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My edits which clarify that acts of complete extermination of an ethnic group of humans are acts of genocide (by definition) was reverted with the justification that "that's an interpretation". It is not an interpretation, it is the definition of genocide.
Gråbergs Gråa Sång, I would like this reversion to be reverted. ---- Cowlinator ( talk) 21:08, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
See also
According to WP:REVERT, the explanation for the reversion is inadequate. Cowlinator ( talk) 21:30, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
Genocidal actions in the Bible should probably be highlighted, either in their own section or in a section about divinely sanctioned violence. However quoting dictionary definitions seems useless. We need reliable, third-party sources which specifically call these acts genocide. Dimadick ( talk) 08:41, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help)The conclusion of the story is a divine speech to Moses, which turns from the present battle to the future genocide of the Amalekites. YHWH swears vengeance against the Amalekites and predicts the elimination of their memory from under heaven (Exod. 18:14). The genocide of the Amalekites is prophesied again by Balaam (Num. 24:20) and repeated by Moses to the second generation (Deut. 25:19) before YHWH commands Saul to fulfill the oath by exterminating the nation through the execution of the ban (1 Sam. 15:3). [2]
Alastair Hunter states the problem of the divine curse on Amalek in contemporary discussion: “We ignore at our peril the potential for violence built into the Bible” (92–108). She notes that the Amalekites become the archetypal victims in the Pentateuch, in that the divine instruction to destroy the nation is given on several different occasions, while the circumstances of the war are never clearly stated. In spite of the lack of clarity over the conflict, the presentation of the Amalekites illustrates the rhetorical device of portraying the victim or cursed nation as the aggressor in order to justify their elimination. The result is that the Amalekites exist only to be exterminated. The literary strategy of the Bible to victimize the Amalekites as the cursed enemy has allowed later readers to empty the term of its historical meaning, so that it can be reappropriated in new ways to disenfranchise others. The result is that the word Amalekite becomes a cipher for the enemy, whomever it may be. As a consequence, the perpetuation of violence becomes a religious obligation, whether it be the “war on terror” or the “politics of Amalek” waged by West Bank settlers against Palestinians (Masalha, 127–31). [3]
References
@ Ermenrich: I noted you removed corporal and replaced it with criminal, but I think you have removed the broader term and replaced it with a more limited one. Corporal simply means physical, so it refers to all physical suffering which would include any punishment of criminals as well as others in those days. Criminal punishment would not include punishment of children and slaves and so on, so it's more limited. Perhaps a rephrase is warranted. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 20:38, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
@ Susmuffin: The tag for an unclear citation style is confusing me. What exactly are you referring to? I have looked at the citations and except for one reference, #136, they all use the citation templates that are on everyone's editing page. They are all the same style, except 136 which uses Harvard, which is also perfectly copacetic. Unless you are putting an article up for FAN or A status, there is no requirement in WP that all references in an article must use the same citation method. What is unclear about any of that is unclear to me. Please explain - or just remove the tag - that'll work too. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 04:00, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Gostaria de saber caso possa interessar e poder traduzir se a tradução é pertinente.(I would like to know if you are interested and to be able to translate if a translation is relevant) att 187.20.18.68 ( talk) 12:41, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't see how this is relevant to the article. And is misspelt as 'Hamas' BeanBandit54 ( talk) 16:29, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
BeanBandit54 Hello, jumping in here as a former contributor to this article, and probably the person who wrote most of that. IMO Ermenrich is right. The terms an ancient people used to describe their world, and their definitions, tell us about who those people were, what kind of world they lived in, and how they responded to that environment. Accurate definitions matter. They describe meaning, value and use - behavior - attitudes and beliefs.
I will go out on a limb here and say pretty much everyone recognizes that language matters, that it shapes our perception of reality - or at the very least - reflects our perception of reality. (This is known as linguistic determinism or linguistic relativity.) The words we use and choose are revealing. This is something you are well aware of or you would not be arguing that this article is political and biased. The language we use influences our thoughts and perceptions of the world around us.
That isn't the real problem with this article though - which I too have always had trouble with.
I worked on this article when I was a new wikipedian. I originally had a whole section on peace - which to me seemed relevant in a discussion of the Bible's views on violence, which should include everything the Bible has to say on this topic, pros and cons - and the other editor who was already invested here, deleted it all. That made the Bible seem more focused on violence than it actually is - imo - but there was no budging him. He interpreted the title as limiting the discussion to just violence. I finally gave up and left. He eventually got kicked off of WP. If you want to better balance this article, I suggest an addition not a deletion. Add in all the ways the Bible is anti-violence and pro-peace. It's been several years and this article needs updating anyway. Don't gripe: rewrite. Writing content takes a real commitment, but it's a much better expenditure of time. Condense what's here, get good quality sources, and go for a better balanced, more broadly representative of current scholarship article, with a more neutral pov. It needs it. That's what we do here. I wish you well. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 21:00, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
Gråbergs Gråa Sång Relooking at this article after all this time has made me question some things. There are four kinds of violence listed in the definition section - why the heck isn't the article organized around those? Why mention four categories then do nothing with them? The author was too preoccupied with conflict with the other editor I'm afraid. AAarrggh! Jenhawk777 ( talk) 18:48, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
The Bible and violence article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find medical sources: Source guidelines · PubMed · Cochrane · DOAJ · Gale · OpenMD · ScienceDirect · Springer · Trip · Wiley · TWL |
Archives: 1, 2Auto-archiving period: 90 days |
This article was nominated for deletion on 15 June 2016. The result of the discussion was keep. |
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
My edits which clarify that acts of complete extermination of an ethnic group of humans are acts of genocide (by definition) was reverted with the justification that "that's an interpretation". It is not an interpretation, it is the definition of genocide.
