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I was offended when I saw creationism referred to as a myth on this page. When I tried to edit it, I was further dismayed by a note telling me not to remove this expression. By the same token, we are not allowed to refer to evolution as a myth on its Wikipedia page. This is a violation of my beliefs and the believes of many others. You may believe it is a myth but I absolutely don't, and I completely disapprove of evolution while you don't. Let's try and respect each other's beliefs instead of insulting them by referring to them as myths. Whatever happened to free speech? Jeikobu ( talk) 15:14, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Please see FAQ at the top of this page.-- McSly ( talk) 15:25, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Jeikobu, the term myth is actually used by scholars who are believing Jews or Christians in theology books, etc. Do read the faq. You'll need to click on 'show' several times, but it does say "The term creation myth is used for reasons related to scholarship and research, not out of a desire to offend the feelings or beliefs of Wikipedia's readers. While some readers, especially those not familiar with the scholarly terminology referenced when using the term creation myth, might take offense at seeing this subject called a creation myth, Wikipedia should not be rewritten just so that certain readers will be more comfortable. The goal in writing the article is to be as neutral and dispassionate in describing this subject, but, as with any contentious topic, it is sometimes not possible to accommodate everyone's feelings while writing a neutral, accurate, verifiable, and sourced-based reference work.

Further information: WP:RNPOV". No sources meeting our criteria call evolution a myth, and in the sense we use myth it would be completely in appropriate. We don't use it to mean 'lie' or 'fairy tale'. Doug Weller talk 16:10, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Also, one does not "believe in evolution", one either accepts evidence or one does not. -- Khajidha ( talk) 16:56, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

This edit request to Genesis creation narrative has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

    My request is that the main purpose of the Genesis information shows how a people made from the desire to live and love account for the failings of the Evolutionary belief through the design and creation. The creation of organic feeding life where organics could not be, only minerals (yes and chemicals) which are not alive. 

Genesis information shows how a people made from the desire to live and love account for the failings of the Evolutionary belief through the design and creation. The creation of organic feeding life where organics had not been created, only minerals (yes and chemicals) which are not alive. The creation gives us a solution where life does not need to create itself. We have been trying to create life for a hundred years and yet cannot make even a living cell. yet we have flown around in spacecraft after only a few years, but which of those do we see happening on it's own. We now spend more to make this belief true, and more on promoting it than ever, and yet the Genesis account still stands. I am impressed.

Douglas Huebner BEET Dahuebner77 ( talk) 14:47, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

 Declined This is not a well-written request, and from what I can discern from it, it has no place on this page (or indeed, on any other). MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:21, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

I just noticed a rather weird feature of this article - its precise subject is unclear. That is to say, this article seems to be about two things - the specific textual narrative of creation in Genesis, and the Judeo-Christian creation myth in a broader sense, which is separate in some degree from the specific Genesis text, (note Judeo-Christian creation myth and Christian creation myth redirect here). An analogous situation would be Japanese creation myth and Kojiki; the textual version of a myth and the myth itself. Obviously the two are largely the same, but I think it's important the article be clear about which it is - indeed, in my opinion, there may be a need for two separate articles. Has this been discussed before? Is there a consensus? Rwenonah ( talk) 19:41, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

It has been discussed. And argued about, and edit warred about and finally settled down. And repeated at least three times since I started watching the page, and dozens of times before that. Oh god, please, PLEASE let's not start again..... The current scope of the article is about the creation mythology (there seems to be more than one myth at play in the earliest versions) contained within the Book of Genesis. Because of the intense scrutiny this particular subject has been, owing to the dominance of Christianity in the Western world, the division between this subject and the text itself is not always clear. Thus, this article is about the myths, but also discusses the texts. Also, it's called the narrative because of Christianity's special place as well. While this is undoubtedly a creation myth, the terms "creation story" and "creation narrative" are actually far more widely used in the scholarly literature, owing to issues of cultural sensitivity. So I hope that I've fully answered your question because I really don't want to go through this again. (No offense intended, it was an honest question that deserved an answer. My hyperbole here is mostly humorous.) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:11, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

So (to be clear) the article is about both the myth generally and texts specifically? With neither being the primary focus? Rwenonah ( talk) 13:29, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

No, I would say the article is about the myth generally, but is comprehensive enough that it must contain information on the text to be coherent. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:44, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

All right, thanks. Rwenonah ( talk) 14:07, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Rwenonah, MjolnirPants: There are two creation myths in Genesis, not one!. The text as such is often being adressed as Hexaemeron (alleging to the 6 days of the creation process) in the scientific literature. That said, the use of narrative seems to be appropriate for the current version. I would asssume some of the effort being wasted on the move attempst here would have been better on a separate article on the text (and its historical criticism) as such. Polentarion Talk 20:28, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

If you want to get technical, there are 3 creation myths: There's the chapter 1 myth, the chapter 2 myth, and the modern interpretive myth: the belief among less-liberal Christians that there is only one myth which is a synthesis of the two original ones (note that this is OR, though I'm convinced scholars would fundamentally agree with it, given what I know). Also, note that it's scholarly literature, as there's little science (if much methodology) about the study of ancient texts and mythology. But I agree that there should be forked articles on the text itself and the content, and so, apparently does the rest of Wikipedia. :) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:42, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure there's a moratorium on discussion of "move requests". Not sure if someone's going to hat this or what. I do think that two articles (one on the myth, one or more on specific narratives of it) could be a viable long-term solution to the constant you-know-whats, but it seems that what this article is primarily about and how that should impact the title is something of an open question. Rwenonah ( talk) 20:48, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

There very well may be. It wouldn't be the first such moratorium, either. Either way, I'm not seeing anything productive coming out of this discussion, even if it is a bit fun. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:51, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Point is, some pov forks are better than one honey pot, so if Rwenonah starts writing a draft on Hexaemeron (take the German interwiki as a start), I would support that. There is not "one myth", never ever, as this is one of the most intensivly read, interpreted and depicted texts in the world literature. I use "science" as synonyme to Wissenschaft, and insofar theology is science ;). Polentarion Talk 21:05, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't think this page (or the other I linked to) qualifies as a honey pot. Nor do I think theology has anything to do with science (there is nothing either empirical nor methodological about theology). Nor have I (or Rwenonah) suggested that there actually was only one myth, I've simply pointed out the obvious fact that many people believe there is only one myth, and said that I believe that this qualifies as a third myth, since it is distinct from either of the other two. Also, we already have an article on the Hexameron. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:27, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Hey there, google didn't tell me ;) I reduced some of the interwikis, as Hexameron in deWP doesnt fit. Theology is not longer queen of Science, but of cause its a) scholarly and b) both methodological and empiric and c) modern science is very much based on it. Take the Merton Thesis or Max Weber for the scholarly background. Polentarion Talk 23:48, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Excuse me? Do you know what empirical means? Do you know what methodological means? The first means "dealing with experiential evidence", and the second means not only taking a systemic approach to a subject, but subjecting your approach itself to systemic questioning and analysis. Theology is absolutely neither of those things, no matter what you may think about it. Theology is reflective, philosophical and sometimes logical. It is never empirical and is only ever methodological in a loose, not-too-literal sense, which would be better described as systemic (even then, only some of the time; there's plenty of room for intuition and emotion in theology). Nor is modern science in any way "very much based on" theology. That claim is, frankly, ridiculous. The two things used to be highly conflated (a thousand years ago), but that in no way makes the one out to be based upon the other. These ideas are so wrong (and so old) that it's difficult to determine where to begin addressing them. Why don't you try to find a single example of a theological theory which has been confirmed by experiment? Just one. Why don't you also try to find an example of scientific dogma, where scientists are explicitly discouraged from questioning a specific hypothesis by a scientific body? Again, just one. When you've given up trying to find those unicorns, then read the rest of what I've posted here, where I'll try to explain. Or, assuming you are as intelligent as I believe you to be, you can acknowledge that they don't exist and continue reading.

Now, I'm pretty sure I know where your confusion comes from. The "queen of sciences" remark hearkens back to the middle ages, where it was the penultimate subject of universities, and religious texts and ideas were used to underpin the teaching of other subjects (reading, writing, mathematics, etc.). But that use of the word "science", as all other uses of the word to describe theology is absolutely not a precise usage. Rather, it is in earlier uses used to mean "body of knowledge", referring to the collection of writings from earlier theologians; in more modern times it is invariably a euphemism with the same meaning: a body of knowledge. You made this explicit with your reference to Wissenschaft, and your insistence that you use "science" as synonymous with that term. But there is a world of difference. While all science is a wissenschaft, not all wissenschaft is a science. The very word means "knowledge works" or "knowledge craft". In current usage, the best translation of the English "science" into German would be "naturwissenschaft", which means "natural knowledge works". While it is accurate to refer to theology as a wissenschaft, and common for non-scientists to translate "science" into German as "wissenschaft", doing so leads to a problem which you illustrated with your link to the Merton thesis and your mention of Max Weber.

The thing you seem to be failing to grasp is that both the works of Max Weber and the Merton thesis occur within the realms of psychology and sociology, not theology. It doesn't matter that they are of huge interest to theologians. For example, the effects of space travel on human beings is of huge interest to rocket engineers, but it's absolutely a medical subject. It is not what we believe about the divine that drives us to do science (and even if it was, that would not make theology a science), but rather how we react to what we believe about the divine. That distinction is subtle, but important. It is the same distinction between the the actions of a religiously motivated terrorist or serial killer, and the beliefs of the same. When we systematically study serial killers and terrorists (aside from finding that they're not nearly as religious as we initially assumed), we do not discuss the finer points of their theologies, but rather only discuss those parts of their theologies which lead them to take actions. In short, it does not matter whether God or the devil is omnipotent in the theology of a serial killer, nor whether either is loving or hateful, or imbued within us, separated from us, or embodied by certain people and not others. What matters is only that God or the devil told this person to kill.

So yeah, theology is a scholarly discipline. It's a body of knowledge. Sometimes, it's even systematic. But it takes much more than an occasionally systematic body of knowledge to make a science. Due to the nature of mathematics, it's present in every single science, from psychology to sociology to physics. But there's no mathematics in theology. In fact, there's nothing falsifiable about theology. Any statement made by a theologian which can be falsified is, by its very nature, a naturalistic statement. It is a statement not about the divine (the very definition of theology), but about the world (the very definition of natural). In short, it would not be a theological statement.

One of the unofficial, yet incredibly important principles of Wikipedia is that competence is required. Your statement demonstrates a lack of competence in terms of understanding the natures of science, evidence and methodology. This can be a huge hindrance to you when it comes to choosing reliable sources. I strongly urge you to spend a great deal more time researching any assertion you intend to make on Wikipedia. When doing that research, it is important that you do so critically. Here are two links which can help with that: Purdue Owl Writing Lab - Using Research and Evidence and George Mason University - Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources. Below, I'll provide some good places to start researching the dichotomy of theology and science. In each case, I tried to provide links where you can either read the work for free or directly purchase it.

