Talk:Genesis creation narrative/Archive 26

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Neutrality

If this wiki is supposed to be neutral, why does this article along with some others have an atheistic bias? It literally acts like atheists are never wrong. They have been wrong before, like in Nebraska Man and Piltdown man. This article contrasts the NPOV.Primal Groudon (talk) 21:22, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is going to understandably wish to avoid overly sectarian sources, to avoid promoting any specific religion as true, so lean toward the consensus of non-sectarian academics. Hence The CHOPSY Test is an acronym made up entirely of non-sectarian Universities. That non-sectarian academics might largely be sectarian against any religious interpretations of events is maybe not an issue they can actually handle. Still knowing this can help reading Wikipedia. So when Wikipedia says "Borrowing themes from Mesopotamian mythology, but adapting them to the Israelite people's belief in one God" this should be read as "CHOPSY academics generally agree that the story borrows themes from Mesopotamian mythology, but adapting them to the Israelite people's belief in one God." Indeed most "is" type statements at Wikipedia should be read with that implied "CHOPSY academics generally agree" in them. (Well except I'd say they would include all well-ranked secular universities.)

All that said Wikipedia is also by Wikipedians. So this means they will cite the academics Wikipedians actually read or look up and take their claims of consensus at face value if they respect them. The obvious is a tendency for English Wikipedia to lean a bit toward writers who write in English or have at least been translated to English. But it will also mean, seeing as Wikipedia was founded by an atheist and to this day the demographics are disproportionately atheist, that atheistic and agnostic humanistic or naturalistic scholars will be disproportionately represented. (The response below does well into getting how Wikipedia must be influenced by modernistic forms of religion a mostly atheist, in this case atheist is the right word, notion of hermeneutics of suspicion.) On the plus side I would say Wikipedia generally avoids endorsing fringe antitheistic sources, like "Christ Mythers", but "mainstream writers who are atheist humanists" is different. I'd say they have a tendency to be, if not precisely the default, a POV very very overrepresented on all areas of Wikipedia. Particularly those relating to religion, sexuality, or politics.

Anyway wanting Wikipedia to be "neutral" on the matter of religion vs atheist humanist or naturalistic views of things is, as I came to realize, a fool's errand. It is NOT going to happen. One person even went to the trouble to go to my page and say it essentially CAN'T happen. The religious demographics of both Wikipedia, and of certain fields in the prestigious secular Universities of the English-speaking world, combines to make atheistic humanistic or naturalistic views disproportionately important. This is likely most true in articles that relate to anthropology, psychology, and sociology due to the demographics of those fields in secular universities.T. Anthony (talk) 11:11, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

It isn't a matter of atheism vs. fundamentalist theism. It is a matter of objective knowledge vs. subjective beliefs. Liberal theology agrees with Wikipedia's POV. Bible scholars who are neither Christian nor Jew are exceedingly rare.

Modern Bible scholarship/scholars (MBS) assumes that:

• The Bible is a collection of books like any others: created and put together by normal (i.e. fallible) human beings; • The Bible is often inconsistent because it derives from sources (written and oral) that do not always agree; individual biblical books grow over time, are multilayered; • The Bible is to be interpreted in its context: ✦ Individual biblical books take shape in historical contexts; the Bible is a document of its time; ✦ Biblical verses are to be interpreted in context; ✦ The "original" or contextual meaning is to be prized above all others; • The Bible is an ideologically-driven text (collection of texts). It is not "objective" or neutral about any of the topics that it treats. Its historical books are not "historical" in our sense. ✦ "hermeneutics of suspicion"; ✦ Consequently MBS often reject the alleged "facts" of the Bible (e.g. was Abraham a real person? Did the Israelites leave Egypt in a mighty Exodus? Was Solomon the king of a mighty empire?); ✦ MBS do not assess its moral or theological truth claims, and if they do, they do so from a humanist perspective; ★ The Bible contains many ideas/laws that we moderns find offensive;

• The authority of the Bible is for MBS a historical artifact; it does derive from any ontological status as the revealed word of God;

— Beardsley Ruml, Shaye J.D. Cohen's Lecture Notes: INTRO TO THE HEBREW BIBLE @ Harvard (BAS website) (78 pages)

Quoted by Tgeorgescu. Or, to put it in simpler terms, historical method + Bible = blasphemy. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:11, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

That is a more specific way of putting it. Although I think you are meaning to be flippant in your response to objections it does get at why modernist Protestantism, if Christian views are to be considered at all, is going to be the go-to of theist scholars listened to as they are maybe the most compatible to the assumptions of CHOPSY academics. (Well some Reform Judaism and I gather Conservative Judaism too, considering Cohen, also works.) So in retrospect it is more that articles on religious subjects will favor what humanistic or skepticist academics, of any culture, assume is better rather than saying it's a preference to "atheism" as such. After I wrote the above I realized I was being too sweeping as deist, pantheist, Cultural Christian, etc forms of non-theism could also fit. I will edit that part accordingly. But anyway yes, in a way I actually agree they should "get over it" and realize Wikipedia is a creation mostly by Humanists or Skeptics that favors the consensus of humanist/non-theist academics in most areas. I accepted this long before I quit really working here. (I intend to do some work on next year's Paralympics) Eventually I admit I found the strain of working in Modernist/Humanist environment I reject too much, as I'm sure you'd find it a strain to work at a Catholic Encyclopedia, but Wikipedia is what it is. I don't like what it is, I even would be pleased if it ended, but it doesn't need my approval or favor.T. Anthony (talk) 16:39, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

@T. Anthony: Here is a brief quote: Ehrman, Bart (2010). "A Historical Assault on Faith". Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them). HarperCollins e-books. pp. 3–4. ISBN 9780061173943. My hunch is that the majority of students coming into their first year of seminary training do not know what to expect from courses on the Bible. ... Most students expect these courses to be taught from a more or less pious perspective, showing them how, as future pastors, to take the Bible and make it applicable to people's lives in their weekly sermons.
Such students are in for a rude awakening. Mainline Protestant seminaries in this country are notorious for challenging students' cherished beliefs about the Bible—even if these cherished beliefs are simply a warm and fuzzy sense that the Bible is a wonderful guide to faith and practice, to be treated with reverence and piety. These seminaries teach serious, hard-core Bible scholarship. They don't pander to piety. They are taught by scholars who are familiar with what German- and English-speaking scholarship has been saying about the Bible over the past three hundred years. ...
The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and now Catholic) mainline seminaries is what is called the "historical-critical" method. It is completely different from the "devotional" approach to the Bible one learns in church. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help) Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:34, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

I doubt Catholicism has fallen into heresy, I'm certainly not going to take your Ehrman's word it has, though he does give part of why Liberal Protestantism is mostly dying. Looking this up on my own Pope Emeritus Benedict does say as a method it is useful, but recommended "a synthesis between an exegesis that operates with historical reason and an exegesis that is guided by faith." Certain things in the Catechism would make no sense if the Church was purely historical-critical in its reading of the Bible as that would lead to the kind of heretical views Wikipedia advances as just true. Still some of are seminaries clearly went very astray so Ehrman might be right about some Catholic seminaries becoming little more than mainline Protestant schools. Anyway what I've gathered in looking into it for Catholics the historical-critical method is a tool, but not the sole method or tool Catholics use. That we're maybe to use a mix of it and a theological hermeneutic as we tend to see the Bible as having both human and divine authorship. (Mainline Protestantism is increasingly irrelevant to global or even American Christianity.)T. Anthony (talk) 19:02, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

@T. Anthony: You conflate between the piousness of ordinary believers and academic-level theology, and you conflate between theology and history. Catholic historians of the Bible (Catholic Bible scholars) overwhelmingly use the historical-critical method. Of course historians do not state what should be believed by true believers as official theology, but state historical facts which do not rely upon their readers having a certain religious faith (i.e. they state facts that could be accepted regardless of whether one is Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist and so on). As long as they wear the hat of historian, they do not preach to the choir of a pious Catholic audience, but they speak mostly to their peers, who have a diversity of religious beliefs. So, it does not matter if such facts sound heretical, since they do not aim at writing theology, they write mainstream history. History isn't ancilla theologiae: it is an autonomous academic field, with its own rules, its own method and its own sorts of evidence, which radically differ from that of theology, so necessarily lead to different conclusions. So, you see, kowtowing to official church dogma cannot be a sensible choice for Catholic historians, else they would be booed off the stage inside the mainstream academia. I.e. they would get regarded precisely like the archaeology of Lamanites is regarded by mainstream scholars. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:17, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

My degree is history and I nearly have a Master's. In reality you can say all kinds of things as a historian without being booed off the stage, I've been to a history conference, as the field isn't quite as narrowly wedded to one form of historiography or method as all that. Plus I doubt you have the pulse of what Catholic historians are and Ehrman less so. I have granted that you and CHOPSY academics are normative for Wikipedia. That this will not change. That is all you are getting from me. Your desire to believe your interpretations are inarguable facts is simply yours. I am under no obligation to agree to you or that your interpretations or understandings are empirical facts. Because in many cases they clearly are not. They are simply current hypothesis that are seen as most likely from a naturalistic methodology. So I'm not going to agree with you because you are wrong and because I don't have to.T. Anthony (talk) 03:56, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

@T. Anthony: I don't know why you make such fuss about them being "naturalistic" scholars. Since the Enlightenment history has been purged of supernatural. So historians work with methodological naturalism, correct me if I am wrong. As Ehrman told to Michael R. Licona, "we just agreed that every historian and every research university in North America would refuse to invoke miracle or reviews to talk about divine causality". I know that there are people like Graham Twelftree - The Historian and the Miraculous on YouTube, but as we say around here, consensus isn't unanimity. I wonder how Twelftree could tell that Jesus is the Son of Yawheh, instead of being the son of a leprechaun. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:30, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Methodological naturalism is about the natural sciences, not necessarily the humanities. We can not repeat historical events and test them in a lab. Anyway my professors did not go in with the assumption that miracle stories didn't happen. Many historians look to simply state that an event was claimed to be miraculous and move on without stating whether it was or was not. The professor who taught French history at my University was an Episcopalian who took an agnostic view of whether Joan of Arc actually had a miraculous vision. That looks to be fairly common from what I am finding. So history is not looking for supernatural explanations, but so far as I know it does not require rejecting them either. (Although there are many historians who do preference the sciences so lean toward naturalistic explanations.) I think history more can state when a miraculous explanation was given for an event, and may theorize or prefer a naturalistic alternative, but without a time viewer or something we can not actually prove the naturalistic explanation. To pick a religion I'm not of I do not think Muhammad was visited by an angel. I think his ideas make more sense as a hodge-podge of Christian and Jewish writings he put together, possibly while having some kind of psychiatric episode. However this is not an inarguable fact, and I am not claiming it is, as I have no empirical way of observing what happened to Muhammad. It partly is that I don't think God would use spurious sources as I think the Qur'an does. And I find the Angel story for him or Joseph Smith not credible. However my incredulity is not, per se, proof. I think you are importing scientism onto history and though some, perhaps many, historians also do this I do not think it is a requirement or inevitability. It is almost more a fashion. Lastly you are relying too much on Ehrman IMO.T. Anthony (talk) 05:38, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Except that I am relying on Ehrman and Licona (Licona could simply tell "That's not true!"). Me and Ehrman wholly agree that historians could neither prove nor disprove miracles. And this is precisely the rub: the ocurence of a miracle cannot be known, therefore it ain't a historical fact. E.g. there are no peer-reviewed scientific articles which have disproved the existence of elves and fairies. So historians do not talk of real elves and real fairies, since these aren't amenable to historical investigation. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:43, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

"Except that I am relying on Ehrman and Licona" Well then I'll be clearer and say I feel you are wrong to do so. I am sure you can find many historians who also preference scientism in the way you do, but I don't feel history requires this. (And for the record there are many things unknowable that are basically historical facts. Like the lost plays of Aeschylus.) As I said though for the purposes of editing Wikipedia this does NOT matter. Your perspective on what history is is normative for Wikipedia due to the demographics of CHOPSY academics and of Wikipedia. So this argument is ultimately not about this article or Wikipedia so I think I need to end it.T. Anthony (talk) 05:54, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

"Wikipedia’s policies around [alternative medicine] are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.

