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Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Timeline of the Second Temple period/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by PresN via FACBot (talk) 00:26, 6 October 2024 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Timeline of the Second Temple period

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Timeline of the Second Temple period (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Toolbox
Nominator(s): SnowFire (talk) 00:30, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As a tool for keeping track of a blizzard of events and names, I found it useful to keep a scratch timeline in a Google Doc while I was researching some of the areas in this time period. I decided to turn it into a full proper article, and, well, here we are. There's some comments on methodology on the article talk page for what events were included and which weren't (a 600 year range means that including every single loosely related item isn't feasible), but the short version is that Lester L. Grabbe's "A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period" is the most important source. It's spread across 4 volumes, and is 2100+ pages discussing just about everything of importance on the era, as well as bibliographies where various feuding scholarly opinions about whether this undated line in Josephus refers to something that happened in 145 BCE or 135 BCE or didn't happen at all. This is important when quite a lot (most?) of the dates need a "circa" around them, and have a range of scholarly estimates. This is my first nomination at FLC. SnowFire (talk) 00:30, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Airship

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As always, these are suggestions, not demands. Feel free to refuse with justification.

Lead
  • If information in the lead doesn't appear in the body, it needs citations (see WP:LEADCITE) e.g. "Hellenistic Judaism blended both Greek and Jewish traditions." which I can't see cited in the body.
  • "A new temple to replace the destroyed Solomon's Temple was built by the returnees, and the Second Temple was finished around 516 BCE." this is a bit clunky, especially the first "a new temple".
  • "The Persians were largely tolerant of Judaism. Persian rule lasted for two centuries..." these sentences could easily be combined.
  • "was initially a fight for Judean autonomy against a suppression of traditional Judaism" ... by? Why aren't the Seleucids/Ptolemaics mentioned by name in the lead?
  • "The revolt's success brought about the formation of an independent Hasmonean kingdom of Judea under the rule of the Hasmonean family which had led the Jewish resistance." could be trimmed à la "The revolt's success brought about the formation of an independent Hasmonean kingdom of Judea, named for the family which had led the resistance." to reduce repetition.
  • "That too would end in 37 BCE" the antecedent of the "that" is "the Roman Republic", which is normally stated to end later; presumably you are referring to the end of Hasmonean rule?
  • "direct Roman control by the governors of Roman Judea. Direct Roman rule of Judea ..." could be combined and condensed.
  • Same for the last two sentences of the paragraph.
    • Added a bullet point for Hellenistic Judaism. (That one is a little tricky in a timeline since it lasts for centuries without really a clear start date - it's not like Alexander waved a magic wand - but went with the Ptolemaic era & the Septuagint.)
    • It could, but then the sentence feels too long if kept combined with the Macedonian conquest. And if we have to have two sentences, I think linking the end of Persian rule with the Macedonian conquest flows better; the short first sentence is on religion, and the longer second sentence is on politics & the regime change. Open to other suggestions, but I'd rather avoid one really long sentence.
    • Honestly, I would have the lead be even shorter if I was going fully by my own preferences to avoid duplication with Second Temple period ("This is a timeline" then bam, straight to it, but FL critierion 2 expects a more detailed lead). Explaining this requires getting into the diadochi successor states which is a little too in-the-weeds for very casual readers; it was Greek rule is the important high-level thing. That said, I added a sentence giving it a shot; take a look.
    • Done. (Although usual disclaimer goes here that as far as contemporary names, it's murkier as to what these polities called themselves - they probably called themselves "Judea" or the like.)
    • Yes, it's the end of Hasmonean client-king status. Unfortunate that the Roman Republic ends in 31 BC and thus could possibly be confused. I rephrased it to just repeat "Hasmonean" again (oh well for it being a close repetition).
    • It's a close repetition but I don't see a good way to combine it? The first sentence is talking about the complex political situation of 4 BC - 63 AD, and the second is talking about vibes. Happy to take suggestions but couldn't really find something satisfactory myself.
    • Similarly, I prefer the shorter, punchier sentences here. Yes, could change the period to "...in which the Romans defeated the Jewish rebels, Jerusalem was conquered... ", but I feel the sentences are more powerful as written. End of an era, period, and then all of the bad stuff in a dramatic list.