• The Faith of a Heretic by Walter Kaufmann
• Language, Truth and Logic by Alfred Ayer
• Principles of the Philosophy of the Future by Ludwig Feuerbach
• The Work of Lord Bolingbroke: With a Life, Prepared Expressly for this Edition... ...Volume 3 by Henry St. John Bolingbroke
• The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine

MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:12, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Way to long for this disk page. But thnx for the effort. I just assume that the narrow anglo use of science is wrong and Wissenschaft is much much more suitable. I dealt with various issues that are multifaceted, Janus-like, both in science and humanities, where you cannot give one to one faculty responibility for. That applies as well to space travel and of cause as well to theology or the Merton thesis. As for reading, I recommand William E. Connolly's Why I Am Not a Secularist, and for the fun of it, Jonathan M. Marks Why I Am Not a Scientist. Best regards. Polentarion Talk 18:43, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

The scope of the article is one of the issues that has come up in the multiple move debates: what is the article about now, and what should it be about. My argument has always been that - rightly or wrongly - the article is focused on the narrative more than on the myth. Note that (perhaps surprisingly) we don't have separate articles on Genesis 1 or Genesis 2. (Though we do have one on Bereshit (parsha).) St Anselm ( talk) 21:47, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

But the article is definitely about both. We can parse which one it currently focuses on more, but as it stands the title (or for that matter the perpetually proposed myth title, were it in place instead) does not fully describe the article's content. Thus the possibility that two articles (or three) is superior to the current one in terms of descriptiveness and accuracy. Rwenonah ( talk) 22:19, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

And there's something attractive about cutting the Gordian Knot by having articles on BOTH Genesis creation narrative AND Genesis creation myth - but it would be hard to get around WP:POVFORK. St Anselm ( talk) 23:04, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Maybe Genesis creation myth could be downsized to "christian creation how the american sceptic sees it". As saidm there is no one and only myth, its a multitude. The difference between a POVFORk and a nice and suitable diffentiated view is just quality and sourcing. And probaly a draft announced here. Polentarion Talk 23:48, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Just Americans? Trust me, the Ethiopian religion also teaches this. Why not an article on "Christian creation the way the Ethiopian church sees it"??? Then also make one for the way the Georgian, Armenian, Greek and Russian Orthodox congregations see it, etc.. We usually hear militant atheist sources who don't seem to know much about how the other half of the globe thinks, pushing the falsehood, that belief in canonical Genesis is restricted to a few American holdouts. Well the view of these militant atheist sources is not the least bit neutral, but seeks to convey this very falsehood with a hostile view to actively diminishing the adherents of all of these Christian groups in every country around the world. 71.246.148.52 ( talk) 00:25, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello Til :). Actually I agree with you here. PiCo ( talk) 01:25, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I reported the block evasion, but I also essentially agree with this view. I wouldn't call them "militant atheists", though. I would just call them "idiots". I have friends who describe themselves as militant atheists, but none of them think there are no Christian fundamentalists outside of the United States (most of these friends of mine have never even visited the United States). Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 01:44, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I didn't want to get poor Til blocked again, I was just amused at the way he keeps popping up. As I said, I actually agree with him here. PiCo ( talk) 02:47, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes - but I think also there is a qualitative difference, not a POV-based one, between theoretical myth and narrative articles. POVforks involve the same subject being discussed from 2 different POVs. The myths and narrative here are logically separate topics, to some degree, that shouldn't necessarily be in the same article and could support their own articles with relative ease. Rwenonah ( talk) 23:54, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Sure. WP is always about forking in case of conflict, as we do not have a central board of publishers, see Nathanial Tkacz: Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness. I made a list to work on, I still am of opinion that something like "Judeo-Christian creation myth" is not based on evidence - there is no common denominatort here. But we can start with the proposal. Polentarion Talk 00:28, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

"the textual version of a myth and the myth itself. Obviously the two are largely the same..." The two are entirely the same. The Genesis myth never existed as anything but a written text, there was never a previous oral version. PiCo ( talk) 00:15, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, many scholars would disagree - e.g. [1] [2] St Anselm ( talk) 00:23, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Very few scholars would disagree. It's pretty much accepted that there's no oral tradition behind chapters 1-11 of Genesis. PiCo ( talk) 00:39, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I'll just go into a bit of detail on the lack of oral traditions behind Genesis 1-11, because it's interesting. This section of Genesis has a clear five-part structure, mirroring the Torah's five books (and incidentally implying that it's later than the bulk of the Pentateuch). The five parts are made up of three narrative sections alternating with two genealogy sections, corresponding to the Pentateuch's three narrative books and two law books. It (I mean Genesis 1-11, the Primeval History) can be dated to post-330 BC, as it mentions Persia, implying a post-Persian date, and Japhet, the Greek Iapetos, implying a Hellenistic setting. The names in the Table of Nations, incidentally, match up to the political geography of the Near east in the early 2nd century, again implying a Hellenistic setting. Anyway, the point is that the History can be dated as a primarily Hellenistic work (not the rest of Genesis - that's earlier). Then within Genesis 1 we see a very artificial, controlled structure (unlike Genesis 2, which has a simple linear structure). There's the 7 days structre, which shows a preoccupation with calendars (another sign of a Hellenistic date, by the way - Hellenistic Jews were very concerned about calendars), and also the elaborate word-counts which also emphasise the number 7 - I think I our article mentions this. And of course, all the sources used by the author were written ones. If you'd like to read more on this I suggest Alter and Barton, they're very good. PiCo ( talk) 00:51, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

You really think Genesis 1 is Hellenistic? That must be a minority view. I would have thought the majority view is that it's from the Priestly source, which WP tells me spans "a broad time period of 571–486 BCE." St Anselm ( talk) 01:31, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah. I'd actually go further than StAnselm here to point out that it's also a mainstream view that P contains at least some pre-exilic material, and reached its final form during that period. A post-Alexandrian date for the first of the two Genesis creation stories is almost certainly a fringe view. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 01:50, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I should also point out that the dating of P later than J, E and D (dating it to the Babylonian exile or later) is sometimes attributed to the antisemitic and anti-clerical (anti-Catholic) bias of nineteenth-century German Lutheran scholars. Therefore we should be skeptical of attempts to date parts of P even later. PiCo's dates would make Genesis 1 one of the latest parts of the Hebrew Bible, as even Daniel, the latest book, can be pretty firmly placed around the time of the Maccabean Revolt (though the Greek version contains some material that appears to be much older). Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 02:05, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Hijiri 88, the documentary hypothesis isn't very widely held these days. The more usual way to look at it is that the Pentateuch is made up of a base-layer that was worked over by various editor/authors with a similar agenda that we call Priestly - the underlying layer is usually called non-Priestly (non-P). Certainly Genesis 1-11 is widely seen as one of the last parts of the bible to have been written - nobody mentioned in it is ever mentioned in any other book, which strongly suggests that other authors (of the psalms, for example) were simply unaware of it. The mention of Japhet strongly implies a Hellenistic date for at least the story of the Curse of Ham (Japhet is the Greek Iapetos - the letter J is a "dummy" for I, and pronounced "Ee"). It's been argued that the list of names in Genesis 10 records the politics of the early 2nd century BC (slightly earlier than Daniel), but this is a minority view. Certainly once more, people kept on adding to it and fiddling with it - the internal chronology seems to point to 164 BC as the "end of time", so it must have been added about then. But in general, most scholars would put the modern version of Genesis, the one we have, minus perhaps the chronology and a few things like the Curse of Canaan, in the 5th or 4th century, using earlier material that in some cases goes back to the monarchic period.

Wellhausen was accused of an anti-semitic agenda, I don't know know how justly or unjustly. I think he was more anti-Catholic - P for him equated to the Catholic Church's clerical monoply of access to God. PiCo ( talk) 02:39, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Somehow I think I have been misreading your comments, and I suspect StAnselm has as well. I read "Genesis 1-11" as "Genesis 1:1-11" (i.e., roughly the first third of the Priestly creation myth contained in Gen 1:1~2:3), and StAnselm's reference to the Priestly source implies he had the same understanding. Assming now that you mean chapters 1 to 11: that is an outlandish claim that would require a tremendous amount of evidence -- can you cite sources? To give just one example, the idea that Jews in thr Hellenistic period could have composed the text out of whole cloth makes explanation of 6:1-4 extremely difficult -- how do your sources explain this problem? Most sources I have consulted (undergraduate textbooks, the Jewish Study Bible and the New Oxford Annotated Study Bible, introductory lecture series like Christine Hayes's well-regarded one on YouTube) treat the documentary hypothesis as foundational and (essentially) unassailable. Wellhausen's precise formulation is no longer accepted, and some modern scholars' pedantic applocation of the hypothesis to this or that individual word in the text, as well as any application of the four-source theory to the historical narrative following Deuteronomy, are not widely recognized, but I have never heard of "the documentary hypothesis isn't very widely held these days" before. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 05:48, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

No, I was focusing on Genesis 1 with the comments about the 7-day structure in mind. St Anselm ( talk) 06:08, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

It's the first eleven chapters. They're called the Primeval History, and there have been some commentaries written on just this section of Genesis. It's pretty universaly recognised that they form a separate composition. The usual explanation of the composition history of Genesis is that the oldest parts are the Abraham Isaac and Jacob cycles, dating from the immediate post-exilic period in written form but based on older oral stories. The Joseph story was composed somewhat later to form a bridge to the Exodus story, when the first complete version of the Torah was written - that would have been fairly soon after the return, as Genesis is definitely a Persian creation. The Yahwist stories of Genesis 1-11 may have been present in some form at that time. Later again the Priestly edit was made, and still later the chronology was added (or revised - there seems to be an older chronology underneath the present one). The documentary hypothesis doesn't have many supporters these days, although people keep confusing the actual hypothesis - four separate books combined by editors at various points - with the idea of sources, when in fact the DH is a theory about how sources were combined, not about their existence. If you're genuinely interested I can suggest some books. PiCo ( talk) 09:24, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Both myth and narrative are strongly based on "narration", will say oral tradition. See the humanities ;) Polentarion Talk 00:34, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• I still think the word "myth" is inappropriate to describe the "single" story in Genesis, because it contains two creation myths. "Narrative" is used to describe the combination of the two myths as described in the written Genesis narrative. This view, of course, assumes that there were two other earlier documents which we call P and J (I don't want to hear about how no written scrolls of an independent J, E, P or D have ever been found again -- we have no surviving written attestation of any of the Hebrew Bible until upwards of four centuries after the Babylonian exile). The existence of earlier documents means there could easily have been earlier still oral accounts. We just don't know. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 00:43, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• Hijiri88, you are elaborating on the genesis of the text. I assume that the usage of the creation narratives ever since has been responsible for much more "myths" ever since. Thats two aspects. Polentarion Talk 01:18, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Related topics

Remark

The list can be edited till a consensus is achieved. PLease provide comments in the discussion section.

• Enlarged Context
  • Book of Genesis
  • Creation
• Current version and redirects
  • Genesis creation narrative The current version.
  • Genesis creation narratives Redirect, possible alternative
  • Judeo-Christian creation myth a sort of smear, could use an explanation in the article. `
• Specific Context
• Hexameron The six days, refering to the text as such, rather short currently
• Specific textual narrative of creation in Genesis A first suggestion here
• Origin of the Genesis creation narrative Could refer to the points about oral or written background and the historical criticism of the original
• Genesis creation in culture and history could refer to the role it played ever since
• Theological concepts involved
  • Creatio ex nihilo ("creation out of nothing"), contrasts with creatio ex materia (creation out of some pre-existent, eternal matter) and with creatio ex deo (creation out of the being of God).
  • Creatio continua as ongoing divine creation and e.g. driving the current standpoint of the Rat of the EKD what and how to teach creation and evolution in public and religious schools classes in Germany.