What we won’t do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of 'true scientific discourse'. It isn’t.[1][2]"

So yes, we are biased towards science and biased against pseudoscience.
We are biased towards astronomy, and biased against astrology.
We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy.
We are biased towards mathematics, and biased against numerology.
We are biased towards medicine, and biased against homeopathic medicine.
We are biased towards venipuncture, and biased against acupuncture.
We are biased towards cargo planes, and biased against cargo cults.
We are biased towards magnetic resonance imaging, and biased against magnetic therapy.
We are biased towards crops, and biased against crop circles.
We are biased towards laundry soap, and biased against laundry balls.
We are biased towards water treatment, and biased against magnetic water treatment.
We are biased towards electromagnetic fields, and biased against microlepton fields.
We are biased towards evolution, and biased against creationism.
We are biased towards geology, and biased against flood geology.
We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in double-blind clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon preying on the gullible.
We are biased towards astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against ancient astronauts.
We are biased towards climate science, and biased against climate change denialism.
We are biased towards psychology, and biased against phrenology.
We are biased towards mendelism, and biased against lysenkoism.
We are biased towards Holocaust history, and biased against Holocaust denial.

And we are not going to change. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:30, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses third party sources and scholarship, and focuses on what we can prove. Or more specifically, what reliable sources have said about the topic. For an example, it discusses what the theology of Martin Luther is, or Buddhists beliefs, but doesn't comment on whether any of that is actually true. This page is not treated any differently than any other religious topic on Wikipedia. That's not what Wikipedia is about. When it comes to religious topics, we're going to cite secular scholarship and analysis. That scholarship discusses the structure, format, and genre of mythology, and comparisons to other mythologies, the history of the modern creationist movement. And that is what is reflected on this page.

I don't know why you bring up atheism, since that's not mentioned once on the page. This page is not about atheism. Harizotoh9 (talk) 00:52, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

There is an implicit false dichotomy - any research beyond goddidit is atheistic. In reality, many of the researchers who contributed to our current theories about the creation of the Tanakh were believing Christians. The view that the Bible was dictated directly by JehovaElAdonai to King James (in English) and is an absolute, infallible und unchanging description of reality is not generally held by educated Christians of any denomination. As an example, the Pope is fine with the Big Bang and evolution. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:54, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

It's not entirely clear that's what the person means as their response was short. They may simply mean that they believe the Bible is inspired by God, but Wikipedia generally prefers to negate that as a possibility preferring the idea that everything in the Bible (including Yahweh or Moses) is borrowed from another culture or simply a human invention. I think there are some good reasons Wikipedia does that, although also some systemic bias reasons too, but that it does it is pretty obvious. Pointing that out doesn't mean you are a Young Earth creationism or a King James Only movement (Also this idea, that the Bible is purely man-made, I don't think is really held by most educated Christians. I think the Pope presumably believes Moses existed and that Yahweh is not a "divine warrior linked to precipitation" who was later elevated. The Catholic catechism officially states Adam & Eve, or something like it, did happen after some fashion. The Transfiguration, where Jesus sees Moses, is still a part of the faith. Also that the Bible has human and divine authorship.) That said calling this perspective "atheistic" might be going too far. Deism, pantheism, Theosophy, Philosophical theism, and certain other perspectives could also fit the idea that all extant gods are human inventions and the Bible purely written by men. Martin Gardner is a good example of such a person.T. Anthony (talk) 11:41, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

"For the fanatic, the Devil is the intellectual, because the intellectual has doubts." Paul Zarifopol. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:34, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Genealogical Adam and Eve

Would this line of work be worth including?

- https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/10/04/upcoming-book-leaves-scientific-possibility-existence-adam-eve-column/3826195002/

- https://ivpress.com/the-genealogical-adam-and-eve

- https://asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2018/PSCF3-18Swamidass.pdf

Sswamida (talk) 15:14, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Bad information

How about how badly written this page is! Taken myths from Mesopotamia but Meso was a hogpog of multiple stories from various cultures that were word of mouth. Its laughable to think the genesis story is taken from that culture and adapted. Its more than likely the meso ppl heard their stories from the hebrews word of mouth as the meso page states. Truthbetold717 (talk) 12:48, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Bring some good WP:Reliable sources that propose this, and maybe it can be included. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:55, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Shat? Where does it say anything about Hebrew word of mouth? Doug Weller talk 22:45, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Another thing, I think the phrase "Still, Genesis 1 bears similarities to the Baal Cycle of Israel's neighbor, Ugarit.[25]" should be removed. I checked the referenced source (first edition) and Genesis 1 isn't even mentioned in the referenced chapter and so the phrase is not backed up by the source. If someone claims otherwise it would be good with a quote that shows how the source actually speaks of a connection to Genesis 1 at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikael at wiki (talk • contribs) 00:11, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

@Mikael at wiki: I have obliged with a proper citation. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:46, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Evolution Denial in the Lead

At the bottom of the lead in this article lies a sentence stating that some believers use the Genesis Creation Narrative as a way to deny evolution. I believe this line should be removed, reason being the lead is intended to serve as a summary of an article's contents, and evolution denial appears nowhere in this article. Also, this article is about the Narrative itself, not evolution denials as a result of it's interpretation.

I want to know what you think? Remove it? or expand upon it later in the article?

Thanks, JazzClam (talk) 23:22, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Evolution denial appears in the "Creationism and the genre of the creation narrative' section. Theroadislong (talk) 23:26, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Myth/not myth

I take major offense to the statement that the Genesis creation story is a myth. It is a historical narrative and there is tons of evidence to prove it really happened. Now I know the arguments otherwise but my point is why doesn't Wikipedia create a minority report section on these issues? Until then my once avid support for Wikipedia is gone and no more donations will come from me. Kauaidan (talk) 01:04, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Young Earth creationism? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:25, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Yup, the I will no longer donate trope. We are not in charge of donations, so donations are not leverage for content. About atheist Bible scholars, I know of just three: Bart Ehrman, Francesca Stavrakopoulou and maybe John Shelby Spong (of which I don't know if he is an atheist or just a Christian materialist). tgeorgescu (talk) 09:47, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Hard to find article

Whenever I research a topic I generally start with a Google search that in most cases leads me to a Wikipedia article then I follow the references to gain more information. However when seaching creation myths this article is on page 4 of the search. Is this because of the title of the article? Is there a reason why this article is oddly titled? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.237.0.91 (talk) 17:00, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes. If you look under "This page has previously been nominated to be moved. Before re-nominating, review the move requests listed below." above on this talkpage, you'll see that the title of this article has been the subject of some discussion. You are welcome to start a new such discussion, but should really look at the previous ones before you do that. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:12, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

See Category:Creation myths. At the bottom of most WP articles there is a list of the categories to which they belong, helpful for finding other articles on similar topics. Just plain Bill (talk) 17:39, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

"Narrative" is a process of selecting and connecting events to form a cohesive linear account; history, for example, is told through narrative, as are fictional works. Narrative is a way of presenting information, in other words. "Myth" is a genre, rather than a form, and needs to be distinguished from fiction told for purposes of entertainment. "Legend" is yet another form of narrative. The first two chapters of Genesis are both myth and narrative, but they are not history, fiction, or legend. Achar Sva (talk) 07:32, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

What's a hypothesis

No Bible scholar in the sane mind denies that the authors of the Torah used sources. The Documentary Hypothesis claims the Torah was based upon four large documents, this is still disputed, while the former isn't (that's not a hypothesis). tgeorgescu (talk) 02:12, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

I think this comment uses unnecessarily inflammatory (and frankly, quite derogatory) language. It's true that biblical literalism and strict Mosaic authorship is a minority view, but it's not true that one would have to be "insane" to hold it. Maher-shalal-hashbaz (talk) 22:11, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

The Mosaic authorship does not deny that:

• a disciple wrote about the death of Moses;
• there was a redactor who inserted stuff like "visible till our own days";

So, no, even the Mosaic authorship does not deny there were sources. I was not saying fundamentalist=crazy.

Even in the most fundamentalist views of the Torah there still are sources: Moses + disciple + redactor. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:21, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Biblical literalism is a misreading?

The article, as it is now, repeatedly claims that "misreading the story as history rather than theology leads to Creationism and the denial of evolution". However, not only do the sources listed do not appear to support this claim – the most the sources say is that one shouldn't interpret the Bible as history, which is a whole lot different from saying that the Bible wasn't intended to be historically accurate – the article on biblical literalism itself does not have a single mention of the "fact" that it's a misreading. I am also fairly confident that, upon research, I will be able to quote a number of atheist scholars as saying that the Bible was intended to be taken literally. I don't think the fact that biblical literalism is a misreading is unequivocal at all, and so I believe the claim that it is should be retracted from the article.^Ol^Ja 10:55, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Please don't open a new thread on the same subject as the immediately preceding one.PiCo (talk) 12:18, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

The preceding thread you are referring to was not yet opened at the time I started writing this section. I may merge the two sections in a minute, though, if you give me the permission to. ^Ol^Ja 12:52, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

• What if we remove the prefix "mis-"? Softlavender (talk) 01:15, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

That would misrepresent the cited sources showing mainstream expert opinion. . dave souza, talk 06:42, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Then a contrasting source needs to be included, since the "expert opinion" is a severly biased one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.22.202.1 (talk) 01:37, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

What we don't do is giving equal validity to WP:MAINSTREAM WP:SCHOLARSHIP and apologetics. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:34, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Either literally or not, neither claims evolution isnt possible. Some stories are ment to be literal, some imagery or prophetic. As of today most honest athiest will tell you the bible is thee most accurate book of history in existence, with cultures, events, kings and their reigns, wars, lands and borders, etc etc. Truthbetold717 (talk) 12:53, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

The converse is actually more likely: an honest theist is far more likely to admit that the Bible isn't historically or, nay, scientifically accurate (both views are supported by the scholarly consensus, as you will find in the link provided by Grabergs) than an honest atheist is to "admit" the opposite. That said, none of that means that the Bible wasn't intended to be read literally, and numerous sources actually suggest that it was. The editors around here don't agree with this, though, so we're just gonna have to leave this falsehood in the article. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 18:15, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Actually the idea that the Bible should be read and interpreted literally is the spiritual child of the Protestant Reformation. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:17, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Bollocks. That might be the reason that (some) Protestants in the present day are more stubborn wrt rejection of science than the Catholic Church, the fact remains that the creation myth was unequivocally accepted without question until the Modern Period. The notion that ancient and medieval peoples had any kind of notion of a natural origin of the cosmos and the world and of species as opposed to a devine/supernatural origin (whichever religion's that happened to be) is absurd. (They did not, however, believe the earth was flat, as is also falsely claimed). 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:8973:283F:5A03:85F (talk) 03:54, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

You won't care for the article Historicity of the Bible, then. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:02, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Truthbetold717 - Do you have a source for your claim that "...most honest athiest will tell you the bible is thee most accurate book of history in existence"? HiLo48 (talk) 21:44, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Belated answer, but liberal Christianity gives the lie to the bible is thee most accurate book of history in existence. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:06, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I think there are many books by pseudohistorians that are more accurate than the Bible. Dimadick (talk) 08:56, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Did God actually make the Earth???

Did God actually make the Earth some people say he did and some people say he didn't but I will look it up in the Bible 50.40.239.53 (talk) 05:11, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

No, here is the correct creation myth - https://www.cs.williams.edu/~lindsey/myths/myths_13.html HiLo48 (talk) 05:32, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Note A

lol, did note A have to be added to prevent people from going "this is part of my religious beliefs so it's not a MYTH >:(" and vandalising the page?