Persian Empire
  • "of its former territories" might want to specify that includes the region of Judeah.
  • Many won't know what "satrapy" means, so a gloss would be helpful.
  • "existed...Persian religious policy does allow...as they do not" confusing differences in tense
  • " Cambyses expands the Persian Empire further beyond Yehud" it was not previously mentioned that Yehud was the frontier.
  • What's the logic behind which Achaemenid kings get their reigns highlighted?
  • "Building of the new temple starts in earnest, creating the Second Temple," again clumsy, why not "The building of the Second Temple starts in earnest"?
    • Fair, but I think the next bullet point covers that.
    • Done.
    • Standardized on simple past tense.
    • Hmm, is that really a big deal though? I don't think Yehud being the frontier for a decade is really that important to discuss earlier, I don't get the impression it was a contested warzone or the like. I think the conquest of Egypt is relevant enough for a bullet point but I don't think fully "setting it up" is worth extra text earlier on the boundaries of the Neo-Babylonian Empire or the like.
    • That's a great question! I was trying to focus on the ones with some relevance for Jewish history & literature. Artaxerxes is the big one because Ezra is sent in the seventh year of Artaxerxes rule, but which one is unclear. So we have to list them out. Nehemiah also worked under the reign of Artaxerxes. Darius was the king while the Second Temple was built, so I figure he's relevant to mention as well. Cyrus & Cambyses are mentioned indirectly but only via their relevant deeds, not in terms of their overall reign. Xerxes I is... awkward. He is ARGUABLY the most famous in later years culturally because later literature / adaptations of the Book of Esther generally identify him with Ahasuerus, but this is strictly a later-culture deal and almost assuredly not historical, and thus an awkward fit to a timeline. I stuck with simply saying that the Book of Esther's setting is the Persian era, which seems fair enough. Most other Persian rulers have short reigns that aren't discussed in relation to Jewish history at all.
      • While on this note, the same applies to later rulers. I didn't include a full timeline of every single Roman procurator of Judea either, just the ones where something "interesting" happened and histories bother to say something relevant. Only a single Ptolemaic ruler's reign is mentioned, but it's one with something relevant to Jewish history. (The Seleucid rulers are all pretty relevant, though, at least before quasi-independence.)
    • Rephrased a bit, though not quite as you suggested. (Maybe a me-thing, but this kind of positional designator is weird to do anachronistically. Like "the Second President was born on October 30, 1735" is odd, while "John Adams was born on October 30, 1735" is fine. It was just a temple being built at the time, and it only became the Second Temple As A Title In All Capitals later, in retrospect.)
Macedonian conquest
  • Looking back to a previous list I rewrote, List of cities founded by Alexander the Great, there is a disputed tradition that Alexander refounded the city of Samareia (modern Sebastia, Nablus). Might be worth mentioning?
    • I'll give it a look. The timeline does mention Samaria's destruction by John Hyrcanus later, FWIW. The one awkward part is that many Jewish histories simply don't consider the Samaritans of this era Jews at all and thus wouldn't consider this that relevant. (As in, one of the festivals mentioned in Megillat Taanit is the destruction of the Samaritan Temple at Mount Gerizim. Those were not friendly relations!)
    • I added a line on this ( diff).
Ptolemaic Kingdom
  • The heading has "301 BCE – 199 BCE" but the intext span is "301–200 BCE". Any reason for the discrepancy?
  • "Book of Ecclesiastes (Qohelet)" no clue what "Qohelet" means without clicking on the link, which MOS:NOFORCELINK disapproves of. Same for many other brackets up and down the article (e.g. "Battle of Panium (Paneas)", "priestly source (P)").
  • "by Philopator" I don't think it's common to refer to Hellenistic kings by their epithets.
    • It is a little confusing. Jerusalem is conquered in 200 BCE, but the war ends and the boundaries "officially" change in 199 BCE, so the argument is that Ptolemaic rule stops in 200 BCE (the first item on the list), but the era only stops in 199. Also, a lot of the sources for these events say something like "this happened in the 3rd century BC" rather than "in the Ptolemaic era" even though they're near synonymous. If you prefer, though, I'm happy to switch to 199 as the end date; hopefully nobody will be annoyed and betrayed that the long 3rd century BCE now includes 199.
    • All of these are just alternative names for the same thing, e.g. Augustus Caesar (Octavian). This was in case someone recognizes Qohelet but not Ecclesiastes or the like, since it can be a little confusing to read about the Battle of Paneas and not find it in a CTRL-F or being unsure if there was a typo somewhere. We can throw in "also known as", but there's also an argument that this is an exception to NOFORCELINK - that we expect a lot of "click the link for more" on a timeline which is inherently a collection of article links. That said, I've rephrased or thrown in some explanations (diff), feel free to chime in if you think they're still insufficient.