Discussion

• "Judeo-Christian creation myth" is nonsense. "Hebrew creation myth" would make more sense. If there is a creation myth that could be called "Christian" it is the Genesis-based myth that exists within modern Christian popular culture (with an apple instead of a nameless fruit, Satan in the guise of snake rather than just a snake, etc.); "Jewish creation myth" would be almost as anachronistic as "Christian creation myth"; "Judeo-Christian creation myth" combines the problems of both. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 00:43, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Just wanted to clarify that I am aware that the identification of the serpent in the garden with a demonic satan existed in Second Temple Judaism and was not a Christian innovation. I meant that, regardless of its origin, it ispartof Christian popular culture and is contrasted with the story as recorded in Genesis. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 05:02, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• Hi. I just used the proposals of User:Rwenonah in the first section above. Goal is to have improvements of the proposals. Just edit the list if you have better terms. Polentarion Talk 01:09, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't think of that. I think that if "Judeo-Christian creation myth" merits noting on Wikipedia (as the modern collective historicized interpretations of Christians and to a much lesser extent Jews), the subject is so broad, and so far removed from the topic of this article that it is off-topic to discuss it on this talk page, so I would say just strike it from the list (what I have just done). Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 01:56, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that this is the article for Judeo-Christian creation myth, which redirects here; thus my concern about how the article incorporates so many disparate subjects it's unclear exactly which of them it is about or which ought to be the predominant subject. I would agree that this article is not about the modern creation myth as widely understood today (or not primarily, anyway) ... but that, in turn, brings up other issues of to what degree the narrative and myth should be treated as synonymous. Rwenonah ( talk) 02:01, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

THe problem is more about the lengthy infight of some wikifants, which lead to the creation of that unlucky POV redirect. I reinserted the redirect with a remark. Polentarion Talk 02:49, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Meh Redirects from possible search terms should exist, even if those search terms do not accurately describe the contents of this article. Whether a separate article on Judeo-Christian creation myth should be created is really a discussion for the WikiProjects, not yet more baggage for this page. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 04:45, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Mu. Hmm. Interesting. Its a smear term however, starting from Nietsches Antichrist till the OXFAM Gender Training Manual [3]. Lets keep it then. Polentarion Talk 10:36, 3 September 2016 (UTC) I have inegrated some further proposals based on the ongoing discussion.

What's a smear? "Creation myth" isn't unless you are saying that Christian and Jewish theologians use it to smear their own religions. And please sign your posts above, I'm not sure who wrote what. Doug Weller talk 12:44, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Sorry Doug, you haven't followed. a) E.g. Nietzsche started to use Judeochristian as a smear, and the use of JC creation myth is similar, as sourced. b) The list above is to be edited by all to gain a common view. Polentarion Talk 17:19, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

No, I still don't follow the logic that because Nietzche used it that makes it a smear. I'm guessing you aren't an American, as Judeo-Christian as a description has a different history in the US. This explains its use in the US: [4]. But it's irrelevant. It isn't a category, it's a redirect. Why should we discuss it in the article? Doug Weller talk 18:14, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Goodness. If its a valid redirect, its to be covered in the article. if not, lets delete it. Please read the discussion and the links you copy and past before you come up here. Your link refers to Arthur A. Cohen’s essay “The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition” - and that summarizes my concerns very well. Btw, I am very well aware of the term and its background, as the pietist forefathers of the american tradition come e.g. from the swabian communities my grandfather played the organ in. The German term for the traditional congregations in question is e.g. de:Gemeinschaftsbewegung or de:Christlicher Zionismus. Polentarion Talk 21:32, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

You really think I don't read stuff first? Wow. Anyway, no point in discussing deleting a redirect here as we can't delete it via discussion here. Read the deletion policy. Doug Weller talk 04:48, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

"If it's a valid redirect, it's to be covered in the article". No - not at all. St Anselm ( talk) 05:07, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

@Doug, a) Yes, you make the impression. b) the section here is to discuss the thematic field first, find a consensus und then take action. @ StAnselm: Compare WP:R#DELETE and WP:R#PLA, a major point is to make it clear to the reader that they have arrived in the right place. I don't see that being dealt with appropriately. Polentarion Talk 08:35, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Are you saying you don't think this article covers "Judeo-Christian Tradition" adequately? I don't see why it should - it's about one particular trope in the shared scripture of the two. PiCo ( talk) 08:39, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I think any halfway intelligent person who is redirected to this article by going to " Judeo-Christian creation myth" will see that they are in the right place after reading the very first sentence here: "The Genesis creation narrative forms the basic creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity." (italics are mine) First Light ( talk) 08:57, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Maybe I haven't followed what we're talking about. This sub-thread starts with someone saying that "Judeo-Christian creation myth" is nonsense because the modern Christian interpretation of Genesis 1-2 has introduced elements and understandings not found or intended in the original. True, but I hope the section "Later interpretations" covers that. Perhaps "Later Interpretations" could be replaced with a section on just the Christian re-interpretation? But of course, Judaism has also re-interpreted the original - for example, like Christians, modern Jews think that Genesis 1 is about God creating everything from nothing, which doesn't seem to have been the original meaning, and they don't think of the world that God creates as being a flat earth with a lid to keep the waters out. So maybe two subsections? PiCo ( talk) 09:05, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Some further subsections would help. Let us link as well to Judeo-Christian, it's a wiki, and show that the term has some issues. It is not a synonym to "both Jewish and Christian, separate and unequal". @ PiCo: I would be careful with creatio ex nihilo as being the sole modern concept of creation, nor the only one relevant for members of both faiths. Polentarion Talk 10:20, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I should have made clear that I was replying to Polentarion's claim that "Judeo-Christian creation myth" should not be a redirect to this article. Just that. First Light ( talk) 10:11, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I have seen the light ;) Polentarion Talk 10:20, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Why not just create a new article containing this information about re-interpretations and resolve the whole title dispute and the (my?) confusion about the article's precise subject as well? Rwenonah ( talk) 20:19, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I did this because there seemed to be no need for so many - surely one is enough. The one I've kept is from Leeming&Leeming's Dictionary of Creation Myths, which seems like a reliable source. The actual wording in L&L says "Genesis contains the creation myth that forms the basis of the Judeo-Christian tradition." PiCo ( talk) 08:37, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Great. The very first sentence of the article is based on that, but juxtaposes narrative and myth, which is not the same. Polentarion Talk 10:55, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

The subsection is based on reliable scholarly sources - it's not the claim of any Wiki editor. If you want to dispute it, find other sources. PiCo ( talk) 05:44, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

It juxtaposes sources as well, but I prefer to go on - ex nihilo as a sole explanation is more important. Polentarion Talk 07:59, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

I doubt the current claim that ex nihilo is the one and only mainstream and not being challenged since the third century. IN so far I ask as well to revert [ https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Genesis_creation_narrative&type=revision&diff=737934184&oldid=7379338o provide an improved version. Thnx Polentarion Talk 01:23, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

recent revert. TomS asked to discuss it here. Feel free to do so. Pico recently made a statement at creationism in the line of 'anyone before Darwin was a creationist', as there was TINA. That made raise some doubts about his competence in matters theological. a) a belief in creation is not being a creationist (like wise being a biologist does not mean you are an adherent of biologism). b) creationism is a rather modern movement and c) creatio ex nihilo is far from being the sole Christian or monotheistic cosmogology since the 3rd century and d) of cause one could and did doubt a divine creation before. Polentarion Talk 15:33, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't see where there is any source provided for "His 1523 homilies about genesis rejected the merely deistic concept of a creatio ex nihilo of a Deus otiosus." I am unsure if deism was a well-formed (or at all formed) notion in his time for him to even reject; this seems to be ahistorical OR. Jytdog ( talk) 19:05, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

No problem to change that sentence. Both ex nihilo and Deus otiosus are much elder than the term deism, but - with regard to an act of creation - embrace a comparable concept and Luther is quite outspoken against it. Leibniz much later came up with god as the "low quality watchmaker" btw. Luther seems not to have a problem with that. The current version and claim about ex nihilo being the sole and only concept needs to be changed anyway. WP:BOLD refers to a "discussion" - just deleting content without a suitable explanation is not meant by that. As said, I ask to reestablish the section about creatio continua. Polentarion Talk 19:16, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

This article is about a specific bible narrative, the creation narrative (or story) in Genesis. It's not about the theology of creation, except in so far as it needs to discuss the theology of the passage. Personally I wouldn't have anything about modern theology, but other editors some years ago felt there was a need to explain that contemporary creationism is a misunderstanding of the biblical text (which indeed it is). If you want to write about post-biblical understandings of creation, the proper articles are History of Creationism and Creationism. 22:54, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Any interpretation of the creation narrative is post biblical and it is always about theology, current or past. You state things about ex nihilo, e.g. third century and reverted others. I assume you try to construct a single biblical interpretation for all faiths and all confessions - which is a completely futile attempt. It seems to be based on your personal interpretation of the theology of creation and has no scholarly base. The different interpretations of the narrative beyond ex nihilo belong to the narrative. Given that background, I ask you to self revert your changes. Polentarion Talk 06:32, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

The article is about the text. It deals primarily with the meaning of the narrative at the time it was written - about 500-400 BC. The authors wrote what they regarded as the best account available of how the worl came into being - as an act of God, over 6 literal days. I can find you many RS to back that up, and I doubt you can find any that say otherwise. The biblical authors were, in that sense, Creationists. They did not, however, believe, nor did they say, that God created matter itself - in their view he simply worked with what was already there, which was water, the origin of all matter. Luther and his ideas about God's creation came so much later as to have no real contact with that world - and that's what our article is about, the long-vanished world of an ANE text. PiCo ( talk) 12:14, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I honestly do not believe it was written around 400 BC as you so emphatically assert. I honestly do believe it was written around 1600 BC as my religious organization teaches. You have absolutely nothing to back up your assertion of 400 BC, no smoking gun, just the usual "accept this particular tenuous hypothesis as fact, or be censured, silenced, and ostracized from scholarship via minimalist peer pressure." I'm sorry, but I see you as the main obstacle to giving everyone a fair representation here. 172.56.22.199 ( talk) 13:33, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

The date is not the subject that Polentarion is addressing - please don't sidetrack the discussion. But just for the record, the idea is not that Genesis was written at that time, but that it was completed then. The usual explanation is that there were several stages, beginning in the Monarchy, continuing through the Exile, and ending up in the Persian period with a text pretty much like what we have today. You can check this in the sources given in the article. PiCo ( talk) 13:45, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

The IP is partially right. The article is about an important narrative. The section in question, Creation_and_creationism, tries to insinuate, that a third century AD Christian interpretation is the ruling one ever since. That is far from dealing primarily with the meaning of the narrative at the time it was written. Compare e.g. Kalevala - the article is about a 19th century reconstructed myth, but much more detailed about its multifaceted relevance in the comparable short history ever since. The topic here deserves a similar approach. You seem to be driven by the US-specific impact of creationism. As a German, I do not have to care much about that.