(clarifying so I don't look like One Of Those Internet Atheists: I don't think being religious makes someone inherently less smart, religion serves a legit social and psychological function. But pages about Greek myths don't have notes clarifying the definition of myth to prevent modern hellenistic pagans from vandalising them. So I just find the existence of note A on this page funny) Voidify (talk) 11:45, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

"I don't think being religious makes someone inherently less smart" It is not a matter of intelligence. Religious beliefs tend to be the source of a person's biases. Particularly, since religions tend to self describe as the only path to truth. Which typically translates into believing than anyone who disagrees with your POV should be vilified. Dimadick (talk) 08:38, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 16 December 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Per the article's lead sentence, "The narrative is made up of two stories", hence Genesis creation stories, but just one narrative. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:33, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

---

Genesis creation narrative → Genesis creation narratives – Given that the section titles reflect the fact that there are two ("First narrative: Genesis 1:1–2:3" and "Second narrative: Genesis 2:4–2:25"), the title should be plural to be grammatically correct. -- Beland (talk) 16:11, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:SINGULAR. Article titles are generally rendered in the singular form. I'm also guessing this move would be controversial to a lot of Christians who perceive this as a singular narrative in 2 parts. This article's title has always been somewhat of a controversy, so it's better to just leave it as is. Rreagan007 (talk) 20:38, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

One hopes that Wikipedia content is never based on who might be offended. HiLo48 (talk) 22:58, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per this understanding that the plural of narrative is often narrative. Maher-shalal-hashbaz (talk) 15:06, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
  • Huh, I learned something today! Like fish and fish and fishes! -- Beland (talk) 05:28, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
    • I don't believe it. It just goes to show the unreliability of wordhippo.com. Just plain Bill (talk) 06:39, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@Just plain Bill: Hmm, well wikt:narrative#English lists it as both countable and uncountable. That makes sense to me, in that "narrative" can mean either "story" (countable) or "storytelling" (uncountable). If we assume that's correct, then I think Word Hippo is slightly wrong, in that uncountable nouns don't really have plurals at all, but right in the sense that you just use "narrative" no matter how much storytelling is happening. These definitions imply that the title of this article is using "narrative" in the uncountable sense of "storytelling" but the section headers are using it in the countable sense of "story". Which is inconsistent but arguably grammatical. -- Beland (talk) 21:45, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Is the Genesis Creation account true?

Is the Genesis Creation account true? 2603:8080:5F00:2031:8845:8324:FB13:B55D (talk) 01:50, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

The article accurately describes it as a Creation myth. Follow that link to see what it means. HiLo48 (talk) 02:35, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Maybe use the word "narrative" instead of myth. Even though myth here means an ostenibly true unverified story believed by many people, in common discourse, it means something false. How about narrative instead of myth? FortUser (talk) 13:50, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

@FortUserNo, it doesn't mean an ostensibly true unverifiable story. I've never heard that definition. What did you learn from Creation myth? Or Myth itself? Many religious scholars use the term. It's correct. Doug Weller talk 13:56, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

According to Oxford Languages, a myth is a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events. A verified story, by definition, is not traditional. FortUser (talk) 14:15, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I changed it in the article because most people use myth to describe a false event. It's like scientific theory (most people use the word theory to describe a guess). FortUser (talk) 14:16, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Ok, so what is he problem? a myth is indeed a story that is not true. So perfectly correct for this article. It is also properly sourced. And last I invite you to read the FAQ at the top of this page. --McSly (talk) 14:23, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

"Demythologize" entry in the lead?

"Scholarly writings frequently refer to Genesis as myth, for while the author of Genesis 1–11 "demythologised" his narrative by removing the Babylonian myths and those elements which did not fit with his own faith, it remains a myth in the sense of being a story of origins."

This entire entry is unsupportable. Not only is there no support for knowing who "the author" is, we can't know their intention, and they did not do what the statement claims (remove the Babylonian myths). And if that was the intention they failed in that it doesn't actually fail the criteria of myth.

The editor in me wants to remove it, but I know it will start an edit war and it's been a while since I've been active and I'm not sure I should start my "return to active duty" that way. So, I am opening up discussion on the talk page for any that can show me either the author of Genesis or indication of their intent. (or, at the very least, admit they spelled "demythologized" wrong). And why would they demythologize 1/5th of the book? Why not the whole thing? Padillah (talk) 11:46, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Teasing out the strands of scriptural authorship is far outside my wheelhouse. That said, retaining British spellings such as "demythologised" or "authorisation" would be a distraction in this discussion. I will wait for other, more knowledgeable editors to chime in regarding issues of authorship and intent. regards, Just plain Bill (talk) 12:08, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Source is Victor P. Hamilton, pages 58 and 142. But he's discussing Brevard Childs on 58, someone else on 142. Doug Weller talk 12:22, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Hamilton is simply describing the many attempts to redefine the word "myth" so it can not be used to delegitimize the story. This is simply hiding behind an expert. The question of the use of the word "myth" has been debated and it's position should be solidly fixed. This kind of argument borders on intellectual dishonesty.

There's also the misunderstanding of the works of Hamilton. He is not speaking directly of the OT authors. He is presenting Childs assertion of a possible definition of "demythologized" in an effort to redefine the word so it could be removed from the conversation. But even Hamilton is not secure enough in his stance to bolster the assertion. He merely mentions that someone else has made the assertion. If this is the case why don't we cite Childs works directly?

Padillah (talk) 13:45, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

What language and spelling does this article use?

@Just plain Bill rightly called me out for claiming there were misspellings in the article when, in point of fact, they are simply British spellings of those words. He was kind enough to mention this, but not use it to side track the discussion. So, in an effort to acknowledge this and give space to a proper discussion: Do we have a consensus on what language and spelling we are using for this article? (and, thanks @Just plain Bill) Padillah (talk) 13:51, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Are there any specifically American spellings? Do you have any reason to believe it is not British English? Johnbod (talk) 14:44, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Quick skim, prompted by Padillah's earlier post, didn't find things like "favour" or "colour". IMO, "authorisation" and "demythologisation" are enough to establish BrEng, but this is low on my list of things to worry about. Just plain Bill (talk) 14:58, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

There are also 3 "centre"s, & no "center"s. Always a useful word to test. Johnbod (talk) 15:08, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Between this and @Johnbod (thank you for your effort) I think we can pretty well establish this article should conform to British spellings. I'm going to add a header to the top of this page and be done with it.

Thanks a ton for the help, guys.

Padillah (talk) 15:24, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Should it be considered a myth?

I could easily say many things that could be a reason why it isn't a myth. Evolution allows for things to take thousands or years, but if humans evolved from monkeys, why do we still have monkeys? after 5000 years or so of known history, humans haven't changed. If you look at the wonder and design of nature and space, it is sort of mind blowing that there couldn't be a God of some sort. Do you think evolution could get the several trillion DNA put together perfectly by chance? There had to be an artist or a Creator. A watch can't just put itself together after millions of years can it? I bet the parts would have rusted away and dissolved by that time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Capitalist forever (talk • contribs) 18:54, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

It's elementary dear Watson: the theory of evolution never denied there is a God. It simply does not operate with the concept "God". tgeorgescu (talk) 19:00, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

@The Capitalist forever No monkeys involved, you’ve been lied to about that. I am pretty sure you’ve never read anything scientific about evolution yet you think you know the science. Doug Weller talk 19:09, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

"but if humans evolved from monkeys, why do we still have monkeys?" Please, do not edit pages while drunk. The argument is incoherent. Dimadick (talk) 20:08, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not drunk, Dimadick. I would never consume alcohol. The Capitalist forever (talk) 20:25, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Dimadick and others, please be nice. This is a child. Bishonen | tålk 20:49, 24 April 2023 (UTC).

Does not sound like a child, rather someone in his late teens. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:02, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

• Comment - I want to try to answer your concern directly, because these are misconceptions a few people have. If you read the note (the [a] next to that word in the article) it says The term myth is used here in its academic sense, meaning "a traditional story consisting of events that are ostensibly historical, though often supernatural, explaining the origins of a cultural practice or natural phenomenon." It is not being used to mean "something that is false". Genesis is a creation myth, that is not a judgement on its validity in any way. As for evolution, even amongst Christians, some people see Genesis as a literal and most profound truth, some see it more of a metaphor that holds value in the lessons it teaches rather than believing that it is a literal historical account, while more still sit somewhere between those two interpretations. At the extreme end of the "literal reading" are people who often read Genesis so literally and have certain opinions about evolution such that Genesis and the theory of evolution cannot reconcile in their minds. Reading it this way it's logical to conclude that if evolution is true that Genesis must be false, therefore evolution must be false. That is not an issue with Genesis itself, and evolution does not invalidate Genesis for most people who believe the account in Genesis. This article only briefly touches on evolution in the Creationism and the genre of the creation narrative section because it has little to no role in this topic.

  That is why the article says what it does, because creation myth does not mean "false", it is a type of narrative that people believe in and it shapes how they see and understand the world, so calling it a creation myth emphasizes that this isn't just a random story that may or may not be real, it has profound meaning for a lot of people and it shapes them and their world at their core. That is what a creation myth is, and Genesis absolutely meets that definition. As for if humans evolved from monkeys the answer is quite simply that we did not. - Aoidh (talk) 00:53, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your work you put into typing your answer Aoidh. I get what you are saying. It's just alittle off that it says myth instead of just narrative. It throws so many people off. I purely believe every word of the Bible. Oh and to tgeorgescu, yes I am in my teens (14) The Capitalist forever (talk) 02:27, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

@The Capitalist forever: Sorry to spoil your fun, but Wikipedia has a lot of stuff which throws children off (and believers in biblical literalism). We deal in stuff that you can't hear in Sunday school, but your pastor probably learned it in the divinity school. Also, I had little against Trump till he tried to overturn the elections. Also, there's a possibility that you have unbelieving parents, but they're hiding it from you so you don't get bullied at school. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:06, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

My parents are strong believers actually and I am homeschooled through a Christian School in Illinois. I am a supporter of Trump, and honestly, I think Biden can't even run a country. I was raised by my mother as a Christian. I definitely agree that wikipedia doesn't go very far into the legitamacy of ancient beginnings. They are very reluctant to say anything because they don't want to contradict others. Anyway, I just started an account yesterday, so I am learning all the basics still. The Capitalist forever (talk) 04:35, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is about information from WP:BESTSOURCES. My own interpretation is that BESTSOURCES means WP:CHOPSY, though some editors disagree. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:55, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Yah BESTSOURCES is that for sure. The Capitalist forever (talk) 05:01, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

I think that evolution takes as much faith to believe as creationism. You are either placing your faith in the Bible and God, or Science and Man. Atheists still believe in something even if they don't acknowledge there is a God. Evolutionary scientists believe everything is just matter in motion, but don't you think is something different between man and animals,something that sets us higher than them? I believe we are created in God's image.

@tgeorgescul, On your personal article, it says you love to cream Christian fundamentalists, I will tell you, I am one of them. Biblical inerrancy is my key belief. Also I have read the entire Bible many times so ask me anything you want. The Capitalist forever (talk) 06:22, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

@The Capitalist forever: I'm telling you the easy way: this is not a WP:FORUM for your rants. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:42, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Sorry. I keep forgetting about that. I don't think much more can be edited on the Creation Narrative because if you are supposed to be neutral, how can you really add/edit without controversy?