    • Hmm. I agree that for Seleucid kings, I usually see "Antiochus IV" rather than "Epiphanes." But for Ptolemies, I'm not so sure. Hadas's book does indeed refer to him as Philopator for short, though (see p. 16-17), usually after introducing as "Ptolemy Philopator" which is done earlier in this line. Sara Raup Johnson's book does as well (p. 135, 145, 147), and similarly refers to other Pharaohs as such (e.g. just "Philadelphus"). Maybe a difference in styles between literary analysis and other histories? It seems writers on 3 Macc do use the epithets alone.
Seleucid Empire
  • Say who Scopas is?
  • "Roman troops" first mention of Rome should probably come with a link. Also, "further increasing Roman sway and influence" this is the first we're hearing about any sway/influence. Lastly, the article should probably mention that this battle took place nowhere near Judea.
  • "The "Abomination of Desolation" is set up in the Second Temple" the what????
  • Say who Lysias is.
  • So the rebels took Jerusalem but not the Acra? Might need to say that explicitly—I was quite confused for a bit.
  • "The Battle of Caphar-salama occurs." ... and how did it go?
    • Adjusted to "led by" rather than "left by" - he was just the opposing commander.
    • Hmm, this one I disagree. The relevant link is "Battle of Pydna", not the Roman Republican military - if someone is really interested, they'll find links to the Roman Republic military at that article, but that's not the 168 BCE event. And it is the first we're hearing about Roman influence, but that's because Roman influence wasn't that significant in Judea before and therefore not that relevant to mention. It seems Pydna was a turning point where, without the Antigonids to worry about, Rome started meddling more in Seleucid / Ptolemaic disputes. (There's a reason that this one is included despite being very far off - Bar-Kochva includes it in his timeline and thinks it's relevant to the Maccabean Revolt, just because it frees up the threat of a Roman intervention.) Anyway, tried spelling it out a bit more, take a look.
    • That's what it's called! Badass name, I know, metal bands should get one of those things. But no, nobody is really sure WTF it was, so it's difficult to be less mysterious here. Was it an idol? Was it a profaned altar? Was it just the act of pagan sacrifices itself? Whatever it was, the later Jews sure didn't like it (but didn't want to describe it in detail either), and Judas got rid of it after three years. But I'm not sure there's a great way to sum that up. "The Abomination of Desolation, a very very bad something something, is set up..."
    • Done, for Lysias.
    • Correct. I'm a little worried about saying so in the line on the 163 taking of Jerusalem, because we just know that suddenly we're besieging the Acra later, but the sources don't say "We took Jerusalem except the Acra", they say "We took Jerusalem." And then suddenly we're besieging the Acra later, so I guess they didn't take it, but we don't have any details on why or what did happen. (My understanding is that the best guess is that there were a lot more Hellenist-friendly Jews in Jerusalem than the surviving sources would like to admit, and the Maccabees didn't try to take the Acra immediately because they didn't want to provoke a revolt. Which would suggest the Maccabee occupation of Hellenist-friendly Jerusalem was somewhat nominal and didn't stop supplies from reaching the Acra. This wasn't deeply recorded in 1 Maccabees because it's "embarrassing". As a reminder, Jerusalem got wrecked in 168-167, so it wouldn't be surprising if the Maccabee-friendly inhabitants of Jerusalem were killed or enslaved in 168-167, and the main factions that the Seleucids left untouched were the Hellenist-friendly ones there, making the remnants still in the city a natural Seleucid base of power in 167-142. But this is a guess, not a fact.) I did expand the line on the Acra siege, take a look and see if it helps.
    • Added the result.
Hasmonean kingdom
  • "Ptolemy son of Abubus" who's this?
  • "The community is speculated to be Essenes" by who?
    • Just a name in a book. The only thing he's known for is doing this murder. I added his rank (governor of Jericho), but we really don't know much about him - the main thing he's known for is probably being the source for Dante's naming of Ptolemea in the 9th layer of hell.
    • When unstated, it's "most historians", but I think Wikipedia style is generally to discourage qualifying "consensus" opinions. There are some scholars who think the Qumran community were not Essenes nor particularly close to them in theology, but my understanding is that they're in the minority, and I think writing "speculated" already communicates that this is an educated guess rather than historical fact.
Herodian kingdom
  • " into Octavian's victorious side" not sure this makes sense.
    • Agree phrasing was awkward; rephrased it.
Roman Judea and the Herodian tetrarchy
  • "Herod Archelaus is deposed as ethnarch" should probably specify that this was done by the Romans.
    • Expanded this. (It was Emperor Augustus himself! Surprised he had time for that... Archelaus musta screwed up bad.)
Aftermath
  • Good.