Luther's interpretation is of importance for nowadays Christian non-creatonists interpretations. Take the EKD statement as an example, which is Christian, distances itself both from creationism and ID and referrs to Luther and Calvin with regard to creatio continua.

Overall, there is no indication why the article should or oven could refer to "the interpretation on the time it was written". That is a construct. There never was a single interpretation. "Modern Theology" starting from the 17. century has been aware that there have been different sources in different centuries. Not only Ratzinger in the 1960ies assumed that the biblical authors and editors were quite aware of that. As said, I ask you to revert yourself and give the topic the space it deserves. This should not be another chapter of the US controversy about creationism. Polentarion Talk 14:12, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Creation ex nihilo is the idea that God created matter itself - that nothing existed before God began creating. Luther shared that idea. So did all Christians between the 2nd century and the present day. Our article is simply pointing out that this is not the author of Genesis meant. PiCo ( talk) 02:01, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

"So did all Christians between the 2nd century and the present day." Sorry, but you base that quote on rather selective reading. Take Luther's quotation, that you attempt to delete and ignore. The claim given is based on Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of modern historical criticism, his ex nihilo expresses the dependence on God. And the current article section fails to explain the very point you make here. Polentarion Talk 06:52, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Read the section in the article, and read the sources on which it's based. The article is about the theology of the Genesis creation narrative, not about the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher. PiCo ( talk) 07:03, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Done both, and Schleiermacher's historical criticism and his approach to creation is something you refer to without being aware of it ;) It reminds me of Keynes: "Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct theologian" ;) Polentarion Talk 10:17, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

You seem to be under the impression that the ideas in that section are mine. They're not, and I didn't write the section - in fact I argued against its inclusion. But since it's there, the ideas it expresses are those of biblical scholars. PiCo ( talk) 10:24, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

So then it includes a rather selective choice and imho basic misinterpretation of biblical scholars (which include theologians btw). I tried to provide a more accurate view, you restored to Status quo. In so far I ask you again to revert your changes. Polentarion Talk 11:02, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

The material you want restored is a misunderstanding of what ex nihilo means. It means that God created the Universe out of nothing - that he created matter. Luther only questioned whether he did this once or continuously. The Genesis 1 picture is quite different - when God begins creating, the waters of tehom already exist, covering an earth which also already exists. God creates neither of these. You see the difference? PiCo ( talk) 11:30, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Maybe there is a misunderstanding from both sides here. I fully agree that the narrative we treat here includes some aspects of elder, babylonian cosmology. But it provides a different view as well compared to that - it introduces monotheisim. The gospel of John - the start with the logos - is much more "ex nihilo" than the creation narrative(s) in Genesis. Luther seems to have been quite aware of that already. Calling Luthers approach on creatio continua a minor difference, is a rather generic perspective. Major wars, some of them 30 years long, have been started about much smaller details. Polentarion Talk 15:07, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Since this article concerns a myth that is essentially Jewish (albeit inspired by other sources), and only subsequently adopted by Christians, I propose that BCE be used in place of BC. This would correct some rather jarring text like: "7th or the 6th century BC (the Jahwist source)". Thanks. Isambard Kingdom ( talk) 12:41, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose and continue existing years-long consensus for BC/AD. Wikipedia is not censored in consideration of religious sensibilities, the most infamous example of which would be our open display of images of Muhammad despite strong objections and offense from Muslims across the world. Offensiveness is inherently subjective and arbitrary anyhow; a Christian could theoretically be offended by Wikipedia's use of the terms Thur­sday for the fourth day of the week or Mars for the fourth planet from the Sun due to their pagan-derived names, and in fact Christian Quakers have already provided secular alternatives to the pagan weekdays in the same way BCE/CE were provided as alternatives to BC/AD from within a religious group due to religious objections. BCE/CE are obviously more notable than First Day, Second Day or Third Day are in referring to weekdays, but the point remains that we shouldn't allow religious sensibilities or objections dictate our use of one era or the other. Christianity doesn't "own" BC/AD and Judaism doesn't "own" BCE/CE. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 13:01, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
• Support per nom. — JudeccaXIII ( talk) 16:47, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
• Support as well. Wikipedia is the last place I can find the BC/AD convention used in any sort of academic context. If memory serves, even Yale is using the BCE/CE convention. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:13, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

What nonsense. CE has only caught on in America - and only partially there. BC remains completely normal in other forms of English. This is partly a WP:ENGVAR issue, and MOS:COMMONALITY applies. Johnbod ( talk) 15:55, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

@ Johnbod: Prove it. Bet you can't. Before you go around declaring "nonsense," I strongly suggest you do some research to make sure it is nonsense. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:05, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Also, the BBC allows writers to use either BC/AD or BCE/CE depending on the circumstances [5]. So, not really an "American" thing per se. Isambard Kingdom ( talk) 16:10, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

As the article says (and note how it has to explain BCE/CE), The Guardian, flagship of UK liberalism, mandates BC/AD, as does the British Museum, The Times etc. I've never actually heard CE used on the BBC, whose historical output I'm a heavy consumer of. Certainly when dealing with material related to non-Christian religions CE may be preferred - note that Mpant's 2nd link only applied to religious education, and I'm not sure if the changes proposed were ever implemented. To claim that "Wikipedia is the last place I can find the BC/AD convention used in any sort of academic context." certainly is nonsense. Johnbod ( talk) 16:22, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

What world do you live in where The Guardian, the Times and the BBC are academic institutions? They're media outlets for crying out loud. Knock off the attitude. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:12, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Oh, wait, are you so sure that the British Museum "mandates" the BC/AD convention? [6] [7] [8] [9] MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:16, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

And what about articles that are mostly about Jewish culture? Isambard Kingdom ( talk) 16:25, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Personally, I often use CE for topics with a non-Christian cultural background (Chinese, Islamic, Jewish, Indian etc), but BC otherwise, for example on the Ancient Near East. I think this one is rather borderline Jewish and Christian, so I haven't !voted on the issue. Johnbod ( talk) 16:32, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

• Support It's a question of WP:NPOV, not censorship. No content is being removed from the article.-- agr ( talk) 22:35, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

This official 2005 proposal, classed under the NPOV subheading specifically argued that BCE/CE represented a neutral point of view while BC/AD did not, and that proposal failed. Wikipedia's NPOV policy is often misunderstood. Wikipedia definies it as "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." BC/AD and BCE/CE are both widely used by reliable sources, at about equal proportions (BC/AD is more popular in general use, BCE/CE in academia). So allowing them both at Wikipedia is in the true spirit of NPOV. Being truly "religiously neutral" with the calendar is impossible, as using the Gregorian calendar itself as the standard is a Western bias. BCE/CE and BC/AD refer to the same thing, one just removes the inherent religious reference despite not changing the epoch that bases itself on an inherently religious event. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 22:45, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

"BC/AD is more popular in general use, BCE/CE in AMERICAN academia", you mean - see above. Johnbod ( talk) 15:55, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Right, hence my proposal. Isambard Kingdom ( talk) 22:47, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

It may remove the explicit religious language, but it still refers to the count to and from that inherently religious event, and IMO unnecessarily obfuscates the calendar era's nature and origin. True religiious neutrality would be to use Holocene calendar or some such alternative that doesn't date from the birth of Christ. But as is, using BC/AD is no more or less religiously biased than using the Gregorian calendar itself. I digress, I don't expect to win the argument here, but I don't believe you'd win the entire encyclopedia's agreement to ditch BC/AD as MjolnirPants has suggested, especially since Jimmy Wales seems to dislike BCE/CE himself. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 23:01, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

That a proposal to switch to BCE/CE for all articles except those with a clear Christian view point failed to gain consensus 12 years ago does not mean there are no PoV concerns with BC/AD use in specific articles. The vote at the time: 89-for, 103-against, tells us that many editors saw it as an issue way back then and there certainly was no consensus against using BCE/CE either. The question was left to be considered on case by case basis. As for other calendar questions, I would note that the article does not use the common names for the days of the week and saying "dry land was created on Tuesday," would sound jarring to most people. That the common era starts on a year once thought to be the birth of Jesus is a far more tenuous religious connection than appending "Year of Our Lord" to dates, and changing to a different calendar epoch would render our article unintelligible to most readers.-- agr ( talk) 17:57, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

• Support, same reasons as above. PiCo ( talk) 23:01, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
• Support Academic usage is becoming more and more common because BCE is a neutral term. Encyclopedia Britannica also uses BCE in their article on the book of Genesis [10] - while that doesn't mean that we also have to do that, it is yet one more indication that neutral academic sources have already made that transition. First Light ( talk) 05:47, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

• Comment given the (so far) snowball support here, at an article where this is likely to be contentious, If the unanimity continues, it might be appropriate to get a community discussion going as to whether we should update MOS:ERA to favor the BCE/CE format. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:53, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Unless the definition of unanimity has been changed, I don't think it can continue since we don't have it. And if this current RfC discussion at Talk:1 is any indication (the end result of the 2005 proposal by the late User:Slrubenstein seems to reflect similarly), the community is generally either ambivalent about whether to use AD vs. CE, or divides almost equally for both camps. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 22:34, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

• There is already one oppose, so its not really a snowball, and I will add an oppose as our target audience is not academics, but people with a high school level of education, for whom BCE may be confusing. A foot note or link on the first use could explain that BC is the same as BCE. Graeme Bartlett ( talk) 21:58, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

A foot note or link on the first use could explain that BC is the same as BCE. Would you support if we did that? Changed to BCE and added a footnote? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:07, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Graeme Bartlett, so on the basis of your reasoning, would you support not using BCE/CE in any article? Because (if as you suggest) high-schoolers wouldn't understand it in any article? Isambard Kingdom ( talk) 22:10, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

It is generally the case that BC is the more understood than BCE, but I won't make a blanket case for all articles here. However, I can be definite in saying that Muslim or Nepali calendar dates should have the Western calendar dates included. In some other contexts I prefer Ma or Ga, but you could claim that this is too obscure for the average reader too, and just say "xxxx years ago". NPOV for BCE/BC, is not so relevant as BC is very similar to BCE for those that know what it stands for. Using CE or AD is much more a POV statement either way, and neither is neutral if spelled out. CE is much more obscure for our readers, and it is good that we hardly have to say AD or CE, as most years will be understood without the postfix. My other comment is that if "BCE" is used, it should be linked or footnoted in such a way that people can tell that it means BC. Also BC could be linked in a way so that it links to a disclaimer that says that use of BC or BCE is not an endorsement of belief in Christ. Graeme Bartlett ( talk) 22:35, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. So, I want to understand, you would Support or Not Oppose if there is a footnote, then. Right? Isambard Kingdom ( talk) 22:38, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

So I am opposing, but if the change is made I would like to see the link/footnote. Graeme Bartlett ( talk) 07:47, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

• Support per nom and because encyclopedias are scholarly, so we should use scholarly usage. ~ Röbin Liönheart ( talk) 04:52, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Comment Aren't we not supposed to switch between the two dating systems without a really really good reason? I haven't seen an article actually make the switch, so I don't know what qualifies as a really good reason, (hence not providing a vote) but on instinct, this doesn't seem like enough. Farsight001 ( talk) 23:09, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