The Capitalist forever (talk) 07:01, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

We follow the WP:SOURCES. That is, the mainstream academic WP:SOURCES, not written by Bible thumpers. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:03, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand how an event in the Bible should be interpreted and limited by secular scholars instead of people who actually think the Bible is true.The myth part of this article should be changed to limit arguments in the talk section. Everyone knows that a myth is a false fairy tale. The Capitalist forever (talk) 07:21, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

As in that often quoted speech: "Life is unfair, get used to it." tgeorgescu (talk) 07:26, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

"I am a supporter of Trump, and honestly, I think Biden can't even run a country." You will probably get a chance to vote in a few years. But I do not see what political orientation has to do with this article. Dimadick (talk) 09:04, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

@The Capitalist forever: And to stop beating around the bush: the title of this article and every word of the WP:LEDE are the results of long and protracted wiki-feuds. So, it would be unwise to change those, even if you have sources. tgeorgescu (talk) 09:18, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

It's not a question of "should it be considered" a myth. The proper question is "is it a myth?" The answer is "Yes", according to:

• Dictionary.com - "a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature." [3]
• Merriam-Webster - "a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon" [4]
• Cambridge Dictionary - "an ancient story or set of stories, especially explaining the early history of a group of people or about natural events and facts" [5]
  • note: two of the three citations have "creation myth" as an example of it's use.

Unless you are presenting evidence that the Genesis narrative is not:

A. A traditional, legendary, or old story.

B. Historical or explaining early history.

C. Part of a worldview.

D. About natural phenomenon.

... the question of it being a myth does not apply. Padillah (talk) 12:53, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

@Padillah, I think of creation as something that actually happened. Not an ancient story, I think it is historical. It is everything on your ABCD list but A.It is historically acurate and I am a fundamentalist. It's quite obvious wikipedia doesn't believe in the Biblical creation, otherwise they would have used 'account' or 'narrative'. When Charles Darwin formulated his idea of evolution, the fossil record was not explored well, and he had to place assumptions and faith into his belief that "missing links" would be found. Today the fossil record has been explored: "The evidence indicates that all fossils are either varieties of organisms alive in the present or unique types of organisms that are now extinct." [Science:Order and Design| copyright - Pensacola Christian College] The Capitalist forever (talk) 17:53, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

@The Capitalist forever which of course is wrong and misrepresents the science. But then the college has to do that, it’s a Young Earth Creationist and for them belief beats science and makes it impossible for them to tell the truth about the scientific viewpoint. But please drop this, we are a mainstream encyclopaedia and you can’t change that. Doug Weller talk 18:13, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

The internet is vast, perhaps you'll like Biblical creation account better. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:22, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Actually that was only a small part of the book. I am serious when I say in that textbook, they give alot of scientific evidence, go buy the book yourself if you want. I'm not trying to change the encyclopaedia, don't worry. The Capitalist forever (talk) 18:24, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

• This talk page has 26 archive pages (see links at the top). Most of them are concerned with this issue, or renaming the article in related ways. I suggest you look at them. Btw "The evidence indicates that all fossils are either varieties of organisms alive in the present or unique types of organisms that are now extinct" allows an awful lot of wriggle-room! Johnbod (talk) 18:24, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, @johnbod, I saw that, but what do you mean by allowing alot of wiggle-room? The Capitalist forever (talk) 18:27, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is simply put an improper venue to argue that the theory of evolution is false. The proper venues for doing that are PNAS and Nature (journal). tgeorgescu (talk) 21:42, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

None of those venues have had a talk in 2-4 years.The Capitalist forever (talk) 22:58, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Do you recognize the Pope's encyclicals as binding for your faith? No. Similarly, we don't recognize that your schoolbook is expressing science. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:11, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Obviously nothing will change our viewpoints. I recognize that my book is expressing science.The Capitalist forever (talk) 00:36, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

This book? I believe it "is expressing science" from a creationist point of view. Just plain Bill (talk) 01:33, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Okay, the question has already been litigated as Association of Christian Schools International v. Stearns. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:36, 26 April 2023

Yes @justplainBill, that is the book. If you don't think the Bible is scientifically accurate, visit this:

For example: George Washington might have lived longer if his physicians had read the Bible instead of bleeding him to death because in Leviticus 17:11 it says that "For the life of the flesh is in the blood." (date circa 1400 B.C.). Bloodletting was discarded around the late 1800's and blood transfusions became vital. The Capitalist forever (talk) 06:17, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

This is not the proper venue for re-litigating mainstream scientific consensus. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:22, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

@The Capitalist forever that verse doesn't say don't do bloodletting. I think that's just a Creationist interpretation to suggest the Bible is scientifically accurate. Jews did bloodletting.[6]. Doug Weller talk 07:48, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

@DougWeller, if you went and read the other 9 verses about science and the bible coexisting, I don't think you could dispute some of them. Read the link if you want. In the book of Job it says the earth is a sphere. This was long before Christopher Columbus because God knows everything.The Capitalist forever (talk) 07:58, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

@The Capitalist forever replying on your talk page, this doesn't belong here really. Doug Weller talk 08:02, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

So where are the acceptable venues? not the ones that haven't talked in 4 years.* — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Capitalist forever (talk • contribs) 06:51, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Editors' talk pages. Doug Weller talk 08:03, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

This page has been moved or suggested to move 14 times in the past 13 years and that includes two year-long moratoriums on move requests... I think the question has been asked and answered. The "feeling you get" (about WP's attitude towards the subject) is not notable in this environment. If you wish, there are several places that are much more productive to have a discussion on the falsifiability of this subject and it's implications, but this talk page is not one of them.

We have provided answers for the use of the term. We cannot change the content to represent a stronger case (or, indeed any case at all) based on your desire to get the word out. Wikipedia is not a pulpit, we cannot allow it to be used to preach or promote a worldview. How would you feel if we allowed users to remove the word "theory" from the Evolution page? It is simply improper for us to change the description away from the dictionary supported one.

Padillah (talk) 11:56, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

It is our task to report mainstream science for what it is and mainstream scholarship for what it is. It is not our task to change these. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:30, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

To me this discussion feels kinda counterintuitive, like this is not a discussion forum but a page to suggest improvements to the article but we're just wasting time trying to prove our points. I support closing this discussion. Vamsi20 (ask me questions) (see what I've edited) 15:35, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

This discussion was finished with the statement I'm not trying to change the encyclopaedia. This page is only for discussing changes to the encyclopaedia, especially the page Genesis creation narrative. If you want to do something else, go somewhere else. End of discussion. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:54, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

References

First sentence and what this article subject is

The editor in me wants to unrevert this revert, but the Wikipedian in me says that I need to pay attention the WP:BRD essay about the Wikipedia:Consensus and Wikipedia:Be bold pages and discuss it here first.

The initial sentence article, with my edit reverted and superscripted links removed, currently reads: "The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity. The bolded phrase , the term Genesis creation narrative there, according to MOS:FIRST, should tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is. The article then goes on to describe in some detail two stories, roughly equivalent to the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis.

This article is not the Genesis creation myth.

This article can reasonably be said to be a description of the Genesis creation myth.

Unless there is objection, I intend to unrevert the revert tomorrow. If there is objection, please discuss that here.

Also, please see the related ongoing discussion at Talk:Creation myth#Requested move 4 June 2023, which I mentioned in the edit summary of my reverted edit. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:29, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello. The scope of the article and the lead sentence have been discussed many times before. Considering that the article has been defined as such for years and due to its controversial nature, this definitely needs to be discussed. You'll need to elaborate why you think this article isn't in fact the Genesis creation myth. StephenMacky1 (talk) 20:48, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

I think that the Genesis creation myth is a myth (the term myth there intended in its current common usage as described in the Myth article), and the Genesis creation narrative is a narrative about the myth. A narrative, according to that wikilinked article,is "any account of a series of related events or experiences,^[cites] whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.)". If you don't like the term narrative there, please suggest a more fitting term. However, this article is not the creation myth itself. It is an account of a series of related events that, in the aggregate, make up what might be called the Genesis creation myth. Some believe those events to be fictional, some believe them to be fact, some believe the account to be allegorical, some believe it to be a literal description of past events. Regardless of whether or not one or more of those differing beliefs is correct, this article is a an account of that series of related events. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 21:47, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

We add extra words to make believers happy....but it does not change the meaning....just gives more room for interpretation they need. Moxy- 01:49, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Simple answer: see Ngrams; long answer: scholars naturally err on the side of caution when it comes to respecting religions in their academic analyses, and here the balance of sources firmly favours 'narrative', so that's NPOV. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:26, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

And more ngrams, but "The Genesis creation narrative [or story, or account] is the creation myth" is still not at all true. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 08:41, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 7 June 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved per WP:SNOW. There is no advantage to be gained in keeping this discussion open any longer. (non-admin closure) StAnselm (talk) 16:07, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

---

Genesis creation narrative → Genesis creation story – The current title is avoiding WP:COMMONNAME for no apparent reason. It should move to the common name, per Ngrams, and the weighing of scholarly literature, i.e. 2,040 hits for "story", 900 hits for "narrative", and 312 hits for "myth". Aside from being WP:COMMONNAME, "Genesis creation story" is also more WP:CONCISE. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:44, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Comment - I don't trust Google scholar. In this case it includes unpublished works a 34 page paper for a seminar at a Creationist Seminary[7], etc. And that's just the first page. I expect a lot of the Google scholar hits will be Creationist - GS has a lot of fringe material of various kinds. And a search for "Genesis myth" gives 2530 hits[8], more than any of your searches. Doug Weller talk 11:45, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

And "Genesis story" gives 14,000 hits by the same boiled-down methodology, see here. As long as the searches are performed in a like-for-like manner, the pattern appears to be highly consistent. In any case, narrative and story are broadly synonymous, so the change is fairly circumstantial, but it is for sure shorter and better aligned with WP:COMMONNAME. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:51, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

As examples of academic works with the proposed terminology not just in the text, but in the title, see: Noah's Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought, Regenesis: Lawrence and a Re-Evaluation of the Genesis Story, The Literary Structur of the Genesis Creation Story, etc. The cause to prefer 'narrative' remains unclear to me. I don't see the impetus. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:10, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Plain Google is similar: 180,000 hits for story, 60,000 for narrative, 18,000 for myth. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:56, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

@Iskandar323Interesting but I'm still not happy with searching, eg The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative. came up and it's pretty clearly picking up hits on "story" "story of Genesis" (which of course is similar to but not identical to Genesis story and a bit ambiguous. Doug Weller talk

More worrying the first book come up twice on the first page and about 5480 times in all.[9] Doug Weller talk 14:19, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I've taken the issue of a book showing up so many times to RSN. Doug Weller talk 14:31, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

That's surely just because it's hosted at multiple scholarly publisher sites, with several reviews, which surely is actually reassuring that it is a high-quality reference source, reviewed and cited many times? Iskandar323 (talk) 16:51, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

@Iskandar323 That’s speculation. Doug Weller talk 19:18, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps, but so is search result skepticism. There is ostensibly evidence of a clear WP:COMMONNAME, only countered by the notion it might be misrepresentative. Unless someone analyses all of the thousands of results, the facts at face value are still better than the absence of anything empirical at all. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:27, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: So the Creationist Seminary prefers 'narrative', which is what the proposal aims to dispense with, so that's supportive right? If 'narrative' is less scholarly, and 'story' is more scholarly - that's surely a plus for the latter. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:13, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose as the current name is a neutral compromise that is understood by our readers. We should not use the scholarly name that is misunderstood by most readers. Creationist sources should not be discounted, as that is a NPOV violation. But even if they suggest other names, just keep it the way it is. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:50, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

  Neutral/NPOV means neutral with respect to the sources, so if the sources overwhelmingly prefer a different title, per WP:COMMONNAME, we should be going with that. WP:COMMONNAME is a lynchpin of the neutral naming policy. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:54, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. “Narrative” is the more scholarly term, and has better representation in the current references. “Story” is not neutral. The nominator’s reference to WP:CONCISE is silly. After so many previous RM failures, a good new RM nomination really should be expected to summarise the prior RMs, otherwise it is just a roll of the dice. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:09, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

  @SmokeyJoe: Not neutral in what sense? This is the part no one has explained. More sources use the proposed term, so it's on the face of it more neutral in terms of the balance of sources? What other considerations are there? Where is the evidence that 'narrative' is more scholarly? Do any scholarly sources actually say that the term 'story' is problematic? The last RM was six years ago, which is eons ago in WP:CCC terms. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:08, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose – It should be Genesis creation narrative or Genesis creation myth. The word ‘myth’ would be even better since it implies that it does not describe reality. --Martin Tauchman (talk) 15:03, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