Gråbergs Gråa Sång, I would like this reversion to be reverted. ---- Cowlinator ( talk) 21:08, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
See also
According to WP:REVERT, the explanation for the reversion is inadequate. Cowlinator ( talk) 21:30, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
Genocidal actions in the Bible should probably be highlighted, either in their own section or in a section about divinely sanctioned violence. However quoting dictionary definitions seems useless. We need reliable, third-party sources which specifically call these acts genocide. Dimadick ( talk) 08:41, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help)The conclusion of the story is a divine speech to Moses, which turns from the present battle to the future genocide of the Amalekites. YHWH swears vengeance against the Amalekites and predicts the elimination of their memory from under heaven (Exod. 18:14). The genocide of the Amalekites is prophesied again by Balaam (Num. 24:20) and repeated by Moses to the second generation (Deut. 25:19) before YHWH commands Saul to fulfill the oath by exterminating the nation through the execution of the ban (1 Sam. 15:3). [2]
Alastair Hunter states the problem of the divine curse on Amalek in contemporary discussion: “We ignore at our peril the potential for violence built into the Bible” (92–108). She notes that the Amalekites become the archetypal victims in the Pentateuch, in that the divine instruction to destroy the nation is given on several different occasions, while the circumstances of the war are never clearly stated. In spite of the lack of clarity over the conflict, the presentation of the Amalekites illustrates the rhetorical device of portraying the victim or cursed nation as the aggressor in order to justify their elimination. The result is that the Amalekites exist only to be exterminated. The literary strategy of the Bible to victimize the Amalekites as the cursed enemy has allowed later readers to empty the term of its historical meaning, so that it can be reappropriated in new ways to disenfranchise others. The result is that the word Amalekite becomes a cipher for the enemy, whomever it may be. As a consequence, the perpetuation of violence becomes a religious obligation, whether it be the “war on terror” or the “politics of Amalek” waged by West Bank settlers against Palestinians (Masalha, 127–31). [3]
References
@ Ermenrich: I noted you removed corporal and replaced it with criminal, but I think you have removed the broader term and replaced it with a more limited one. Corporal simply means physical, so it refers to all physical suffering which would include any punishment of criminals as well as others in those days. Criminal punishment would not include punishment of children and slaves and so on, so it's more limited. Perhaps a rephrase is warranted. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 20:38, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
@ Susmuffin: The tag for an unclear citation style is confusing me. What exactly are you referring to? I have looked at the citations and except for one reference, #136, they all use the citation templates that are on everyone's editing page. They are all the same style, except 136 which uses Harvard, which is also perfectly copacetic. Unless you are putting an article up for FAN or A status, there is no requirement in WP that all references in an article must use the same citation method. What is unclear about any of that is unclear to me. Please explain - or just remove the tag - that'll work too. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 04:00, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Gostaria de saber caso possa interessar e poder traduzir se a tradução é pertinente.(I would like to know if you are interested and to be able to translate if a translation is relevant) att 187.20.18.68 ( talk) 12:41, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't see how this is relevant to the article. And is misspelt as 'Hamas' BeanBandit54 ( talk) 16:29, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
BeanBandit54 Hello, jumping in here as a former contributor to this article, and probably the person who wrote most of that. IMO Ermenrich is right. The terms an ancient people used to describe their world, and their definitions, tell us about who those people were, what kind of world they lived in, and how they responded to that environment. Accurate definitions matter. They describe meaning, value and use - behavior - attitudes and beliefs.
I will go out on a limb here and say pretty much everyone recognizes that language matters, that it shapes our perception of reality - or at the very least - reflects our perception of reality. (This is known as linguistic determinism or linguistic relativity.) The words we use and choose are revealing. This is something you are well aware of or you would not be arguing that this article is political and biased. The language we use influences our thoughts and perceptions of the world around us.
That isn't the real problem with this article though - which I too have always had trouble with.
I worked on this article when I was a new wikipedian. I originally had a whole section on peace - which to me seemed relevant in a discussion of the Bible's views on violence, which should include everything the Bible has to say on this topic, pros and cons - and the other editor who was already invested here, deleted it all. That made the Bible seem more focused on violence than it actually is - imo - but there was no budging him. He interpreted the title as limiting the discussion to just violence. I finally gave up and left. He eventually got kicked off of WP. If you want to better balance this article, I suggest an addition not a deletion. Add in all the ways the Bible is anti-violence and pro-peace. It's been several years and this article needs updating anyway. Don't gripe: rewrite. Writing content takes a real commitment, but it's a much better expenditure of time. Condense what's here, get good quality sources, and go for a better balanced, more broadly representative of current scholarship article, with a more neutral pov. It needs it. That's what we do here. I wish you well. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 21:00, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
Gråbergs Gråa Sång Relooking at this article after all this time has made me question some things. There are four kinds of violence listed in the definition section - why the heck isn't the article organized around those? Why mention four categories then do nothing with them? The author was too preoccupied with conflict with the other editor I'm afraid. AAarrggh! Jenhawk777 ( talk) 18:48, 16 January 2024 (UTC)