I was just thinking about this... MOS:ERA is a bit frustrating because the current wording, "Do not change the established era style in an article unless there are reasons specific to its content", doesn't offer any help about what could be constituted as good reasons. I don't believe the argument "this article is about Judaism so use BCE" or "this article is about Christianity so use BC" really holds water, because (1) how can you quantitatively identify whether an article is more "Jewish" or "Christian" in the first place? This article is a perfect example, as it is a subject relevant to both religions. There are tons of subjects like that. And (2) we don't similarly use other calendar eras based on the article's "religious affiliation", like Anno Mundi in Jewish articles, or Anno Hijra in Islamic articles, so why do it for BCE vs. BC? The current wording of MOS:ERA just invites pointless discussions like this based only on user opinions of the validity of one era vs. the other, its alleged familiarity and/or relevance to the reading audience, or whether the article we're talking about is more linked to non-Christian religions or not. It just doesn't make sense to me. I'm considering opening an RfC at the MOS/DAN talkpage to possibly get this changed or clarified, else this will keep happening without us having any real compass on what constitutes a valid argument to change from one era to the other. The only valid criteria for changing eras that I can come up with is that the majority of article sources use one instead of the other. That still invites a potential problem: editors preferring BCE may intentionally hunt for sources that use BCE just to argue for its implementation, and vice versa. We need to strongly consider implementing a system that incorporates both Common Era and Anno Domini equally by way of a template, or specifically assigning BC/AD to certain topic categories, and BCE/CE to others. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 23:33, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

• Two things: First, referring to something as snowballing is not the same thing as citing WP:SNOW. For those who've disagreed with me, you should look up the idiomatic use of the term "snowballing", which generally means "getting bigger as it proceeds." I know this is a quibble, but two people have taken it upon themselves to chide me for what amounts to their own mistakes. Apologies if I seem to be chiding back, I'm simply trying to clarify.

The second thing is that, honestly, the arguments I'm reading from the oppose side, specifically those from Crumpled Fire are reinforcing my view that we should change these dates, and seek a community consensus to deprecate use of the BC/AD format. This is due to the same reason that the BCE/CE format is used in academia: It is more neutral. Sure, it may have roots in a religious belief, but it has moved past them to become a secular (not to be confused with anti-religious) convention. It is akin to Halloween: a religious festival that has become a thoroughly secular one. Christians, Jews and Muslims (not all of them, of course, but many) regularly celebrate Halloween in its secular incarnation without concern for the fact that it originated as a pagan festival. Similarly, pagans, Jews, Muslims (and Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Taoists, Shintoists and Atheists) can all use the BCE/CE convention without worrying that it has Christian roots.

The last thing I want to say is that I think Crumpled Fire has a good idea above when they say We need to strongly consider implementing a system that incorporates both Common Era and Anno Domini equally by way of a template. I have created a template before, and I can do so, again. I'm not sure exactly how this would work off the top of my head, but I'm sure we could come up with something, as a community. My initial idea is for a template that can be used instead of the text "BC"/"BCE"/"AD"/"CE" which, by default displays the BCE/CE text, contains a tool tip explaining how this refers to the same dates as the BC/AD convention, and (if possible, I'm not sure it is, though I'm certainly willing to try) allows the user to click to change all instances on that page to the BC/AD text. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:48, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

• Quick note, if the Lua code wiki uses allows access to cookies (I'm not a Lua expert), we could possibly design the template such that clicking on it will change every instance of that template's use to the preferred format, across all of en.wp. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:51, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

BC/AD is standard, so I ask to keep it. And Halloween started as a true judeochristian holiday - since it starts on all saints eve. Take sabbat starting on friday eve or christmas/new year as well. The neopagan bullshit is 19th century, Frazer and so on. Polentarion Talk 18:40, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

This is the second time I've seen you say something that is so far removed from reality that I'm not sure how to address it. You are wrong. Please do some research before offering your views as facts. Oh, I'm referring to everything you said, not just your claim about Halloween having purely judeochristian origins. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:54, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Right. Polentarion, please keep comments relevant to this article and this proposal. Thanks. Isambard Kingdom ( talk) 19:18, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Oppose. As said, I ask to keep BC/AD. Halloween started in Rome, in May and celtic origin is a 19th century construct and as remote as for a Queimada. Polentarion Talk 21:11, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

@ MjolnirPants: I never chided you for the "snowball" use, I do agree that the discussion was snowballing in favor of BCE/CE. What I specifically referred to was the term "unanimity", which has a common definition of "everyone is in agreement". It seemed to me that the use of that term was a dismissal of the existing comments that were not in unanimous agreement. I apologize for any misunderstanding or if I did not express myself clearly enough there.

It's interesting to me that you've chosen Halloween as an example, since I would personally see that particular example as being an argument for BC/AD, not BCE/CE. Yes, Jews/Muslims/etc. all celebrate Halloween in its "secular incarnation", but the important point is that the word Halloween remains. No one has changed it to "Common Fall Holiday" or something like that to accommodate non-Christians. Yet, that's what "Common Era" is to Anno Domini. There are plenty of other examples as well; "goodbye" means "God be with ye", yet many atheists including myself, continue to use it in its "secular incarnation" without feeling the need to call it "Common Departing Phrase". Same with Hindu-Arabic numerals, we could call them "common numerals" to make it neutral but we don't. This whole argument boils down to semantics and how words originate and evolve. And the most interesting part to me is that while terms like "Halloween" and "goodbye" are used secularly in their full unaltered form, Before Christ and Anno Domini are always reduced to an acronym form—BC and AD—which is much less explicit in its connotations to any reader. Many have told me they like to think of BC as "Before Count" and AD as "After Demarcation" or something to that effect, not to mention the very common "After Death" misconception. BC/AD are much more practical, they sound different from each other, look different, and are hard for anyone to confuse with each other. AD is Latin, but so are many common phrases in modern English like "bona fide" or "et cetera". Ultimately none of this is really relevant on this talk page, and it looks like BCE/CE will win out here, but if another Wikipedia BCE/CE proposal is made I will certainly bring these arguments to the table at that time. I'm glad we agree on the idea for some sort of template system, perhaps that is something that can be fleshed out in any future official proposals put forth to the community. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 21:35, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Halloween is an interesting example here yes, scnr above. It is a Christian remnant, the lost souls are the one in purgatory, a concept lost ever since and being deemed "celtic pagan" long afterwards. BCE/CE is just a political correct neophyte, like seasonal greetings and Kwanzaa. Happy festivus ;) Polentarion Talk 22:26, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

@ Crumpled Fire:Ignore the comment above this one, it has no basis in reality, and nothing to do with the subject of this thread.

I never chided you for the "snowball" use... What I specifically referred to was the term "unanimity"... I never used that word. I could only imagine you making reference to it in the context of WP:SNOW, as that is the only logical link between "snowballing" and "unanimity". If it was unanimous, it wouldn't be able to snowball, as it would have just had total support from the get-go.

but the important point is that the word Halloween remains. No, it isn't. What you're doing here is making a false analogy argument: Just being able to point out a fault in the elements of my analogy doesn't change my analogy. If you want analogies that don't use Christian words, look up a secular Western wedding ceremony, look at how many secular businesses are closed on Sundays, or look at the various secular 'church' groups popping up, or (better yet) look at a Universal Unitarian church service, which uses Christian conventions, but caters to Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Sikhs, etc, etc. There are more, many more examples of secular things with religious origins. Their origins do not make them religious or irreligious, their usage does. BCE/CE is used in a secular sense, hence it is a secular term.

terms like "Halloween" and "goodbye" are used secularly in their full unaltered form Ummm.... No, they aren't. Not even close. You yourself just described the expanded version of "goodbye", and we all know that "Halloween" is a contraction of "All Hallows Eve". Notably, neither "halloween" nor "goodbye" make direct reference to religion.

BC/AD are much more practical Most of academia (and this thread) disagree.

Many have told me they like to think of BC as "Before Count" and AD as "After Demarcation" It can't be that many, because those meanings are not well documented. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 02:36, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

@ MjolnirPants: I was referring to when you'd said "If the unanimity continues", seen in this diff.

In regard to the analogy examples, my point was that the words "Halloween" and "goodbye" evolved toward those more abbreviated forms naturally and without any intervention, they weren't jettisoned and replaced with a completely separate generic term. AD is more comparable to "Halloween" and "goodbye" than CE is; it evolved in a similarly natural way: the full form was "Anno Domini nostri Iesu Christi", which then shortened to "Anno Domini", then ultimately to "AD", whose full meaning remains uncertain or misunderstood to many in the general population and whose use is generalized. AD is in effect just as secularized as "Halloween" or "goodbye", seeing that it is widely used in many secular contexts and by secular organizations and people. Of course, CE is used secularly as well, but mainly in academia and often when there are political or religious biases involved. CE is also used in a "religious" sense, seeing as it was initiated by religious Jews to whom a direct reference to "the year of Our Lord" was blasphemous, and it is most often used in contexts involving non-Christian religions. For example, Wikipedia mostly uses BCE for articles relating to Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, but BC for secular topics on ancient historical societies like Ancient Rome, History of China, History of Japan, and Ancient Egypt. Ultimately, CE & AD both refer to the same era of the same Christian origin—only the semantics differ—and both are widely used by reliable sources, so we as an encyclopedia shouldn't say that CE is objectively better to implement than AD so long as both conventions are in common use. It's no different than WP:ENGVAR except that people tend to take religion a lot more personally than whether color should have a U or realise should have a z. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 13:04, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

I was referring to when you'd said "If the unanimity continues", seen in this diff. Holy crap, I completely forgot I used the word there. My apologies, I had specifically changed that comment after previewing it to replace the word "unanimous" and I apparently missed that I've used it in a different tense a sentence later. Suffice it to say, it is not what I meant. My mistake, entirely.

