Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Seventh-day Adventist historicist interpretations of Bible prophecy


 * 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 no consensus.  Sandstein  11:20, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Seventh-day Adventist historicist interpretations of Bible prophecy

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Non-notable religious analysis essay full of unencyclopedic tone and cruft. Generally fails WP:NOT. Regards, James(talk/contribs) 01:27, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions.  sst ✈  04:02, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bible-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 13:53, 5 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete: It is Fringe built upon Fringe that rests on Fringe. None of the sources used are appropriate for an encyclopedia - essentially they are all cult members who believe in fantasy and pseudoscience and worse. If there were appropriate neutral sources out there, it might be salvageable but I doubt that credible authors would have considered these beliefs worthy of study. We can use sources that examine human beliefs in prophesy, but we cannot use religious essays or tracts that actually believe in prophesy, a thing that does not exist, because the content in such sources will not be neutral or credible. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:19, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Your personal beliefs do not trump that many serious scholars do study this topic, starting with the religion classes at all the schools listed at List of Seventh-day Adventist colleges and universities


 * Keep: The article is informational only and is just an expansion of part of an already existing Wikipedia article -- Seventh-day Adventist eschatology. If you want to know what an organization actually believes you go to its sources.  It doesn't matter if what they believe is right or wrong, all that matters is what they think, not what others think they think.  It is not the purpose of Wikipedia to decide if something if right or wrong, only to tell what is.  The best way to expose the weakness of a group is to let them speak for themselves.  The readers of Wikipedia are smart enough to be able to decide for themselves if something does or does not make sense to them, just as Tiptoe has done.  If Tiptoe had not had this article to read he would have been ignorant of what SDAs think, but now, he is not ignorant. --MindyWaters (talk) 00:04, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Undue weight: “Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserves as much attention overall as the majority view. Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views.” And, “Theories and viewpoints held by a minority should not receive as much attention as the majority view, and views held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views.... Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them… But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it should not be represented as the truth.”
 * The Book of Daniel presents a discussion of several views about Daniel and the prophecies according to their due weight. But, this article is about a single minor viewpoint, so the concern of due or undue weight is a mute point.  However, there is a hatnote that links to the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation where that is of concern.  The article is a part in a series on the Seventh-day Adventist church and its beliefs.
 * Reliable Sources: “Questionable sources should only be used as sources for material on themselves, such as in articles about themselves”… “ “Questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement that they be published experts in the field.”
 * Following this policy, this article uses SDA sources to provide information about an SDA belief. This article does not discuss other viewpoints.  Those can be found at Book of Daniel or Book of Revelation.
 * By its very nature, this article is religious. --MindyWaters (talk) 16:18, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Non-notable? There are approximately 20 million members of the SDA church world wide who hold to the historicist interpretation of the prophecies of Daniel explained in this article.  This is equivalent to the population of the Greater New York Metropolitan Area population of about 20 million people.  If you consider the population of New York City non-notable, then you can consider SDAs non-notable.  --MindyWaters (talk) 05:42, 13 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The article goes far FAR beyond the mere "informational" - it is a religious tract presenting certain beliefs as verifiable truth (as opposed to beliefs being explained in the context of detailing the beliefs of a certain group). The titles of the sources used, such as "The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary"; "The Prophetic Faith of our Fathers"; "God Cares: The Message of Revelation for You and Your Family", as well as their publishers', like "Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association", indicate that this is not an article composed from neutral and academic third party sources. If there are no neutral sources, there is no place for this article on Wikipedia. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 00:39, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I pray thee tell me,, where in policy or guidelines does it say that sources must be neutral? Is any source truly neutral? If you find one, please let me know. Elizium23 (talk) 02:01, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * By neutral I just meant sources that are at a distance from the subject. We do not use company press releases or advertisements as the basis for articles about commercial companies or products, nor do we use political manifestos or the speeches of politicians as the basis for articles about political parties. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:13, 10 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete - per nom and complete sh$tshow at this point. --Malerooster (talk) 03:07, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Weak keep (seem informative), even though it looks like mostly WP:OR based on primary religious sources. My very best wishes (talk) 17:10, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:USEFUL. --Regards, James(talk/contribs) 20:13, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I am not familiar with the subject, so this page does look like nonsense to me. My very best wishes (talk) 23:04, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   08:53, 13 January 2016 (UTC) The accusation of OR: Please point out where is the OR. The "Survey of prophecy" sections are paraphrases of the applicable original texts with links to the original for comparison. The "literary comparisons" are fully referenced. The "kingdoms identified" sections are fully referenced. All other sections are fully referenced. The "Interpretations of the kingdoms by Biblical expositors..." tables are derived directly from similar tables in Froom. The "Parable sequence of prophetic sequence ..." tables are summaries of what has been presented in each chapter section. So, where is the original research? Also, not all references are SDA. --MindyWaters (talk) 20:13, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete This is basically an article filled with nothing but theories per bag load of WP:FRINGE. An article page for advertising personal views.— JudeccaXIII (talk) 05:00, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The 'about' hatnote explicitly states that this article is about a minority viewpoint (JudeccaXIII calls it "fringe") that as I noted above is allowed so long as it is not promoted as "The Truth." As I have said above, this article, though detailed, is informational only.  Complying with neutrality, I have deliberately avoided and excluded any and all qualitative words and or phrases that state or imply that the SDA view is "The Truth."  Any editor or reader who reads into the article promotion of "The Truth" does so based upon their own biases.  If I have inadvertently missed something in the article that promotes the SDA view as "The Truth" please tell me where.  --MindyWaters (talk) 15:39, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This topic is one of the four areas where Adventist beliefs diverge from mainstream Protestant doctrine. It is a very valid topic therefore. Adventists are not a fringe group. In fact, I can virtually guarantee regardless of where you are sitting today, there is an Adventist church within a short drive because there are only about 34 cities of over a million people on the globe without an Adventist church, and they are all in non-english speaking countries like China, Iran, and Turkey. Legacypac (talk) 21:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC).