Will continue. If you have the time/inclination, I have another historical FLC which would appreciate some reviews. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:41, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Pokelego

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Listing as a note that this FL review is the result of a trade of nominations between me and SnowFire.

I have very little familiarity with this part of history, so I'll be giving this review from the perspective of an outsider to the topic. This should hopefully help iron out points that may make sense without more context, but if I do confuse things that should be obvious, then you do not have to follow through if anything seems misguided.

Lead

-Make sure the information in the lead is cited if it's not mentioned in the article body.

-Would it be possible to define the importance of the Second Temple? While I understand this list is mostly for navigational purposes, a basic overview of why this Temple defined such a large part of history would likely be of great benefit to readers and provide needed background on the topic.

    • I believe everything in the lede should be in the bullet points below - if I missed something, feel free to point it out. (The "Empire X runs Judea" stuff is sorta mass sourced by all the details I hope, although per above conversation with Airship, the end of the Ptolemaic period is kinda interesting as it could be either 200 or 199 depending on how you count.)
    • That's a good request, but also a can of worms! I've added a sentence to the lead, but I'm not sure how helpful it is. I will say to clarify though that "Second Temple Judaism" is a term invented long after the period, and the Second Temple itself only defined a fairly narrow slice of religion-in-the-region for much of the period. Quite a bit of the history here was entirely out of the Second Temple's hands - e.g. not everything that happened in the Edwardian era really had that much to do with King Edward; similarly, it's just a term for a time period sometimes where the Second Temple itself isn't actually relevant.

Persian Empire

-"eventually part of the satrapy (province) of Eber-Nari." When does it become part of Eber-Nari? Immediately? Many years later?

    • See Eber-Nari#Babylonia,_Egypt,_and_Persia - it sorta unofficially continued as a Babylonian province but with Persian leadership in 539-535, it becomes part of "Babylonia and Eber-Nari" in 535 BCE (so not very long after), and it's split into a province just called Eber-Nari in around ~450 BCE. But I'd rather not add these details in - seems like something more for the linked article itself. Happy if you have better suggestions for the uncertain state of the satrapy that "owned" Yehud than "eventually" though; I figured that was safely true, but I'm really not certain what precisely the organization was in 539-535.
      • Perhaps "which would later become"? Not too terribly sure if that works or not, though. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 21:11, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think I'm just gonna cut "eventually" as adding too much mystery. There were reorganizations but all the various province types - Babylonian, Bab-immediately-post-Persian conquest, and later Persian, are all covered at the same article. Hope that helps.