As to the rest of your comment, I'm sorry, but you're just not convincing. At the end of the day, the vast majority of people consider BCE/CE to be a secular (and thus, neutral) term, and consider BC/AD to be a Christian (and thus, non-neutral) term. That's the crux of the issue. Yes, you do have some points, but none of them really change what I just said. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:16, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

• Good read- "Why Christians Should Adopt the BCE/CE Dating System". Bibleinterp.com. .. have spent far too much time on Wikipedia changing BCs and ADs back to BCEs and CEs.-- Moxy ( talk) 21:58, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

• Support. Anno Domini#CE and BCE says: "The "Common/Current Era" ("CE") terminology is often preferred by those who desire a term that does not explicitly make religious references.[45][46] For example, Cunningham and Starr (1998) write that "B.C.E./C.E. …do not presuppose faith in Christ and hence are more appropriate for interfaith dialog than the conventional B.C./A.D."[47]" Keahapana ( talk) 01:33, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. Do not change the established era style in an article unless there are reasons specific to its content. Sensitivity to the Jews isn't a good enough reason, since by their reckoning we are in 5776. For Muslims, the year is 1437. So the dates used are according to the Christian calendar, and as such, there is no good reason to change the designation. Hokie RNB 14:17, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

So the fact that this article is about a Jewish myth isn't good enough for you? Isambard Kingdom ( talk) 16:40, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

8 support (including the nomination), 4 oppose. Can we close this now and make the change? Isambard Kingdom ( talk) 19:50, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

• Support closing and making the change. (Sorry, I couldn't resist doing it this way...) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 01:14, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

 Done Now, perhaps, we can move on to other things. Thank you. Isambard Kingdom ( talk) 01:27, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

See basically done discussion here Jytdog ( talk) 04:15, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

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We use him once, but he wrote some interesting comments on myth: "myth today has come to have negative connotations which are the complete opposite of its meaning in a religious context....In a religious context, however, myths are storied vehicles of supreme truth, the most basic and important truths of all. By them people regulate and interpret their lives and find worth and purpose in their existence. Myths put one in touch with sacred realities, the fundamental sources of being, power, and truth. They are seen not only as being the opposite of error but also as being clearly distinguishable from stories told for entertainment and from the workaday, domestic, practical language of a people. They provide answers to the mysteries of being and becoming, mysteries which, as mysteries, are hidden, yet mysteries which are revealed through story and ritual. Myths deal not only with truth but with ultimate truth." Doug Weller talk 13:01, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a community project, everyone is free to edit. Go boldly. PiCo ( talk) 12:41, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Well, you won't find me getting into any kind of conflict over that paragraph you cite, but I'm worried that, depending on the details of how it's used it could be somewhat misleading. If I'm reading Hyers right here, he is heavily implying but not outright stating a particular sort of position on texts like Genesis that sees a historical reading (i.e. "the world was actually created a few thousand years ago") is somehow contrary to the original purpose of those texts. As I said, I'm not sure I can point to a single sentence that is false, but as a counterweight, consider comments by James Barr, one of the more prominent biblical scholars of the last hundred years,

"Thank you for your letter. I have thought about your question, and would say that probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah's flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the `days' of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.] The only thing I would say to qualify this is that most professors may avoid much involvement in that sort of argument and so may not say much explicitly about it one way or the other. But I think what I say would represent their position correctly. However, you might find one or two people who would take the contrary point of view and are competent in the languages, in Assyriology, and so on: it's really not so much a matter of technical linguistic competence, as of appreciation of the sort of text that Genesis is."

The idea that people in a religious context hold myth to a high level of respect while being aware that it is not "literally" true ("from the workaday, domestic, practical language of a people") strikes me as something that is only true of a minority of religious people alive, and even then only over a small slice of the time that religion has existed, and mostly in Western rapidly secularizing contexts, and then mostly in the quicker-shrinking churches. Before modern science, I think you'd find that practically everyone took this stuff literally, and I see the quote from Hyers as leaning in the direction of a misleading apologetic response to the issue, which implies that, all along religious people really have in some important way anticipated the modern labelling of Genesis as myth and have really been okay with that all along, and that anyone who sees a conflict between history and their religious traditions is just misreading the exalted register the religious traditions were created in. Anyhow, as I said I don't know that Hyers says anything provably false, and if you decide to put it in there I'll leave it alone, but my recommendation is that if you include it you carefully let the reader know this is one theologian's opinion. Alephb ( talk) 13:40, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

There's a section Creationism and the genre of Genesis 1-2 which tries to tackle this. It talks about the narrative(s) as science, as myth, and maybe other things, and cautions (via Waltke) against taking the science as being the point of the whole exercise. Anyway, if editors want to follow up on this, I'd just caution against making that section too long. PiCo ( talk) 02:05, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

It's a tricky subject to do right. More power to whoever wants to tackle it. I think I'll just keep my distance from this difficult, sort of subtle topic. Alephb ( talk) 02:13, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

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2600:100F:B126:8AC4:3492:4AA:DC8F:A665 (
talk) 21:13, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Borrowing themes from Mesopotamian mythology, but adapting them to the Israelite people's [[monotheism|belief in one God] is not an established fact as presented here, it is a conjecture. Judaic views would not support this contention, but regard the Mesopotamian views as a view of the same or similar event(s) as from a Pagan perspective, and NOT as the definitive source as is claimed here.

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) ( talk) 22:52, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

There is this,

""Good and evil" is a merism, in this case meaning simply "everything", but it may also have a moral connotation. When God forbids the man to eat from the tree of knowledge he says that if he does so he is "doomed to die": the Hebrew behind this is in the form used in the Bible for issuing death sentences.[75]"

This should be revised to reflect a very important distinction that the entire Genesis 2 narrative is about. Knowledge is not what was forbidden according to the story, but rather "knowledge, good and evil". An example could be, knowing about the existence of a sphere would not necessarily constitute one being "doomed to die", but eating from the forbidden tree of "knowledge of good and evil" will lead one to the nature of whether a sphere is good or evil.

Omitting "good and evil" implicates the passive nature of knowledge against what the story was meant to portray, which one might argue, is the nature of knowing good and evil. Not the nature of knowing. Chapa7ld ( talk) 05:00, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

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Suggestion: We could improve the present article with an overt explanation of the longstanding title name edit warring and repeated editorial discussion moratoria. What would be a better way to present the information covered under Talk subpages, especially the Archives, most recently Talk:Genesis creation narrative/Archive 25#Requested move 22 February 2017, and Talk:Genesis creation narrative/FAQ? Perhaps something like linking Template:Disputed title to a revised Template:Round in circles? Keahapana ( talk) 02:12, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not fully understanding what you are saying. Do you think that the Disputed Title tag should stay on the article page? Probably permanently, since the title will always be controversial, no matter what it is. If that's what you are saying, then I would be opposed. Readers of WP articles should read content on that topic, not be diverted to various controversies among WP editors. Even temporarily, the tag doesn't add anything, since there is a moratorium on Title renaming.

If you are putting that tag there only to bring editors to this discussion, then sure, let's leave it there for a week or so. Perhaps we could do more on this talk page to point people to the article renaming discussions in the past. More than the box that's already here that does exactly that. But do people really want a lengthy discussion on what more to say? Again, I'm not clear what you are trying to start here. First Light ( talk) 08:12, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Is there actually an active moratorium on move-discussions, and if not, should we re-instate one? Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 08:42, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm, time flies, there is no active moratorium on move attempts. I've stricken my comment above. First Light ( talk) 08:59, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

I think the tag is a bit disruptive, since it's been discussed so often in the past. Creating a new discussion would be less disruptive, but it's becoming increasingly like asking one parents until they give in. St Anselm ( talk) 09:54, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

I guess the question to ask yourself, Keahapana, is whether you have a new argument that hasn't been presented before. St Anselm ( talk) 10:00, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

I had no intention of starting another iterative argument and was trying to find a means to prevent future ones, by providing new users with a brief, neutral explanation for the anomalous "creation narrative" title. It seems like every few months, a WP user will start yet another Talk page dispute about changing the title to the standard "creation myth". I don't know much about if templates, but could the above "Discussions on this page often lead to previous arguments being restated …" be revised with the FAQ to clarify the title disputes? Keahapana ( talk) 00:03, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Read those name change discussions and you'll find that "creation story" is by far the most "standard" phrase that is used to describe "Genesis." The "myth" and "narrative" phrases are relatively equally less common than "story" - though neither are rare enough to be termed "anomalous." Some Google book searches will show you what I'm saying. If even you didn't take the time to read those discussions or the FAQ, then perhaps they could be linked more prominently - but on this talk page only. First Light ( talk) 04:33, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

It's words like "anomalous" and "standard" that make these discussions non-starters. As has been demonstrated numerous times over multiple move proposals: (A) there is no clear standard for article titles in this category. Of the more than 100 pages in the category, only 12 use the formula "(name of culture) creation myth". Another 10 are buried in their respective culture's "mythology" page. That leaves the vast majority employing some other construct; and (B) there is no clear consensus that one title is preferred over the other. Depending on how you search, you may find "creation story", "creation narrative", and "creation myth" all used a lot, but they are used to varying degrees depending on which aspect of the subject you are talking about. Because the subject of this article is a canonical text that has been codified in written form for at least the last 2500 years, it makes sense to speak of it in terms of a "narrative" (it's not a loose collection of stories, and there are plenty of academics who argue it's not mythological in form either). After 8 years of failed discussions, I think it might be time to just let this one go. Ἀλήθεια 18:04, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I'd prefer to see some kind of link to WP:SYSTEMICBIAS, because that's what I see this permanent dispute as. It's a case of the usual American bias seen in Wikipedia playing out, with the Judaeo-Christian lobby (more dominant in the US than in other western countries) currently ahead. I have accepted it as part of Wikipedia, but it would be good to let the world know about our built in biases. HiLo48 ( talk) 00:09, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

That would be a trip, to slap WP:SYSTEMICBIAS on every article that was overly dependent on WP:Reliable Sources, which are predominantly American. That would include most medicine articles, nearly all religion articles, many politics articles, a great deal of science, and more. First Light ( talk) 04:25, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

No, not required for medical and science articles. American bias has no real impact there. Nor on political matters. That's generally geographically localised activity anyway. It's just areas like religion where the US is way out of sync with the rest of the advanced western world. This is (or at least should be) a global article, with too much American bias. HiLo48 ( talk) 04:56, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

But Wikipedia is not just for the "advanced western world" - it's, you know, global. St Anselm ( talk) 09:01, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

If only we could get input from all the world, with US opinion only counting for the 5% its population actually represents. HiLo48 ( talk) 10:28, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

While HiLo goes too far occasionally with his systemic bias complaints, ridiculous nationalistic comments like that are even more problematic. Reliable sources are not predominately American. Reliable source are reliable sources no matter which country they are from. AIRcorn  (talk) 22:30, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

The reliable sources used in this article are predominantly American, with some UK universities thrown in. That's all I was saying. I wasn't saying that American sources are more likely to be reliable. Far from being nationalistic, I was saying that labeling an article as Systemic Bias, just because most of its sources are from America, is really boneheaded, and ... nationalistic. Indeed, reliable sources are reliable sources, no matter what country they were born in. Anyone saying otherwise is.... well, not me. First Light ( talk) 14:49, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

• It’s fine so long as all such pages have the same title —- Islamic Creation narrative, Mayan Creation narrative, Pandeist Creation narrative, Scientology Creation narrative, and so on. Pandeist ( talk) 22:34, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

• The original proposal was to add something to the article about the title. It was not about changing the article name. User:Keahapana are you proposing some kind of template, or some content? We cannot add any content to the article unless there are reliable sources about it, and they really should be independent and secondary. The tag should not have editorializing in it, either. User:Keahapana in case you are talking about content, what sources are there for this? Jytdog ( talk) 17:12, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I obviously didn't make this clear. The original proposal was about Talk namespace content not necessarily Article namespace content. Is it possible to expand the above "Template:Round in circles" saying "Discussions on this page often lead to previous arguments being restated …"? Transclusions of the "Template:Disputed title" are found on 32 pages, some of which seem to be permanent. Keahapana ( talk) 02:58, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Would un-collapsing the "move" template be an improvement? Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 07:37, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

• Regardless of the intention of this section, another requested move has been suggested so I thought I would drop my 2c. I highly advise not starting another move discussion. While "Genesis creation story" might be the common name by pretty much every search metric you will be able to use there is a lot of hostility about changing this article's title at all, which is seen as a compromise: "good enough, don't f**k with it". I don't think it is possible to overcome that feeling with a move request, and I think that by this point any move request is doomed to SNOW opposition, regardless of how well researched the nomination is. I think that my RM last year proved that. Let the dead horse lie. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{( or here)} 00:38, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Let me second the motion for not starting another move discussion. Alephb ( talk) 22:28, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Thirded ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:47, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Fourthed -- Dweller ( talk) Become old fashioned! 08:25, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Agree with the four above but I thought this thread was reasonably dead already. Of course, we could always discuss a new moratorium. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 09:52, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

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Alternate interpretations of Genesis 1:1-3

It is very hard to glean the meaning of each Hebrew word passed first through oral tradition and then from ancient to modern script, from generation to generation over millennia. Parallel translations of this text give us room for more than one humanly point of view: The literal-Hebrew, the Scientific, the Sumerian/Babylonian and the Sociopolitical/Psychological.