  @Martin Tauchman: Again, why? Myth is clearly not neutral terminology per the balance of sources, so that ship seems distinctly unlikely to fly. It might be a myth, but that is not the prevalent name for it. That aside, why should it be 'narrative' and not 'story', as the WP:COMMONNAME? Iskandar323 (talk) 17:15, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

  Because it is a myth. That is what it is written in the very first sentence of the article. We should not rely on Google results only. We have to use a common sense as well. WP:COMMON. And the term ‘myth’ is more specific and therefore provides more information to a reader. Martin Tauchman (talk) 17:58, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

  You seem to be supposing a clash where there is none, since 'story' is not incompatible with myth. All myths are stories. So the point about the first sentence is unclear, as there is no obvious clash between the supported WP:COMMONNAME title and that. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:33, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose and the very first sentence of lede explains why: there are two stories. Walrasiad (talk) 15:29, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

  Huh? Narrative is also singular, the reason being WP:SINGULAR, which is basic policy. Seems moot. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:11, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Try reading the article. Also, you don't need to reply to every reply. Walrasiad (talk) 20:27, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Near the head of the talk page is a 16-event panel: This page has previously been nominated to be moved. Before re-nominating, review the move requests listed below. To pursue this new request, the proposer should clearly, concisely and unambiguously demonstrate what uniquely new point is being proposed that should overturn the sum of those 16 previous points. Feline Hymnic (talk) 19:39, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

  @Feline Hymnic: Only one of those RMs was to the proposed title, the reasons were a muddle and it was withdrawn. Not much not to say. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:19, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. It should be kept as narrative because that is what this article really is, a description or narrative of the events in the beginning of Genesis. I personally believe in the Genesis account myself, and as my fellow Christians would say, changing the title of this article to story would correspond that others beliefs are just a fable. Leave Narrative. Same reason why in the Wikipedia article evolution, it is considered a theory (the second paragraph of the evolution heading reads:"The theory of evolution by natural selection was conceived independently by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace....) meaning its neither true or wrong, letting the reader decide its truth. Same should apply to this article. The Capitalist forever (talk) 19:56, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

  That's an emotive, not policy-based reason, but also flawed logic. A story can be fictional or non fictional, real or myth. The five-letter term alone does not imply any of the above. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:22, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

@Iskandar323:, talking strictly policy based, I would still say leave narrative. This subject has been brought up so many times and with everyone opposing this, it's not going to change for some time. That's reality. Let me say again:"It should be kept as narrative because that's what this article really is, a description or narrative of the events in the beginning of Genesis." The Capitalist forever (talk) 20:28, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

"events in the beginning of Genesis" seems confusing or circular to me, —PaleoNeonate – 14:58, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose - The previous debates have been between myth and narrative, the two best descriptions, that are also concise. Narrative was a compromise to accomodate those who were offended by myth, even though the latter is the best description: a traditional story of a people. Only "story" is very vague, and can of course be used as part of a text as one of the variations used. As someone pointed out, there also is more than one version or story in the book, that itself was a compilation. —PaleoNeonate – 14:58, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Semi-protected edit request on 20 March 2024

Make sure the 'G's in 'God' are capitalized. Goober112 (talk) 22:27, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: Per MOS:GOD (and just regular English grammar), when god is used as a common noun and not as a title, it should not be capitalised. If there's a specific occurrence that is incorrect, you should open a new edit request referencing that instance. Liu1126 (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

2 creation narratives

Question isn't that whole 2 creation myths based on the whole Documentary hypothesis? Hasn't the consensus for the documentary hypothesis collapsed since the 1970s?CycoMa1 (talk) 16:56, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, the documentary hypothesis has fallen out of favor, but I don't think anyone is saying that there is only 1 narrative. The Documentary Hypothesis' basic idea (that the Pentateuch was derived from different sources later edited together) hasn't been completely repudiated; the popular alternatives are all variations of the original theory. Ltwin (talk) 17:11, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

The Documentary hypothesis argued that the Pentateuch is a compilation of four source documents, and that at least one of them was as old as the 10th century BCE(!). The consensus collapsed due to a view that the Pentateuch is "a compilation of short, independent narratives" rather than a synthesis of extensive works, and that the editing process took place not in the Kingdoms of Israel or Judah but in either the Achaemenid Empire (5th-4th century BCE) or the Hellenistic period (4th century-1st century BCE). In other words, the Pentateuch's sources were more fragmented than the Documentary hypothesis believed, and the Pentateuch itself is not as old as the Documentary hypothesis believed. Dimadick (talk) 08:15, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Narrative

Genesis is called a narrative, but the article does not explain why. Could someone elaborate on this? Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 07:57, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

The many RM:s, listed under "This article has previously been nominated to be moved." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:03, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

We simply need to tip toe around the real terminology used in society to engage readers to read on an educate themselves. Moxy🍁 00:00, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

No, User:Joshua Jonathan - Genesis is not called a narrative, and Genesis is not a narrative. Genesis is a series of narratives. It begins with either the Genesis creation narrative or the Genesis creation narratives. My own opinion is that it is two narratives that are inconsistent. Regardless of whether one accepts the documentary hypothesis, Genesis 1 is the Priestly creation narrative, and Genesis 2-3 is the Yahwistic creation and original sin narrative. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:54, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Merge 'Framework interpretation (Genesis)' to 'Genesis creation narrative'

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to merge. Violoncello10104 (talk) 08:45, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

---

The merge proposal was to merge Framework interpretation (Genesis) into Genesis creation narrative, specifically the 'Interpretations' section. Over a week has passed, and discussion resulted in unanimous consent due to the fact that the framework interpretation article fits within the Genesis creation narrative article; it deals solely with interpretation of the first creation narrative which is a topic in this article, and therefore makes little sense as a separate article.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Given that this article now has an 'Interpretation...' section, and the 'Framework interpretation' article is fairly short and relies on only a few sources, I propose that 'Framework interpretation (Genesis)' be merged to the 'Interpretation...' section of 'Genesis creation narrative'. The framework interpretation solely deals with the first creation narrative (Gen. 1:1-2:3), and so it makes little sense for it to be a separate article. Violoncello10104 (talk) 08:11, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Support/Oppose

• Support - fits within this article. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 09:45, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. The merge was effected by the proposer: Violonvello10104 and it appears to be a stalking horse for fundamentalist Christian propaganda. jps (talk) 15:13, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

  I quote WP:MERGE.

  Any editor, including the editor who originally proposed the merge, is permitted to perform a merge in accordance with consensus.

  If you believe there is any POV content in the 'Framework interpretation' section such that it is 'propaganda', that is a separate issue to the merge, but I would be happy to discuss that. Violoncello10104 (talk) 15:55, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

  Okay. I can get behind turning framework interpretation into a redirect. I'm not okay with the edits that were done to this page in supposed response to this. jps (talk) 16:38, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Comments

• See WP:MERGE for the full procedure. regards, Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 09:45, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

What an utterly absurd closure. Absolutely no effort appears to have been made to notify anyone of this discussion, and closing after a week, claiming 'unanimity' after only one other person has commented is an abuse of process. The content added is nothing but a series of external links, and isn't encyclopaedic content at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:01, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I've struck the above, since it appears that I'd been looking at the wrong edit or something. Having said that, there seems to be more than a whiff of WP:OR in the content added, and the material added in external links is clearly inappropriate, as a selection of primary-source material chosen to promote one particular perspective within a broader topic. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:21, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Could you please review the discussion under 'This article contains bias towards critical scholarship'? You will see that the state of the article was reached through consensus, and that we aimed to give priority to the majority view in scholarship while mentioning the traditional view which is significant and not fringe. I have argued for that extensively, so I think it's unnecessary to restate my points. WP:DISCUSSCONSENSUS; WP:TALKDONTREVERT. Violoncello10104 (talk) 16:30, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

How is the "traditional" view (whatever that's supposed to mean) not WP:FRINGE? Isn't it a claim that the events of this myth happened as literally described? Or am I missing something? jps (talk) 16:37, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Please see my argument in this Talk page under 'Arbitrary header #1'. The response to this was in general unproductive, however I believe there was real discussion and consensus-building in points [1] to [6] which Joshua Jonathan drew from my arguments, offering criticism and suggestions for improvement.

I also need to say, none of the edits in dispute state that the events of Genesis occurred; they are literary analyses and interpretations of the Genesis creation narrative. Violoncello10104 (talk) 16:47, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I am at a loss, then, as to what you mean by "traditional" view. It is not explained above nor in this statement here. What "literary analysis and interpretation" deserves inclusion on this page that is different than the WP:MAINSTREAM one? jps (talk) 17:31, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

The point of my argument under 'Arbitrary header #1' is that the views of traditional/evangelical scholars (such as what you previously deleted) are mainstream. Violoncello10104 (talk) 05:50, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

How are they mainstream? Don't they just assume that what their religious believes is correct and work backwards? That's not mainstream. That's just religious faith standing in for scholarship, no? We wouldn't claim that their views on, say, the Age of the Earth are mainstream. Why are they suddenly mainstream when it comes to the textual analysis of this particular document? jps (talk) 13:12, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I believe it is best to leave the judgment of this question to an expert in the field such as Ehrman (who is famous for his critical views, by the way) who says,

I do not say (or at least try not to say) that “most” scholars think x, y, or z, unless I’m sure that even evangelicals agree on the point (for example, whether the woman taken in adultery was originally in the Gospel of John). [...] I do not at all discount what conservative evangelical scholars such as Bock and Keener have to say. (They are smart people and they know a lot about biblical studies.) As a critical scholar myself, I believe in listening to all sides and weighing the evidence to reach a decision – whatever that decision happens to be – i.e. whether it supports a traditional Christian view (about Ephesians, or John, or the dats [sic] of NT writings) or not.

It is therefore quite possible for a traditional scholar to argue for a traditional conclusion, and for the majority of scholars to be required to accept it because of the argument's merit. The traditional scholar's motivation or personal belief is not relevant to whether their views should be considered by other scholars.

Also, C. John Collins and Meredith Kline, whose content you deleted from the article, both agree with the current scientific consensus on the age of the Earth (they both interpret Genesis 1 as more symbolic than literal). But even if they didn't, they are both legitimate scholars whose views are significant in biblical scholarship, and I have not written their views in Wikipedia's voice, but given in-text attribution. Violoncello10104 (talk) 15:45, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't address the primary point. What Bart Ehrman does or does not say or does or does not discount in the process of coming to a conclusion is hardly relevant to a Wikipedia article on a subject that has to make a WP:TERTIARY declaration of facts and opinions.

It seems pretty clear to me that there is no mainstream approach that would accommodate any supernatural, fundamentalist interpretations of this mythology. There are those who acknowledge that such beliefs exist, but WP:GEVAL requires us not to take this kind of parochial view seriously.

jps (talk) 22:57, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

'Commonly accepted mainstream scholarship' (WP:GEVAL) is not what you or I deem it to be, but what the consensus of scholars is. So while you personally may consider evangelical/traditional scholarship to be fringe and illegitimate, Wikipedia should not do so too unless it is shown that the consensus of biblical scholars is that evangelical scholarship is fringe and illegitimate. But this is certainly not the opinion of Ehrman. Violoncello10104 (talk) 09:07, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Ehrman, with all due respect, is not in charge of Wikipedia. We don't give equal validity to history and pseudohistory. Conservative evangelical scholarship is on a par with Ancient Aliens and Graham Hancock. tgeorgescu (talk) 09:35, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

That is an insult to Graham Hancock. He promotes pseudoarchaeology, not religious propaganda and anti-intellectualism.Dimadick (talk) 09:26, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

The consensus of scholars is that supernatural attestation for this story is not taken seriously. Full stop. End of story, end of the line. If you are trying to advocate for pages to pay attention to such ideologically driven nonsense as a respectable position, you are going to find yourself on the outs with our editorial position. There is always conservapedia if this upsets you. jps (talk) 13:53, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

I'll try to look into all of this - later. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 17:48, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Replacing fringe/unreliable sources (Ham 2007 and Answers in Genesis)

WP:NOTRELIABLE states that 'questionable sources' are usually not reliable, defining them thus, Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest. Ronald Numbers, a distinguished historian of science, has labelled Ken Ham a master propagandist, which I believe is sufficient evidence to consider him questionable or unreliable (especially since I doubt that this judgment will be controversial among Wikipedia editors). Therefore, we should not use him or his organisation Answers in Genesis as sources.