-The section on the Edict of Cyprus treats the Edict as fact before stating it was in fact debatably a real event. I'd clarify its authenticity as to whether or not its status is debatable or factual.

    • I would argue that "Traditional date" already hints that this is an edict from tradition, even in the first sentence, but point. I've added "said to" to add even more doubt (the source, Grabbe, definitely does not think it was real, but also thinks it was "Effectively" real - i.e. the Bible writers took a de facto yet implicit policy, and turned it into a direct decree).

-" The first two chapters of the Book of Joel are probably written, and possibly the whole book, although the date of the last two chapters is contested." Wording feels iffy here. I'd change the "probably written" to something more professional and reword from "and possibly the whole book" onwards, since that section doesn't really work well with the prior sentence half.

    • See below. Unfortunately, we just aren't sure on when a lot of this stuff was written, so this section is inherently compiling "common scholarly estimates." The consensus of scholars hypothesize that the first two chapters of Joel are written in this period, but even the ones who support the theory aren't sure - they just think it fits the best. If you look at Book_of_Joel#Date, you'll see estimates ranging from 900 BCE to 200 BCE, a mere seven centuries of possibilities, none of which have any direct proof! I've rephrased the second half of the sentence some to split it off but I'm not sure it addresses your concern - feel free to chime in if it doesn't.

-I'm noticing a couple of "probably"s, which I'd reword, since it's making big assumptions that are largely attributed to one source. I'd change them to things like "believed to be" or similar phrases with the same meaning, but with less uncertainty and potential confusion. If there's some guideline stating this alright, it's no biggie, and more personal preference than anything, but I figured I'd bring it up just in case.

    • This one I will have to hold firm on, I'm afraid. The sources themselves discuss the uncertainty so reference-source integrity requires reflecting it here that this is just a probable guess - "believed to be" makes it sound like the scholar is actually advocating being certain for it a bit to me. Which does happen, but those entries don't get a "probably" if they're on sure backing (e.g. archaeological finds).
      • This, I believe, is miscommunication on my part. I am not trying to question the fact the historical accuracy of some of this is uncertain, but moreso just trying to suggest rewording for professionalism, since most of the areas I tend to edit tend to shy away from uncertain terms that come across as editor uncertainty more than the source's own uncertainty. If you feel this is unneeded, it's again mostly nitpicking, but I did feel it might be good to bring up given I know this kind of confusion does arise at times. If you choose not to do anything, this will not affect the passing or failing of this nom, but it is just a suggestion from my own experience. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 21:11, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • It is indeed a very tough area, expressing editor's doubt vs. scholarly doubt!

Macedonian Conquest

-"There is a migration of Jews from Palestine to Egypt amid the chaos, possibly prompted by Ptolemy I." He is referred to just as Ptolemy in the prior paragraph, so I'd either change this one to Ptolemy I or change the prior paragraph to just Ptolemy.

    • Removed the "I" and added a sentence in the prior paragraph about how he went from being just General Ptolemy of the Macedonian Empire to Ptolemy I, king and pharaoh. (Which is what I was vaguely attempting to hint at, but maybe best to just state it explicitly.)

Ptolemaic Kingdom

-Looks good

Seleucid Empire

-" the Seleucid army crushingly defeats the Ptolemaic army." Feels a bit opinionated. I'd personally re-word to be more neutral while still emphasizing the severity of the loss.

    • Tried "Decisively." (It was a Big Victory, even from a neutral perspective.)

-Another crushing later at 168 BCE.

-"Negotiations and a tentative pact of mutual aid between the Maccabees and the Roman Republic." I'd add "is formed" or something toward the end as right now it reads like a sentence fragment

    • It is a sentence fragment, but timelines do this sometimes. e.g. "Reign of King Bob I." rather than "King Bob I reigns." I checked some other FA Timeline articles before nominating and some of them use mixed sentence fragments & sentences, too. That said, I rephrased this as a sentence, just it ends up with a very long wikilink as a result.