Literal Hebrew: 1. From the head [he/she] created the gods and the sky (air & water) and also the land (country). 2. And the land was unformed and empty, and darkness, [was] on the face of the abyss ( rift); and the wind ( breeze, air, spirit, ghost) of the gods hovered over the waters. 3. And [he/she] said [to] the gods, Let there be light: and there was light.

Scientific: 1. From of his/her mind ( reason) he/she formed ( made) the invisible world ( consciousness, spirit world) and the visible matter (the Universe). 2. And the Universe was turbulent ( unstable, chaotic) with zero gravity, and darkness (blackness), was in the empty space; and the air- waves of the designer moved over (arranged, formed) the liquefied gas ( condensed matter). 3. And the designer ([of] the Laws of Physics) stated ( concluded), 'It's about time for atomic fusion': and hydrogen fused into helium generating atomic energy and light.

Sumerian/Babylonian: 1. From the start the gods (the planets or the extraterrestrials) delineated the firmament and the Eridu (the home in the far away, the space colony). 2. And the Eridu did not have a plan and was bare, and had unhappiness, facing division (bordering despair); and the wind ( ghost) of the gods hovered (flew, conducted) over (near) the waters (marshes). 3. And the gods (the leadership, the planner/ captain God) said ( ordered) 'Let there be clarity': and there was clarity ( information, knowledge, education, trust, calmness, contentment, belief, security, accuracy, solution).

Sociopolitical/Psychological: 1. In the beginning the gods planned the goals ( ideals, principles, standards, values) and the territory ( colony). 2. And the land was in confusion ( disorganized, with anarchy) and deprived (neglected, lied to, alone), and darkness (gloom, obscurity, ambiguity [where words stopped meaning anything, when truth doesn't matter], distrust, secrecy, coldness, cruelty, unhappiness), bordering separation (division, divorce, discord, a schism, secession); and the spirit of the founder (creator) moved (carried, changed, lifted, conveyed, displaced, dragged, drove, elevated, flew) above the face of the waters (on/over the tears). 3. And the planner decided (scheduled, projected), 'Let there be lucidity': and there was lucidity ( enlightenment, clarity, openness, transparency, truth, awareness, certainty, equanimity, confidence, friendship, rapport, integration, peace, happiness). TonyRojas007 ( talk) 16:44, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

 Not done @ TonyRojas007: Wikipedia only summarizes professionally-published mainstream academic or journalistic sources. Wikipedia does not use original research. Ian.thomson ( talk) 16:58, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

user:MusenInvincible about

• diff 07:33, 29 October 2018
• diff 15:00, 1 November 2018
• diff 16:16, 2 November 2018

Your edit is being reverted, because the content under which you are posting is describing the historical meaning of "in the image of God" - the intentions of the authors in their context. The content from Ginzberg is a theological interpretation -- a sermon really; it is not about the historical context. It doesn't belong in this article (there are zillions of bits of sermon-like content we could add, about about what this has "meant" to various people throughout history. Picking this one to put anywhere in this page, is also WP:UNDUE, along with being WP:OFFTOPIC and not what we do here. -- Jytdog ( talk) 16:25, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Is the added content has a reference? Yes
Is the added content improve the quality of the article? Yes
Is the added content relevant with the topic of the article? Yes, then why it should be removed from the article?
So, If you think the added content sounds like 'sermon' passage, can anybody (or you) fix it into encyclopedic content? Anyway, Wikipedia is a collaborative project WP:CO which means anyone can help each other to make it better through contributive purpose (not disruptive). In brief, this is just matter of paraphrasing — MusenInvincible ( talk) 17:03, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

The issue is with the 2nd point; this page is not theology around the genesis creation myth, but rather just describing it.

If we were to have a section on theological interpretation, you didn't respond as to why we should give Ginzerg's theological perspective and not that of a thousand other Jewish or Christian people.

In any case I do not believe you are going to get consensus to include it. The source is not aimed at discussing the story in its context which is the current scope of the page.

We'll see what others have to say. Jytdog ( talk) 17:45, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Why would we need a theological perspective in a mythology article? We could probably use additional sources on comparative mythology and derivation from older texts, but theologians are far from expets on the topic. Dimadick ( talk) 18:29, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with Ginzberg as a source, he's very well-known. My problem with the edit is that it's quite long and, I suspect, that Ginzberg's point is already covered. Ginzberg seems to me to be saying that when Genesis says that God created man in his own image, this means man was given the spiritual qualities of God, in the form of the human soul (or spirit). God is pure spirit, and man has been privileged to share in this spirit. But this is already covered in the first point in the existing article: "Having the spiritual qualities of God such as intellect, will, etc." That's my feeling, anyway. (P.s user:MusenInvincible, I know it's difficult editing in English when it isn't your native language. Please don't let frustration get the better of you - continue to engage other editors, listen to them, and remain cool and cordial. In that way you will win their respect). PiCo ( talk) 04:22, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

If the problem is a quite long edit, I think anyone can make it shorter and brief (without deleting it by reverts actually) — MusenInvincible ( talk) 11:09, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

-

User:Oldstone James edit summary said "I don't see where in the source says that biblical literalism is a misreading of the Bible" The source says "If the reader misjudges the genre of the text in front of him , the result is a misreading." [32] quite clearly, page 142. Theroadislong ( talk) 10:46, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, and it doesn't, as far as I understand, make a claim on what that genre is. Instead, it goes on to list a number of possible readings that have existed throughout history. ^Ol^Ja 11:01, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Anderson says: "If the reader misjudges the genre of the text in front of him , the result is a misreading"; that's been parsed in the article as: "Misunderstanding the genre of the Genesis creation narrative, meaning the intention of the author(s) and the culture within which they wrote, can result in a misreading"; your version, "Different interpretations of the genre of the Genesis creation narrative ... exist" is a gross distortion of that. Walte on page 6 defines the creation narrative as "myth" in the scientific sense (not the popular sense), which is the sense we follow here as this a scholarly article, on page 7 gives copious reasons for not reading it as history, on page 8 does the same for Genesis as science, and on page 9 concludes by calling the "gap" theory and "day-age" theory "implausible" as they "presuppos[e] a young Earth and deny[] evolution - this is parsed as "misreading the story as history rather than theology leads to Creationism and the denial of evolution", and your edit, "reading (changed from "misreading") the story as history rather than theology leads to Creationism and the denial of evolution" is again a gross distortion of Waltke's meaning. PiCo ( talk) 12:18, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Anderson, however, also says "Genesis 1-3 has accumulated a penumbra of associated understandings", so saying that "different interpretations of the genre of the Genesis creation narrative ... exist" would be a simple paraphrase. Have a look at creation myth, where it is said that "a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths... sometimes in a historical or literal sense", so the fact that the Genesis narrative is a myth by itself doesn't mean that it can't be regarded as being intended to be historical or literal. Once again, the fact that the gap and day-age theories are implausible says nothing about what the Genesis narrative was intended to be; the Genesis narrative could have easily been intended to convey something that we could consider implausible today. If anything, E.A. Speiser says, "on the subject of creation biblical tradition aligned itself with the traditional tenets of Babylonian science", as is stated later on in the article. Parsing something along the lines of "the Bible should not be read as history" as something that implies that "reading the Bible as history is misreading" is WP:SYNTH. ^Ol^Ja 12:49, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

"they "presuppos[e] a young Earth and deny[] evolution" Who is "they"? Is Walte refering to a specific group or organization? Dimadick ( talk) 13:07, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I think they are referring to literal readings of Genesis such as "gap" theory and "day-age" theory. ^Ol^Ja 13:11, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

The entire section is somewhat weird in style. A complete reworking may be in order. I would expect that the section would describe how creationists ended up attaching themselves to this mythology so fervently. Right now, the section spends an inordinate amount of time arguing with itself about genre. jps ( talk) 13:18, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

A section titled "Creationism and the genre of the creation narrative" needs to primarily discuss what genre the creation narrative might be, which, in my opinion, it does very well; however, if it's not going to relate this to what is most commonly interpreted by creationism, why have it in the title? I think that, instead of a complete reworking, we may just add a few words about literal creationism in the first paragraph, which, I think, would solidify the connection between the genre of Genesis and creationism.

That said, I still think that the article contradicts itself when it says that biblical literalism is a "misreading", and then going on to say that "Genesis 1–2 can be seen as ancient science" and "ancient history". ^Ol^Ja 13:52, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

The section is titled that because people thought the genre confusion was of note for a discussion of creationism. You can dig back into the history for that. I think genre confusion is largely an academic argument that does not deserve a multi-paragraph treatment here. However, discussion of how this myth has influenced creationists is probably warranted. This section doesn't do that well at all. jps ( talk) 14:45, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Would everyone be okay if I made it clear that Waltke specifically argues that reading the Genesis creation narrative literally is misreading, rather than that presenting that assertion as WP:WIKIVOICE? At least two other reliable sources disagree with that assertion (namely, Speiser and Childs). Perhaps something like:

Reformed evangelical scholar Bruce Waltke argues that interpreting the story literally is misreading it and leads to creationism and the denial of evolution. scholar of Jewish studies, Jon D. Levenson, also doubts the historicity of the story of Genesis:...

for the lede and

Scholar Bruce Waltke cautions that the "woodenly literal" approach, which leads to "creation science" and such "implausible interpretations" as the "gap theory", the presumption of a "young earth", and the denial of evolution, may be one such misreading

? ^Ol^Ja 15:42, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I see no evidence that Speiser and Childs disagree with the assertion. Neither of them argued for taking Genesis literally. jps ( talk) 16:13, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

• "The archaic cosmology conceived of the world in terms of a three-tiered cosmos consisting of the Earth as a flat disc in the middle... This three-storied universe is also presumed in a number of early Jewish apocalypses, as well as in the Revelation to John in early Christianity" D.E. Aune
• "The OT refers to the Apsu waters of Semitic mythology as the "waters above the firmament" (Gen 1:6-7)" Ryken–Wilhoit–Longman
• "On the subject of creation biblical tradition aligned itself with the traditional tenets of Babylonian science" E.A. Speiser

All of these point to the fact that reading the Bible, including the Book of Genesis, literally is the way that the Bible, including the Book of Genesis, was intended to be read. ^Ol^Ja 16:38, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Nope. None of them say that. This is your own spin. jps ( talk) 16:40, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Surprising answer. How, then, do you interpret these quotes, which explicitly say things like "this three-storied universe is also presumed" or that the author refers to "waters above the firmament"? Is the existence of things like the "flat disc" of the Earth and "waters above the firmament" not a literal reading of Genesis? Also, do you truly believe that the fact that the Bible was not intended to be taken literally is an "uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertion"? ^Ol^Ja 16:50, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