Ham was cited for this sentence in the framework interpretation section of this article, Creationists who take a literalist approach have laid the charge that Christians who interpret Genesis symbolically or allegorically are assigning science an authority over that of Scripture. I believe this is a true statement, and I have found a reliable source (David Wilkinson (theologian)) who confirms this, stating that 'creationists'...

share with Dawkins and others a conflict model of science and religion. In this case, scriptural truth has primacy over scientific truth. [...] creationism depends on a commitment that Genesis 1 is meant to be read as a scientific text. Of course, the majority of biblical scholars point to the clear figurative elements, poetry, liturgy, and theology within the text. However, these arguments are unheard by creationists, who couple a commitment to biblical authority with one particular interpretation of Genesis 1-3. The fact that this interpretation is only a century old and was codified in the North American context of the post-Darwinian controversies is rarely acknowledged.

References

I suggest a new wording for the sentence to suit this new source, e.g. Creationists who take a literalist approach reject symbolic or allegorical interpretations of the Genesis creation narrative as conceding to scientific authority at the expense of biblical authority. Advocates of the framework view respond by noting that Scripture affirms God's general revelation in nature... (proposed replacement in bold).

As for the external link to Answers in Genesis in Note d, I believe this can be removed, since we have already worded the statement in a way that the majority of mainstream scholars, critical and traditional, would agree with. Violoncello10104 (talk) 23:55, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Quoting Ken Ham or other young-earth creationists on anything except their weird opinions, in articles about anything except themselves, is a horribly bad idea. See WP:FRINGE and WP:ONEWAY. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:25, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed that Ken Ham is a WP:FRINGE figure and obviously cannot be cited for anything. --Aquillion (talk) 16:02, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok Violoncello, Wilkinson seems to be a much better source about the views of modern Creationists. Dimadick (talk) 06:41, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Mass-revert

@ජපස: you did a mass-revert twice diff, edit-summary

Rv fundamentalist Christianity POV pushing.

and diff, edit-summary

We seem to have uncovered a stealth POV pushing campaign to give equal validity to evangelical Christian believers as though they are WP:MAINSTREAM scholars because Ehrman said that he is generous with his attention? No, Wikipedia is not supposed to be the forum. We summarize the best and are not supposed to pretend that sanguine analysis of texts could plausibly come to the conclusion that there is deity magic involved.

As you will understand, I'm not a Christian fundamentalist, or apologist, myself, but I put a lot of effort in discussing Violincello10104's edits, so I'm not so thrilled by such a mass-revert. I guess we can go through this piece by piece, starting with the big chunks; a lot of work, but mass-reverting back-and-forth won't work. Regards, Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 16:46, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Why did you accept the idea that evangelical Christian fundamentalist POVs should be included in this page? jps (talk) 17:12, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

That depends on the kind of info, but a priori removing info from faith-inspired authors seems biazed to me - the kind of 'fundamentalism' you seem think you are battling against (We seem to have uncovered a stealth POV pushing campaign - more like 'we use the fringe-noticeboard as a stealth canvassing device for extremist atheist campaigners). Regarding are not supposed to pretend that sanguine analysis of texts could plausibly come to the conclusion that there is deity magic involved, in all the text you removed, is there any piece dealing with Divine inspiration? I haven't seen it. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 04:04, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

The issue is that Wikipedia's purpose is to reflect the mainstream academic consensus, first and foremost; and within that consensus, supernatural explanations are plainly WP:FRINGE. Therefore, we have to be extremely cautious about using sources that advocate for them - there are some ways they can be used, especially with attribution, but we can't structure the article around them or present them in a way that gives them more weight than mainstream scholarship does, and when we do cover them it has to be done through the lens of the mainstream academic view, eg. "here are somethings that these people believe." --Aquillion (talk) 15:33, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, this was pretty clearly inappropriate. It's also worth noting that the editors implementing these changes to the article have so far cited 0 sources justifying them in the talk pages. Every criticism so far has been either WP:OR, an ad-hominem, or both. I'd change this back to how it was prior to this issue per WP:STATUSQUO and WP:NOCON. Just10A (talk) 18:18, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

The conservative evangelical position got peddled too aggressively, the reaction to it was inevitable. I disagree that conservative evangelical scholarship would amount to mainstream scholarship. It is notable as theology, but it should not be stated as if it were a mainstream view.

And the STATUSQUO was that before Violoncello's edits. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:28, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Is it notable as theology? I'm not sure. For the most part, conservative evangelical theology is fairly atomized so it makes it very difficult to identify it as being a coherent position that is taken by more than the person attesting to it. Absent any metric but their own personal faith claimed to be based on a particular tradition which they decide to follow, I am not sure there is anything to be had in articles about subjects that are not explicitly about their particular theology. This is the problem here. There is no way to decide which of the oodles of ideas evangelicals have about this mythology are notable excepting that those who study the evangelical movement as a whole have identified something to say. And even then, it is probably completely irrelevant to the actual text being discussed here except as perhaps a way to describe certain reactions and beliefs associated with it. jps (talk) 20:02, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this assessment of the discussion. Interestingly, I found that @Joshua Jonathan's criticisms earlier this month provided an effective counter-balance to my initial edits. This led to a healthy formation of consensus and a well-rounded article. Now we have to contend with the mere assertion of the illegitimacy of certain scholars due to their religious beliefs, which is not reflected in the practice of religious scholars (quite the contrary). I hope genuine consensus may take place again for this article, and I am certainly open to helping find more scholars, critical, traditional or otherwise, to edit content I've written according to policy and consensus. Violoncello10104 (talk) 19:20, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

You have not demonstrated that any of the sources you champion have been noticed by third parties remarking on the import of their scholarship. Would love it if you could do that. jps (talk) 19:56, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Agree with this. All of the recent additions place WP:UNDUE weight on a few sources that have limited secondary coverage; none of them are really workable. I also have concerns about the WP:FALSEBALANCE used as a rationale to add them. --Aquillion (talk) 15:49, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

"Removing apologist'

diff removed

C. John Collins considers the genre of the first narrative to be "exalted prose narrative" for three reasons: the absence of actors other than God, the very ordered way of narrating events, and rhetorically "high" language, such as "firmament" in Genesis 1:6, "the greater light" and "the lesser light" for the Sun and the Moon respectively in verse 16, and "cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth" in verse 24. In fact, On the Sublime, the classic 1st-century work on aesthetics, references verses 3 and 9 as exemplary of "sublime" style. The exalted tone of the passage, in an almost liturgical manner, prompts the reader to contemplate the goodness, power, and creativity of God who created the heavens and the earth by his word. Collins notes that the "exalted" style of the narrative precludes a "literalistic" interpretation. In the second narrative, human activity comes into view, and so its language becomes more ordinary in comparison to the first narrative, leading Collins to classify its genre as "normal prose narrative".

References

What's apologetic about this? And what's wrong with C. John Collins? Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 16:52, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Collins is writing from the POV that the story was magically the word of a deity. This is not legitimate scholarship. jps (talk) 17:12, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Collins' work was peer-reviewed, Beck, J. A. (2007). "Genesis 1-4: A linguistic, literary, and theological commentary". Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. 50 (3): 603–605., Gertz, J. C. (2009). "Genesis 1-4. A linguistic, literary, and theological commentary". Zeitschrift Für Die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. 121 (1): 138–139., meeting the standards of 'reliable scholarship' (WP:SCHOLARSHIP). Religious bias is not a valid reason to dismiss a secondary source, as it states in WP:BIASEDSOURCES. There is no a priori dismissal of all religious scholarship.

Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. [...] Bias may make in-text attribution appropriate, as in "The feminist Betty Friedan wrote that..."

(Emphasis added). With this policy in mind, it is clear that the works of Collins or any other traditional/evangelical scholar are actually among the 'best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.' We have followed the practice of attributing in-text attribution of a traditional or evangelical perspective to Collins' views, therefore the charge of POV is unfounded. Violoncello10104 (talk) 03:33, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh, great! Maybe Graham Hancock also wrote something about the Genesis. Let's WP:CITE him too, on a par with Collins. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:38, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

If Hancock was peer-reviewed and received favourably in the literature as Collins was by Beck and Gertz, then it would be reasonable to cite him. Violoncello10104 (talk) 03:45, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

To be more clear: if you cite Collins as a theologian, okay, go ahead. But as a historian he is on a par with Hancock. So it depends upon whether we are discussing theology or history. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:55, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

The area of study of this article is neither theology nor history, although they are secondary. It is biblical studies, religious cosmology or mythology (the subject of this article is a religious text, not a historical event). On this front, Collins is a reliable source as I have shown. In addition, no scholar has raised the alarm about poor history in Collins' work such that any of the claims included are unreliable or compromised. Violoncello10104 (talk) 04:04, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

You have not shown he is a reliable source. Who cites him as a reliable source for biblical studies? Plenty of stuff gets through peer review. The real test for a WP:TERTIARY source is whether such stuff is noticed by unbiased third parties. You have not demonstrated that it has been or that he is considered a high-level authority on this subject. jps (talk) 16:02, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Do any scholars identify Collins as having a legitimate thing to say here? Why are we quoting him as a primary source? What is the justification? jps (talk) 17:14, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

See my previous reply. He was not being quoted as a primary source, but as a secondary source among others on the question of the genre of the two narratives. Violoncello10104 (talk) 03:34, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

@jps, would you be able to respond in a meaningfull way? Regarding Collins is writing from the POV that the story was magically the word of a deity, what does that mean? You probably mean Biblical inspiration; when discussing, it's helpfull to be precise and adress the concern of others, instead of resorting to rhetorics and evading the concerns raised by others. What's "magical" about Collins notes that the "exalted" style of the narrative precludes a "literalistic" interpretation? Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 03:52, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. When I go to the library (soon), I will find some more peer-reviewed sources for the traditional perspective on these issues, and perhaps critical works that lay out the differing views. Violoncello10104 (talk) 04:01, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

I will find some more peer-reviewed sources for the traditional perspective on these issues, and perhaps critical works that lay out the differing views - no, this is WP:FALSEBALANCE. Our role as an encyclopedia is to summarize the mainstream academic perspective, not to decide for ourselves that there is what we personally consider a "traditional perspective" and a "critical" work. It's inappropriate to intentionally seek out sources like that and then put our "thumb on the scale" to push the article towards giving them more weight than mainstream academic discourse grants them. --Aquillion (talk) 15:30, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. What we need are sources that are from outside the traditional perspective that describe which parts of the traditional perspective are necessary to comment upon because they are WP:PROMINENT enough to be necessary to include in a tertiary reference work. The traditional sources themselves should only be included if there is cause to reference back to them because they are considered so important by third-party sources. For example, if we find enough sources that identify Jerome's position on authorship as relevant to these particular myths, then we can include it. But otherwise, Jerome's suggestion that Ezra the Priest wrote the Pentateuch in the fifth century bc based on notes made by Moses does not deserve inclusion. jps (talk) 16:15, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Critical and traditional are both perspectives within mainstream scholarship. This is not my own judgment but the judgment of scholars. If you believe it is not, you need to provide evidence that traditional/evangelical scholars are a priori dismissed because of their religious views. I have argued for this under 'Arbitrary header #1' and in the 'Comments' section of the merge proposal, so please read at least one of those before responding to me. Violoncello10104 (talk) 16:25, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