Hasmonean Kingdom

-I'm noticing a lot of repeated hyperlinks throughout the article; Hyrcanus II is a prime example I'm noticing right now. I'm not sure the repeated linking is super necessary, though again if this is something standard for these kinds of articles, feel free to disregard this.

    • It's dealer's choice I believe. In theory, every entry stands alone and thus only has to worry about overlinking within a single entry, but I obviously haven't gone hardcore "link everything constantly" mode. I do have some repeated wikilinks, but there's a horde of names that often differ by just an "II" or "son of", so I feel like a few extra wikilinks helps in case there's confusion over which Hyrcanus. That said, I did cut a wikilink to Hyrcanus II.

Herodian Kingdom

-Looks good

Roman Judea and the Herodian tetrarchy

-"War between Herod Antipas and Aretas IV of Nabatea goes poorly for Antipas, and his army is destroyed" Again a bit unprofessional in terms of wording. Personal preference mostly, but I'd reword this a bit to remove the "poorly" while conveying the same meaning.

    • Don't really see the issue with "poorly" myself, but changed it to "badly". Does that work?

Afermath

-Looks good

Overall this article is in very good shape. The above are mostly nitpicks, so address and clarify the above points and I'll be happy to support this list. Very well-made and well-researched article. Well done. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 02:29, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 10:29, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
====Comments====

Looks like a great piece of work overall. I'll provide a fuller review at a later date, but, in the meantime, here are a couple of quick thoughts from me:

A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 14:09, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    • Thanks for the look!
    • I talk about the linking issue some on the talk page, but the guideline says "Duplicate linking in stand-alone and embedded lists is permissible if it significantly aids the reader", and this is a list. I believe these do significantly aid the reader. It could also be argued that similar to a glossary, each entry can stand on its own, because people might read the list out of article. Per above I did just cut a wikilink to Hyrcanus II, but personally, I believe that the amount of wikilinks is valid - sometimes the same person is referred to much earlier, sometimes they're part of a pair, sometimes it's a person who shared names with relatives. (As an example: Hyrcanus II is mentioned in passing in a side note "early" and gets a wikilink on first mention in the maybe story about the undated raid on Joppa, then he gets a wikilink on first important mention that definitely happened in 67 BC, and then he gets a wikilink for his tenure as ruler, like all such "reign of XYZ" entries.) All of these are good reasons to repeat wikilinks IMO. The OL guideline itself was weakened some awhile back even for prose to only be "don't repeat wikilinks within a section" which also covers some of these cases - e.g. I only count 2 wikilinks to "Second Temple", not three (excluding the lede, which of course has a link), and one is in the Persian section and another is in the Roman section on its destruction, quite distant and in two different sections. I only count 2 links to Herod the Great as well, and both seem very important to me - one is when he's introduced as just Herod-the-person (not yet king), and the other is when he starts his reign as king. SnowFire (talk) 04:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • There's "King Herod the Great took control as ruler of the Herodian kingdom", "Antipater's son Herod executes Malichus" and "Herod the Great, given the kingship of Judea earlier by the Roman Senate, now takes control". I'll leave it to you to decide if all three of these are necessary. Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 08:51, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • The typo fixes got lost in the shuffle before - fixed now, thanks for the double-check.
        • To clarify, I was counting it as two links because I was excluding the link to Herod in the lead section. (Similar to how Simon Thassi is linked twice, but in different sections.) But fair enough that I should have specified - note that MOS:DUPLINK was updated to only be against repeated links within a section. I swapped the second Herod link in the "Hasmonean kingdom" section over to a new entry in the "Herodian kingdom" section, which should hopefully comply by the letter of MOS:DUPLINK more closely. I've removed a few other repeated links although I still think that these links were helpful. Some repeated links within a section remain but they're for high-value cases IMO, e.g. when something very important happens later but a wikilink on first mention is also important. SnowFire (talk) 03:44, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @A Thousand Doors: Do you think you'll have time to come back and look into the fuller review? SnowFire (talk) 04:13, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for my lateness. In all, the article looks very good; these are my edits; please revert any you disagree with. Here are some further comments from me:

