and jurists quoted Luther´s opinion on the persecution of witches. Even canon laws referred to Luther in this matter. Thus Luther´s attitude had a great impact for the persecution of witches in Lutheran territories. Altogether about 60000 women and men were executed because of witchcraft. Thus it was not a trivial matter, but was important for the public and church discussion for two centuries.

Literature: Jörg Haustein: Martin Luthers Stellung zum Zauber- und Hexenwesen, Dissertation, 1990 (Jörg Haustein: Martin Luther´s attitude towards witchcraft, dissertation 1990)

Maybe the article could be revised. Hegeler 21:12, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * That Martin Luther and his teachings may have had an impact on the issue of witches and the persecution thereof may be true. If so then that is a fine topic for discussion as a section under the article on Witch-hunt.  But since it seems Luther had little if nothing to do directly with the persecution there should NOT be an article on the subject.  It should be deleted.  Arkyan 21:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak delete It appears that Martin Luther believed in and was opposed to witches, in common with other ministers of his time. I do not see that this banal fact needs an article devoted to it. I do not see sources saying that his belief about witches was important. Edison 21:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete his opinion on witches can be added to the article on him. Koweja 21:48, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Um, so he didn't like witches? That's hardly unique, nor does it warrant it's own article.--AgentCDE 22:12, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete: per nom. As a matter of interest I was the one who did research on this material when it was first introduced into the Martin Luther article. The Karant-Nunn is a good resource because it translated the passages that were cited in the mysterious witchcraft section that appeared in the Luther article. --Drboisclair 04:16, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: I agree that this article is dubious at best, but I fail to see how a couple of paragraphs on this subject should be expunged entirely from the project. Judging from Google, there appears to be substantial interest in the subject of Martin Luther and witchcraft, as well as what appears to be misinformation. I think it would serve the reader to have an accurate, brief discussion of this subject somewhere on Wikipedia.--Mantanmoreland 19:11, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - Perhaps the information could be added to the extant Christian views on witchcraft page? That page seems rather short at the moment, and the additional information could probably be fairly easily fit into it. John Carter 22:33, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment there are many web-sites claiming that there were instructions, overt or covert, against witches by Luther. Notable authors, such as Zacharias, fail to mention anything about it. There are some books that were attributed to Luther with all kinds of weird rituals though Alf Photoman  22:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, per my above comment and after going through several books on Luther and Witch persecution in Europe without finding sources Alf Photoman  01:37, 6 March 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.