No, the WP:ONUS is on you to show one of these views being treated as worthy of consideration. All you've done is quote the magnamity of Ehrman as a basis for WP:PRIMARY sources. That's not how it works. Show precisely which perspective Ehrman thinks is part of mainstream scholarship and we'll include it. Until then, it's not Wikipedia's place to provide false balance for the incorrect claims of Evangelicals about their Holy Book. jps (talk) 18:38, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

I have responded in a meaningful way. Those arguing that Collins should be included have not demonstrated that his opinions that they wish to be included here have been noticed by anyone. jps (talk) 16:03, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

• Seems undue. Why would we devote an entire paragraph to a single person's commentary from 2006? We already cite Collins' views more briefly; but they're not such a notable scholar that it makes sense to spotlight their opinion at such length, at least not on a topic where we have much higher-quality secondary sources to give a broad overview. --Aquillion (talk) 15:30, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

  If you believe Collins is a valid secondary source but should be given less weight, that is a proposal I am far more open to, but which is separate from jps' rationale for deleting him, which is that he represents evangelical 'propaganda' and not legitimate scholarship. Please create another discussion topic if you want to propose that. Violoncello10104 (talk) 16:27, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

These things are related; WP:DUE is connected to WP:FRINGE in that fringe topics and figures can sometimes be covered but are generally accorded less weight. And they are further connected in that the limited secondary coverage underlines the low weight Collins is accorded in mainstream academia, which makes it WP:UNDUE to expand things the way you have proposed. --Aquillion (talk) 16:04, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Could you please collate your arguments into one separate discussion topic? It's impractical to respond to five different replies and it won't be easy for other editors to follow the discussion. Violoncello10104 (talk) 18:34, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

"Removing apologist" #2

diff removed (emphasis)

In the first story, the Creator deity is referred to as "Elohim" (the Hebrew generic word for "god"), whereas in the second story, he is referred to with a composite divine name; "LORD God". Traditional or evangelical scholars such as Collins explain this a single author's variation in style in order to, for example, emphasize the unity and transcendence of "God" in the first narrative, who created the heavens and the earth by himself. Critical scholars such as Richard Elliot Friedman, on the contrary, take this as evidence of multiple authorship.

References

Ain't it relevant to know how traditional scholars explain (away?) the differences between these two stories? I find it interesting; it serves as a nice contrast between traditional and liberal scholarship. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 16:57, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Who takes these "traditional scholars" seriously in the literature? jps (talk) 17:11, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

See my previous reply. As I stated in line with WP:BIASEDSOURCES, your recent deletion of content from John Knox Press and Liturgical Press on grounds of their religious biases was contrary to policy and to consensus. Violoncello10104 (talk) 03:38, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Friedman also believes that the Bible is inspired, but that does not influence his historical research. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:31, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

• I don't think they can reasonably be said to have the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that WP:RS requires. Also, your characterization of the sources you're describing ("traditional", "liberal", and "critical") are all extremely POV descriptors and would require high-quality neutral sourcing to use in the article voice, which doesn't seem to be in evidence. Biased sources are sometimes reliable (although not the ones you provided; they have no reputation for fact-checking and accuracy), but even if they had the quality Wikipedia requires, a biased source would usually require in-line attribution that makes their biases clear. --Aquillion (talk) 15:14, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

  Your claim that these publishers have no reputation for fact-checking and accuracy is unjustified. Religious bias is not a valid reason to dismiss a source (WP:BIASEDSOURCES). Violoncello10104 (talk) 16:41, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

  Answers in Genesis is not a reliable source for anything. It is an embarrassment that Wikipedia links to them in this article. jps (talk) 18:40, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

• The issue is not their biases; they clearly lack the reputation that WP:RS requires. If you disagree, you can open the issue on WP:RSN, but it's honestly a waste of time for sources as low-quality as these - there is no indication that they have a proper fact-checking process, no indication of the sorts of editorial controls RS requires, and no discussion of them in other high-quality sources in a way that would establish the sort of reputation needed. --Aquillion (talk) 15:57, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  No one can just assert that John Knox Press and Liturgical Press lack the reputation that WP:RS requires; this needs to be proved with citations. I provided a reliable source on the questionable nature of Ken Ham as a source, even though that's not even controversial among editors. The two publishers you criticise have been considered reliable by consensus since at least 2012 (see the article history), therefore the onus is very much on you to establish a consensus that they are unreliable. Violoncello10104 (talk) 04:40, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Collins, C. John (2006). Genesis 1—4 : a linguistic, literary, and theological commentary

So, what makes this a fundamentalist, magic-inspired work? Cited 146 times, for a starter. Violincello already mentioned two reviews:

• Beck, J. A. (2007). "Genesis 1-4: A linguistic, literary, and theological commentary". Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. 50 (3): 603–605.
• Gertz, J. C. (2009). "Genesis 1-4. A linguistic, literary, and theological commentary". Zeitschrift Für Die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. 121 (1): 138–139.

Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 04:09, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Those venues of publication indicate that authors must pass a religious test prior to publication. This is automatically disqualifying. jps (talk) 16:05, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context.

(WP:BIASEDSOURCES) A source cannot be disqualified on the basis of its religious bias. Violoncello10104 (talk) 16:44, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

There is a difference between biased sources and pseudohistorical sources. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:59, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

People who interpret this mythology as the word of God and literally true are unreliable for any statement of interpretation of the mythology excepting that they set aside that belief and deal within the confines on mainstream, secular scholarship. Otherwise, their beliefs are only relevant to the extent that they have been recognized by mainstream, secular scholarship as worthy of critique. jps (talk) 18:43, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE

Friedman and John J. Collins are the alpha males, while C. John Collins is the underdog. The two alphas got (each) cited once, very briefly, while the underdog got plenty of citations and plenty of space inside the article. That's completely WP:UNDUE. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:36, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Seems like a reasonable evaluation of the situation. jps (talk) 18:40, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

The language of alpha male vs. underdog to describe scholars is inappropriate. Additionally, I don't believe WP:UNDUE states that the number of times a scholar should be cited in an article should be proportional to their academic distinction (as I assume the 'alpha male-underdog' language is referring to). Nevertheless, I am not opposed to giving additional sources, and you have stated elsewhere that you do not believe Collins 2006 should be removed entirely from the article which is the consensus of this discussion.

Now, the reason I put a paragraph from Collins 2006 into the genre section is because there was no mention of the genre of the two Genesis creation narratives with evidence. jps removed this paragraph, and as Just10A stated the fact that there is no consensus to remove it means we will restore it (WP:NOCON). When we restore it, I suggest a replacement sentence and citation (in bold below). I believe this paragraph should not be removed as it is informative on a significant topic which the article did not speak of previously, but it certainly could be improved with more sources.

C. John Collins considers the genre of the first narrative to be "exalted prose narrative" for three reasons: the absence of actors other than God, the very ordered way of narrating events, and rhetorically "high" language, such as "firmament" in Genesis 1:6, "the greater light" and "the lesser light" for the Sun and the Moon respectively in verse 16, and "cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth" in verse 24. In fact, On the Sublime, the classic 1st-century work on aesthetics, references verses 3 and 9 as exemplary of "sublime" style. Due to the exalted and liturgical tone, the passage resembles a hymn with repeated refrains, prompting the reader to worship the one true God who created the heavens and the earth. Collins notes that the "exalted" style of the narrative precludes a "literalistic" interpretation. In the second narrative, human activity comes into view, and so its language becomes more ordinary in comparison to the first narrative, leading Collins to classify its genre as "normal prose narrative".

Violoncello10104 (talk) 00:20, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE means that the evangelical view got over-represented in the article. Therefore, the reaction of your opponents was perfectly normal: they objected towards skewing most of the article towards the evangelical POV. If you'll restore something smacking of WP:SOAP, you'll be reverted again, and with good reason. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:36, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not necessary for this paragraph to be from Collins. It's useful and informative to have a paragraph on the genre of each of the two narratives. But you haven't offered any replacement source, and you've consistently ignored my arguments now and in this discussion in general. Instead, your proposed solution is just to delete. Therefore the accusation of making this a soapbox for Collins is completely absurd. Whenever you are interested in improving the article and not just deleting information, I will be very happy to work with you. Violoncello10104 (talk) 07:45, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

It's useful and informative to have a paragraph on the genre of each of the two narratives

It's explicitly a violation of WP:NPOV for both to be given equal space. There's no compromise position between undue weighting and due weighting—I imagine that's why you've been unable to find such a compromise. Remsense ‥ 论 07:49, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Your quote of my message doesn't seem to relate to what you wrote. Genre is not an issue with contradicting viewpoints among scholars. Violoncello10104 (talk) 08:00, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Any material to be included in the article is weighted according to its representation in reliable sources. Remsense ‥ 论 08:20, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Collins 2006 is a reliable source on the genre of the two narratives. Why should this paragraph be removed as it was by jps? (This version, with the paragraph deleted, is what you have recently restored by the way). Violoncello10104 (talk) 08:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

It should also go without saying (even though I had to say it) that this isn't a deletion discussion (i.e. deletion of a page), so that part of WP:NOCON doesn't apply at all. Remsense ‥ 论 07:57, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have quoted the other dot point in my edit summary When discussions of proposals to add, modify, or remove material in articles end without consensus, the common result is to retain the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit. As you can see in this discussion, the bold edit was jps' mass-revert. Collins was added due to consensus, as you can see in my discussion with Joshua Jonathan in 'This article contains bias towards critical scholarship'. Violoncello10104 (talk) 08:04, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion has not ended without consensus. The discussion is ongoing, with the WP:ONUS being on you to justify the content under dispute to at least three editors who oppose its inclusion. Remsense ‥ 论 08:15, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@Just10A and @Joshua Jonathan do not share your judgment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Genesis_creation_narrative#c-Just10A-20240926181800-Joshua_Jonathan-20240925164600). I will wait for seven days, if there is no further significant debate, then I will retain the version of the article as it was before the bold edit, as it states in WP:NOCON. Violoncello10104 (talk) 08:31, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

You will not dictate the terms on how your preferred version of the article will be restored. Instead, you need to gain consensus for it per WP:ONUS. Remsense ‥ 论 08:32, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

May I ask why the same cannot be said to you? Violoncello10104 (talk) 08:35, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content is perfectly clear, and far more specific to this situation than what you have chosen to cherrypick. Remsense ‥ 论 08:36, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I have already told you that I achieved consensus to add Collins (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Genesis_creation_narrative#c-Joshua_Jonathan-20240910110500-Violoncello10104-20240910081900). It was mass-reverted by jps over a week later. As for cherrypicking, WP:ONUS states, Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article before the sentence you quote. Consensus never determined that Collins (or any of the other publishers you have removed from the article) did not improve the article. Therefore, the editors who added this content are not called upon to justify this conclusion against a consensus. Violoncello10104 (talk) 08:45, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

A week, unfortunately, is not nearly enough for content to be considered to have a stable consensus, especially given that there were objections on talk right from the start. It is a recent addition that was since disputed, and you must therefore demonstrate consensus for it in order to add it, or work with the objections in order to reach some sort of compromise. Again, if you believe you have a consensus for your proposed addition, you can start an WP:RFC; but you can't simply edit-war it in on the argument that it lasted a week (during which there were objections on talk!) before someone removed it, that's not stable at all. --Aquillion (talk) 15:59, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Even if 11 days is not enough time to establish a consensus (which I do not grant, there is no policy saying this), you removed sources that had a consensus of over ten years as I pointed out in my edit summaries. You can verify this in the article history. Please at least read the edit summaries before deleting information. Ideally you would discuss everything on the talk page before reverting and there could be a consensus (WP:DISCUSSCONSENSUS). Violoncello10104 (talk) 18:49, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

He's not dictating terms. He's following WP:NOCON. And consensus is implicit and assumed until there is issue with it.