  • Per MOS:PERIOD, sentence fragments (for example, the ones beginning "Reign of..." and "Death of...") don't need to end with periods.
    • I checked some featured timelines before, and some of them did indeed have fragments with periods. I'd rather that they do end with periods for consistency - it is jarring to have them "hanging" IMO, especially when mixed in with sentences. (Normally one fix would be to just use sentences everywhere, but unfortunately the sentence versions of "Reign of" sound very awkward.)
  • List citations in ascending order, e.g., [15][11] -> [11][15], [17][42][36][37] -> [17][36][37][42], [54][53] -> [53][54], etc.
    • Unfortunately, you've met someone who is opposed to this practice. To my knowledge, there is no rule mandating or even suggesting this (although I know some editors like to do it for their own articles). I think references should only care about the line they're next to, as they might be ordered by "usefulness", and this kind of change isn't maintainable if citations are refactored or moved around. For example, in a FAC I'm involved in, I ended up entirely switching the order of two sections, which renumbered all the references automatically. More generally, I don't think readers care - most readers ignore citations, and those who pay attention aren't really looking at the number, just clicking / pressing it. It's work that doesn't last for unclear gain, IMO. That said, if you really feel strongly, I'll go ahead and switch 'em around, just wanted to state my case first. ;-)
    • (Also, double-checking, but WP:CITEORDER specifically says that there is no consensus that this is a beneficial change. Obviously harmless if someone wants to do it, of course.)
  • "if a later date is assumed?" and "possibly the Righteous Teacher?" -> I'd get rid of these question marks, as it makes it look like Wikipedia isn't really sure what it's talking about. If there's disagreement between scholars about the information then this can always be explained in a note, but adding uncertainty into the prose will just confuse our readers.
    • Done, but in side chatter, we indeed don't know what we're talking about. It is hard to overstress just how little we know and how weak the foundations are for these guesses - maybe they should have more like ????? to indicate that it's the classic "drunk searching under the lamppost for their wallet" where we can only guess people whose names are known to history, even when there's a ton of unlit territory of names lost to history.
  • 221–204 BCE: any way that you could rewrite this paragraph slightly so that the word "however" isn't twice quite so quickly? You could probably just get rid of the second one entirely.
    • Done.
  • MOS:SEASON suggests avoiding references to the seasons, which appear several times in this article (e.g., "Spring 166", "summer 165", "Autumn 162", etc.).
    • MOS:SEASON is good advice a lot of the time, but I don't think it applies here. First, all of these events are in the Northern Hemisphere; second, the season is actually relevant as far as military campaigning in the era goes (i.e. spring is when military operations can start, and you don't usually want to fight in late fall or winter). All of the seasonal references are during wars like the Maccabean Revolt or the Roman-Jewish war, so I'd say they're relevant. As a lesser note, the sources themselves use the names of the seasons directly, so "Q2" isn't exactly accurate since it's referring less to "a specific period of 3 calendar months" and more "the literal, physical weather patterns outside".
  • "2nd document" -> "second document", per MOS:ORDINAL.
    • Done.
  • 170 SE is the only year for which you don't list its BCE equivalent (142 BCE, presumably?).
    • It's in the 143-141 BCE subheader. The problem is that scholars argue about which Julian year it represents, so it's either 142 BCE or 141 BCE.
  • 'War of Scepters' -> Per MOS:SINGLE, either replace the single quotation marks with double ones, or else remove them altogether. If the War of Scepters is how the conflict is most commonly known, then I'd say get rid of them.
    • Removed, although I'm a little worried it won't come across as a title now.
  • You have "3rd century" and "1st century", but also "first and second century". Per MOS:CENTURY, you can use either, as long as you're consistent. I'd go with the latter, personally, but it's up to you.
    • Switched to the numerical form.
  • Second Temple Judaism is already linked in the main body of the article, so it doesn't need to appear in the SA section too.
  • Was The Wars of the Maccabees definitely published by Casemate? Both Google Books and WorldCat are saying that it was published by Pen & Sword Books Ltd.

Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 21:38, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review passed (well, as much as I could access); promoting. --PresN 18:47, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through.
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