 * WP:POVFORK. --Regards, James(talk/contribs) 20:01, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This article did not fork off from Book of Daniel, it is an expansion of a section in the SDA Eschatology page, which also was not a fork from the Eschatology page (see Talk SDA Eschatology), each of which were developed independently. The about hatnote is there so if someone is interested, they can go read other ideas on eschatology.  --MindyWaters (talk) 21:31, 16 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. Yes, one can reasonably argue that the page is used for advertising views by Adventists. Yes, this is all a fantasy. However, is it a sufficiently notable fantasy? Judging from the sourcing and info on other pages, yes, it is, and it stands as a separate subject. My very best wishes (talk) 15:18, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep I've gotten SDA literature about Daniel prophecy in my mailbox, and this is not selling soap or cigarettes, so any pretense that this topic is "non-notable" (has not received the attention of the world at large over a period of time), or that this topic is "an essay", is nonsense.  Nor does the fact that mainstream protestantism considers the SDA to be cult (see Criticism of the Seventh-day Adventist Church) justify removal of a scholarly survey of SDA literature.  I think the lede could use work, especially in opening up the concept of historicism, which is a novel concept for the reader.  I'm sure the article could use a lot of work, too.  Why is the title not limited to Daniel?  What can be cut to make the article shorter?  Unscintillating (talk) 23:33, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * "a scholarly survey of SDA literature"? Where do you get that from? Firstly, it is not about SDA literature, it is about a particular set of SDA beliefs. And what scholarly sources are you saying support the article? All the sources are either in-house SDA literature or produced for believers by believers, i.e. all are primary sources. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:24, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Most, but for the earliest, of the authors cited are scholars and professors: C. Mervyin Maxwell, PhD, U.of Chicago; Desmond Ford, PhD, University of Manchester; Gerhard Pfandl, PhD Andrews University; Jacques Doukhan, PhD, U. of Strasbourg, and PhD, Andrews University; William Shea, MD, Loma Linda University and PhD, Andrews University.  I was unable to check all the authors.  --MindyWaters (talk) 22:30, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Desmond Ford is an outspoken critic and former pastor in the SDA Church. Inclusion of references to him suggests balance. Calling SDAs a cult is itself a fringe POV, as most Protestants reject that label for the Adventist Church.

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep I could reasonably argue that no religion should be on a Wiki-based encyclopedia that's predominately atheist, but that's not what's being argued here. The fringe on fringe on fringe issue is amusing, 'cause aside from believing in God, the SDA are very science oriented. Well, they've got a number of top rated hospitals! --MurderByDeletionism"bang!" 07:06, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is a legitimate content fork representing a significant theological point of view. As MindyWaters argued above, undue weight does not apply to the scope of articles. NPOV will require any major criticism of the Seventh-day Adventist view on Bible prophecy to be included in the article, but is not a reason for article deletion. Original research does not apply here either because it only concerns original research done by Wikipedia; this article merely describes Seventh-day Adventist views already published by other authors. The concept of reliable sources is topic-dependent so sources by Seventh-day Adventist authors in an article about Seventh-day Adventist views should be construed as reliable. The fact that my honorable fellow editors disagree with this religious sect's opinion does not constitute a valid argument based on Wikipedia's policy to delete this article. (Full disclosure: Christian, not Seventh-day Adventist, some interest in theology.) Deryck C. 18:26, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 18:38, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Strong keep this topic is one of the most distinctive beliefs in the Seventh-day Adventist Church that distinguish it from other Protestant Churches. The church was founded out of the Millerite movement that was based on some novel interpretations of prophecy, mainly those in Daniel and Revelation, and a full understanding of the Adventist belief system requires reviewing this topic. Adventists are not considered a cult by anyone but their fiercest opponents, who are usually former members with an ax to grind for some reason. With congregations in nearly every country and territory in the world, the second largest education system in the world, one of the largest hospital systems, and many publishing, radio, TV and other operations such as Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company, SDAs are not a fringe group but a well established Christian domination. In fact, Adventists are the 6th largest of the Highly International Religious Bodies according to Adherents, and the 3rd largest on the list that is Protestant. No one says anyone has to agree with the explanation of Adventist doctrines, only assess if the explanations here correctly reflect what the church teaches. Legacypac (talk) 21:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:BIG, WP:NOTINHERITED. --Regards, James(talk/contribs) 20:23, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment If there was nothing else, I would say keep (without looking at it). However, How does this differ from Seventh Day Adventist eschatology?  If not at all, they should be merged and one redirected to the other.  If there is another SDA view than historicist, then we may need both.  As I am not a member, I do not know and do not carte much.  Peterkingiron (talk) 19:28, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This article is an expansion of just a single section of SDA eschatology, but it is far too large to be merged back into the other page. Its the large size the prompted the initialization of this page.  --MindyWaters (talk) 20:44, 24 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment I have placed a notification of this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Skepticism, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion. --Regards, James(talk/contribs) 20:20, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete and merge any useful (and reliably-sourced) material into Seventh-day Adventist eschatology. Current "article" seems like little more than an essay someone wrote about something interesting they learned in church. Hallward's Ghost (Kevin) (My talkpage) 20:01, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep A merge would be too bulky, I believe it passes WP:GNG but more independent sources would help.Atlantic306 (talk) 04:42, 28 January 2016 (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.