As for "consensus being ongoing" this is pretty evidently WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. It's already been explained multiple times to the other editors that their proposed changes did not sway editor consensus, and most have decided to move on due to their name calling/rudeness. Just10A (talk) 08:44, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

How many editors need to disagree with a consensus established among a group of three for the presumption of said consensus to cease being persuasive? Moreover, WP:NOCON says nothing about anyone's right to impose a 7-day timer for anything. The responsible move would be to seek further input, not to claim "no consensus, thus retain" on what is a pretty pivotal WP:NPOV issue. Remsense ‥ 论 09:02, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Some processes, especially deletion-oriented pages, have a specified minimum length, typically of 7 full days. (WP:WHENCLOSE) The '7-day timer' was a concession to you that the discussion was still ongoing, and that I would wait seven days before considering the discussion closed with no consensus. Violoncello10104 (talk) 09:22, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree, I am not aware of any “timer.” It’s not explicitly mentioned to my knowledge, and so it’s just a reasonable amount of time. In this scenario, since it (seems) like most editors have moved on, you would be lucky to even get a few days. His “7 days” is self-imposed and him being generous lol. But go on. Just10A (talk) 15:12, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

The account Just10A was registered at the end of February this year, and has 519 edits. Most of their edits are from July, August, and September.

The account Violoncello10104 was registered at the end of March this year, and has 1015 edits (of which 377 edits at en.wiki). They have edited in June, July, August, and September.

This does not make them wrong, but navigating different policies and guidelines of Wikipedia can be a daunting task. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:18, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I still don't quite get how the natural course of action would be "figure out a new argument to convince us or it gets put back and we're done". We're pretty sure of our position here and why, and likewise I suppose with those opposing. There's a live NPOV dispute among comparably sized camps: the intuition of anyone who's even rubbernecked talk page drama without ever making an edit would to then broaden the discussion, attempting to find consensus among a greater pool of editors, who may have additional valuable points to make. Remsense ‥ 论 07:29, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

1.) This is explicitly irrelevant per WP:EC, and insinuating it as an ad hominem is borderline a personal attack. (Also, just to be clear, this is a laughable ad-hominem. People often make many edits before registering an account, and having more than 500 edits puts you in the top 0.75% of editors.)

2.) If you comprehend Wiki policies so much better than others, why wouldn't you just argue those policies instead of resorting to ad hominems? That speaks for itself. Any of the (very few) actual substantive points you made (between the name calling, WP:OR, and rudeness) did not sway the community and was refuted. As a result, policy dictates WP:NOCON. We're just following policy, it's not personal. We're not rehashing this again. To do so would be WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Just10A (talk) 15:20, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Again, my solution is not 100% victory for either side.

Perhaps the intentions of one side are not WP:SOAP for evangelicals, but it looks that way to others. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:14, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the observation I made several times that disputes of this kind would generally be expanded to a broader forum rather than declared "draw, incumbent retains" hasn't been engaged with yet. The banner's there now, but it seems like the most material next step would be a post on WP:NPOVN, no? Remsense ‥ 论 10:21, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Someone has already drawn attention to the article on the fringe theories noticeboard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Eyes_needed_on_Genesis_creation_narrative). As I stated according to WP:NOCON in the edit summary, we need to gain consensus before removing the information, since the sources had presumed consensus since the specified dates (WP:EDITCONSENSUS). In addition Collins 2006 was added collaboratively between editors of different viewpoints.

The current NPOV-related discussion appears dormant, and in 24 hours it will be seven full days since the last comment about it, so I was planning to remove the maintenance template tomorrow according to WP:WTRMT, where it says a dormant discussion is sufficient grounds to remove a neutrality-related template. As I said before, WP:WHENCLOSE gives seven days as a suggested time frame before closing a discussion. Violoncello10104 (talk) 10:28, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

No, this is mistaken. Your disputed additions are recent; this is part of the same broad discussion stemming from when they were first added, which started just last month and led to rapid objections. At no point have they had anything that could be considered a stable consensus. As WP:EDITCONSENSUS says, they only had presumed consensus until someone objected or removed them, which happened relatively rapidly after they were added; now they are disputed. Per WP:ONUS and WP:NOCON, you must demonstrate affirmative consensus to add them, which is clearly not present - you plainly believed you had that consensus when the discussion only consisted of a few editors, and I can understand your frustration at having that presumption turn out to be false, but that is what happened. If you believe a stable consensus for your proposed addition does exist, or did exist in the past, you can start an RFC to demonstrate it, but I am not seeing it on this talk page presently. As a more general note... this is a low-traffic article; consensus is often going to be slow to form. On a low-traffic article, it's not unusual to make an edit and to have someone else come in and object to it a week or so later. If you want to establish that something has a stable consensus, a formal WP:RFC is the way to go; "X days have passed, now this has consensus and becomes the status quo!" isn't really how it works for informal discussions. --Aquillion (talk) 15:46, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:EDITCONSENSUS does not say that a consensus of 11 days is not a real consensus. WP:ONUS states that 'Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article'. This has not occurred (quite the opposite), so it doesn't apply to these additions. And besides, some of the sources you deleted had been considered reliable for over ten years by consensus. Anyway, as I said to you earlier please write one discussion post so that it's easier for everyone to understand the discussion. Violoncello10104 (talk) 18:58, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:EDITCONSENSUS says that An edit has presumed consensus until it is disputed or reverted. You made a WP:BOLD addition to the article and it was reverted mere days later; therefore, it no longer has presumed consensus. You must demonstrate the consensus you believe it has, which is, to me, plainly not present on this talk page - a quick nose-count of people who have weighed in since the discussion started last month shows a lack of consensus for your addition. If you disagree, you can start an RFC to show otherwise. In any case, we can ping the participants in the discussion to date to ask them. @Joshua Jonathan: @Tgeorgescu: @Remsense: @Carlstak: @Bishonen: @Folly Mox: @Doug Weller: @Dimadick: @Mojowiha: @DangalOh:: Violoncello is arguing that this discussion, and the one above, demonstrate consensus for this disputed addition (and more generally this recent rewrite), and is continuing to attempt to edit-war it in. If there's no clear consensus, or we can't agree on whether there is one and can't find some compromise, the next step is an RFC, but please weigh in if you have anything to add either way. --Aquillion (talk) 00:40, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I gave up here. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 03:20, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

You made a WP:BOLD addition to the article and it was reverted mere days later; therefore, it no longer has presumed consensus. So you admit that the additions had consensus. Since my 'WP:BOLD addition' was reverted, you say it 'no longer has consensus', meaning it previously had consensus. Therefore WP:ONUS is not applicable. We should apply WP:NOCON to the 'mass-revert' discussion and restore the 21 Sep version which had consensus. WP:NOCON states that in discussions to remove material, no consensus means the material should be kept. And you continue to ignore the fact that some of the material you removed had consensus for over ten years.

Obviously this discussion ('Mass-revert') does not demonstrate consensus but was a discussion to remove content that had consensus. If anyone reads this, please see the edit summaries from September to October 2024 to find the justifications of each party. Then you may also judge for yourself who is responsible for edit-warring. Violoncello10104 (talk) 03:57, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

(responding to ping) Oh my gosh Violoncello10104 you can't just quote someone, remove an important qualifier from the quote (here presumed of presumed consensus), and then argue some gotcha based on what the person didn't say. That's politician stuff.

Apart from that, I have no desire to wade through two months of edit summaries, and forgot I had ever commented on this talkpage.

To address the diffs, the Collins material seems incredibly overdetailed. There also doesn't seem to be any reason to me to state something like Genesis is commonly approached as a narrative or story in an article titled "Genesis creation narrative". And foregrounding whether non-fictional (history) seems pretty misrepresentative of the balance of sources.

As to whether early cultural traditions should be considered "history-like", I guess I can see an argument for it, but I'm not sure what's wrong with the more common legend, which after all are typically "history-like" and often were mistaken for historical fact, especially after some time had elapsed. This seems like a term we don't really need to introduce, unless for some reason multiple other scholars have started using it to describe certain textual genera.

I don't have any serious interest in this topic, but the contested material feels like a POVPUSH. Folly Mox (talk) 06:40, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

This sounds like Wikilawyering to me. How prevalent are the views represented by these sources? Dimadick (talk) 06:36, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

The idea that the Genesis creation narratives are of the prose narrative genre is not controversial. That the first is liturgical in style is also not controversial, e.g., Wilkinson concurs who I quoted earlier in this section.

The paragraph does not have to be sourced from Collins. If someone finds another source that identifies the genre of the narratives with evidence, I will very happily work with that. What I don't support is the deletion of material due to religious bias on the part of the sources, or false and unsupported claims about their alleged unreliability which is what we have seen. I thought that templates like 'better source needed' and 'one source section' existed so that we wouldn't have to just throw away sourced yet substandard material, but try to improve it collaboratively. Violoncello10104 (talk) 11:23, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Religious bias is important. We need mainstream sources. Doug Weller talk 12:35, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. (WP:BIASEDSOURCES)

Collins was shown to be mainstream and reliable in the subsection of this discussion topic called Collins, C. John (2006). Genesis 1—4 : a linguistic, literary, and theological commentary. Cotter, Carr and Bouteneff have been considered reliable by consensus for over ten years, therefore there needs to be a consensus to overturn their reliability, and the onus is on those who believe they are unreliable to prove this. Violoncello10104 (talk) 13:16, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

"I thought that templates like 'better source needed' and 'one source section' existed so that we wouldn't have to just throw away sourced yet substandard material, but try to improve it collaboratively." Well, you were mistaken, Violoncello10104. Anybody can create a template, or an essay like WP:ONESOURCE; they're nothing like policies or guidelines, which have been vetted by the community. And they don't exist so that SPAs such as yourself may be able to go on and on until everybody else is exhausted and leaves. Compare this comment. Sections with substandard sourcing can be removed if no better sources are found, and should be removed if there is consensus for doing so; the community is not obliged to chew over them interminably. I'm considering page-blocking you from Genesis creation narrative and this talkpage for bludgeoning the discussion. Bishonen | tålk 13:47, 13 October 2024 (UTC).

Well, please allow me a last statement, with which I will end my campaign with this article and not reply or edit further. Firstly, to clarify, @Joshua Jonathan and I worked out a consensus together leading us to make several additions to the article, and he agreed with my later retention of this material according to WP:NOCON. The exhaustion he expressed in that comment was caused by the relentless opposition to this consensus.

I have never once proposed that NPOV be compromised in this article or at the very least I have not tried to do so. I just wanted to add more reliable information from a variety of mainstream perspectives, so I hope people can review my proposal Expanding the 'Hexameral literature' section and genuinely consider it and its arguments. I do not mind if the genre section uses critical scholars rather than Collins. Collins' comments were very informative, pointing the historical significance of aspects of the genre, for example. But again, all I have wanted for that section is an insightful and in-depth discussion of the genre of the narratives. So on that basis, perhaps editors will develop that section.

(I admit that at the very beginning of this whole discussion my use of the term 'mainstream' was not in accordance with Wikipedia terminology though I agreed with the concept in substance). I apologise for bludgeoning; I was passionate about the article, believed my arguments were being misunderstood and saw that important information was being neglected. Please know that I am sincere in saying this to you and to any other editor: I hope this article may be improved in the future, so I leave my material for consideration, but I won't involve myself with this article anymore. All the best. Violoncello10104 (talk) 14:16, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, praise be to Murphy for that.;-) Violoncello has been wikilawering and bludgeoning this page all along in a misguided and transparent attempt to insert unencyclopedic teleological content into the article. There's no consensus for it, and deservedly so. The "exalted prose narrative" is poetic sky-god talk (sun, moon, stars) written for an illiterate people with only a childlike understanding of natural phenomena, and we see plenty of those even today in the ranks of the worshipers of a certain fascist politician, apparently many of whom believe that scientists control the paths of hurricanes of behalf of the US government. Enough is enough. Carlstak (talk) 18:15, 13 October 2024 (UTC)