These quotes describe certain ideas and beliefs which are independent of biblical literalism as a concept which was not invented until millennia afterwards. All of the reliable sources which have written on this topic assert that a literal interpretation, such that it is according to those who hold to it, was not the hermeneutical intent of the authors. jps ( talk) 17:05, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Biblical literalism, as per the Wiki article, can be simply interpreted as "adherence to the exact letter or the literal sense"; thus, it is not necessarily a concept that need to be invented. I think that's where our disagreement stems from. When I say biblical literalism, I don't mean YEC, gap theory, or day-age theory, or any other particular literal interpretation, for that matter – all I mean is that some parts of the Book of Genesis were intended to be taken literally, and this assetion seems to besupported by all three quotes that I have listed. Therefore, we can't definitively say that reading the story of Genesis literally is fallacious, as this statement is contradicted at least partly by the sources I have quoted. Furthermore, we can't even say that any particular literal reading of the story of Genesis is fallacious, as the question of biblical hermeneutics is still very much up in the air (see this section). ^Ol^Ja 17:24, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Also note this sentence: "it [the creation narrative] can also be regarded as ancient history". Now contrast that with "misreading the story as history rather than theology leads to Creationism and the denial of evolution", and tell me whether or not the article is consistent. ^Ol^Ja 17:46, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

What you are describing as "biblical literalism" is your own invention. It is not based in the sources. jps ( talk) 23:04, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I literally quoted the WP article on biblical literalism. Furthermore, I don't even think biblical literalism is relevant: the phrase "misreading the story as history rather than theology..." is a direct contradiction to "it [the creation narrative] can also be regarded as ancient history". At least one of these statements must be removed for consistency, the 5th C in WP:CE, to be achieved. Seeing as the latter seems to be supported by RS substantially better than the former (we only really need 1 RS for the latter statement to be correct, as it is a modal statement), I believe it is the latter that is to be kept. A similar contradiction occurs between "...one such misreading, the "woodenly literal" approach..." and the above statement, as well as the statement "Genesis 1–2 can be seen as ancient science", as viewing a text as science and history requires a "wooden literal" approach. ^Ol^Ja 23:36, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

The only way this works is if so-called "ancient history" and "ancient science" are genres that are the same as history and science texts today. You have no sources which indicate that. jps ( talk) 07:28, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I still don't think you understand what I'm arguing for. I don't claim the narrative to be history, nor do I claim it to be science. What I do claim is that the narrative was intended to be taken literally in at least some ways – once again, I don't claim that taking this literal reading to be actual history or science is of any validity whatsoever. Both ancient history texts and ancient science texts were intended to be taken literally (see protoscience and ancient history), so if the narrative can be regarded as ancient history or ancient science then, by definition, a literal reading of it is not fallacious. ^Ol^Ja 12:21, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

But you have no sources which say that the narrative was intended to be taken literally. The sources you are using describe "ancient history" and "ancient science", but make no mention as to whether these "ancient" forms of explanation were ever intended to be taken literally. It may very well be that the idea of taking a narrative literally is a sensibility that did not exist when these texts were written, which is largely the point of the other scholars cited. The scholars you cite do not contradict that point. jps ( talk) 16:18, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I have sources that say the authors of the Bible intended to say that the Earth is a flat disc, that there are physical waters above and beneath the Earth, that there is a physical firmament dome protecting the Earth from mythical monsters in the cosmic ocean, etc etc etc. Such an interpretation, if anything, is even more literal than some 'biblicallly literal' beliefs such as gap theory or YEC. Furthermore, if you look at the protoscience and ancient history articles that I have linked, you will find that both were primeval academic disciplines ^Ol^Ja 17:28, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Whether the authors intended to say the Earth is a flat disc or not is irrelevant to the question as to whether the authors intended for readers to interpret the description in a literal fashion. What you are mixing up is a description of what the authors wrote and what their intent for interpretation was. That's what this entire section is about and you seemed to have missed that entirely if I am understanding your argument here. jps ( talk) 20:11, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters" is one example of a passage that was meant to be taken literally. This "firmament" refers to "a solid dome which separates the Earth below from the heavens and their waters above, as in Egyptian and Mesopotamian belief of the same time". I can find numerous other examples, if you want. ^Ol^Ja 21:15, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

*BLINK*. I cannot fathom how you can be so certain that the author intended for readers to take such a passage literally. Indeed, the sources which address this question explicitly say that taking such a passage as that literally is likely not the intention of the author. At this point, I feel like I'm falling down a rabbit hole of your own original invention. Please stick to sources. jps ( talk) 01:36, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

"The OT refers to the Apsu waters of Semitic mythology as the "waters above the firmament" Apsu/ Abzu is the personification of "fresh water from underground aquifers which was given a religious fertilising quality in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology. Lakes, springs, rivers, wells, and other sources of fresh water were thought to draw their water from the abzu." His mate Tiamat was instead a "primordial goddess of the salt sea", a "monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos". ... 'Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon. As a personification of chaos in cosmogony, Tiamat is considered an equivalent to (among others) Apep/Apophis, Nehebkau, Rahab, and Yam. Dimadick ( talk) 17:33, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I follow what is going on: You have a source that has a very strong point of view, such that it excludes other points of view. Oldstone James contested it, but you note the source does in fact have that point of view. So what to do? put diverging view in separate subtopics, almost like two articles in the same page. One can describe the narrative for what it is, without passing judgement on its truthfulness, etc., while the other major section can include the existing material. This should make both camps happy, as best as I can tell. If there is consensus to this, I will start by taking sections one through four and putting them into a "In Modern Scholarship"== level section, with all of the one through four subsections bumped down one level to === . Then, Oldstone James and whoever else wants to can make their own section(s) titled "In the historical-grammatical method". If you've managed to follow me so far, you can see that I am suggesting an extra writeup which sort of duplicates about half of this articles content. The only sections I am proposing to leave untouched are sections five through eight. Due to amount of work involved, we could agree to review this in say, one week from when it starts. If Oldstone James and any cooperators have not made much progress in writing up an "In the historical-grammatical method" section, we could agree to revert the article to what it is today.-- Epiphyllumlover ( talk) 00:56, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for you comment, but I think there might be a small misunderstanding on your part: I am not arguing that the historical-grammatical method is the most efficient one in uncovering truth (I do not at all believe it is efficient); on he contrary, I argue that various sources based on modern scholarship seem to suggest that the story of Genesis was intended to be read literally. To that end, I point to a contradiction in the article to indicate that even the article itself states that reading Genesis historically is not misreading. A simple solution to this problem would be to simply rephrase the two controversial statements that reading historically is misreading so as to avoid WP:WIKIVOICE (I've proposed one such solution above). However, it seems like jps won't agree that this contradiction is in need of being fixed, and user:PiCo likewise seems to oppose any such change. Therefore, I'm afraid we're just going to have to leave the article as it is. ^Ol^Ja 10:53, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Two points here:

• "You have a source that has a very strong point of view, such that it excludes other points of view. Oldstone James contested it, but you note the source does in fact have that point of view. So what to do? put diverging view in separate subtopics, almost like two articles in the same page." This is not what the guideline on contradictory sources says. Per Undue weight: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." ... "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence. However, when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both points of view and work for balance. This involves describing the opposing views clearly, drawing on secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint."
• "One can describe the narrative for what it is, without passing judgement on its truthfulness, etc." On debate is the historicity of the narrative, not its truthfulness. Are the persons/characters and events of this narrative part of history, or part of historical myth, legend, or fiction? Is there anybody who supports the historicity of Yahweh or of Adam? Dimadick ( talk) 11:34, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Important correction: the historicity of the narrative, like its truthfulness, is irrelevant. The narrative may be mostly fiction historically speaking, but the original intent may still have been for the narrative to be history. Since there is so much confusion about what I'm actually arguing for, let me give you this example: Alice says, "United Kingdom was first discovered by humankind in the 19th century". This assertion most certainly lacks any historicity. However, it was still intended to be read as historical; therefore, reading this statement historically is not misreading it. This is what I'm arguing for: that reading the narrative historically is not misreading it. This assertion is supported by both the article itself and the quoted RS that I have listed previously. ^Ol^Ja 12:21, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

You need to show a reliable source that claims the myth was intended to be taken literally. A source that says it was intended to be "ancient history" or "ancient science" is not good enough. jps ( talk) 16:25, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, then I can just say that Waltke, likewise, is not a good enough source. Just saying a source isn't good enough isn't a strong argument – all sources that I have provided are good, reliable sources. You need to explain why the sources that I gave you are not good enough. Saying ancient science texts or ancient history texts were not intended to be taken literally is false (take a look at their wiki articles), so you need a better argument. Furthermore, you still haven't addressed the contradiction within the article that I have pointed out. ^Ol^Ja 17:07, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Your sources are fine, they just do not say what you need them to say to justify your proposed edit. jps ( talk) 18:31, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Oldstone James has been blocked for a month at his request. Doug Weller talk 10:00, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

This is the part where I take up Oldstone Jame's position. Specifically, I am asking to make the two edits he wanted to. As I stated before:

I strongly disagree that Oldstone James is being tendentious. In general practice on Bible related articles on Wikipedia, the content of the article summarizes either the Biblical information or the modern scholarship. Usually the less important, niche subjects summarize the Biblical information and the more important ones summarize modern scholarship. Oldstone James is looking to shift the article somewhat away from the latter and more towards the former. The several other editors won't let him do this on the grounds that if he does, it will be promoting Creationism, which is generally considered a fringe scientific position on scientific articles in Wikipedia. This is a misreading of the WP:Fringe policy due to the fact that this an article about a Bible story instead of a scientific article. However, due to the multiplicity of editors backing this proposition, the article currently reflects this misreading of WP:Fringe.

On the talk page, I suggested that Oldstone James could write a new section for the article reflecting the missing point of view. He declined, preferring to make even a more modest adjustment, stating "A simple solution to this problem would be to simply rephrase the two controversial statements that reading historically is misreading so as to avoid WP:WIKIVOICE." This is a much more minor tweaking than I suggested to solve the problem. In fact, it barely changes the position of the article at all and if I were him I would say it wouldn't be worth my time.

If Oldstone James was being tendentious he would be insisting for more broad changes rather than more minor ones. As for the criticism of his sources, this is an example of someone playing mind games. His sources are fine, and the view he is using is already dominant on many of the more minor-importance Bible topic articles without any feuding.

Arbitrary section break: wikivoice

My opinion is that, however well-sourced the current page is, the claims it makes are very strong on one particular POV, such that using WP:WIKIVOICE is highly inappropriate. As such it prevents effective expansion of the article with other points of view.-- Epiphyllumlover ( talk) 19:33, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, what sources are you claiming support your edits and exactly how do they do so? jps ( talk) 21:06, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

It seems to me that the first issue to address is why we are asserting in Wikipedias voice that one group is "misreading" Genesis. That is an opinion, not a scientifically verifiable fact, and should be attributed to whoever said it, per WP:WIKIVOICE. This is an ancient text that has been argued over for thousands of years. There are no contemporary witnesses to explain how it was originally understood.-- agr ( talk) 17:19, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

If all the sources that are reliable say it is a misreading, for Wikipedia's purposes it is a misreading. This has nothing to do with scientific fact. It has to do with attribution of genre, as far as I can tell. jps ( talk) 20:10, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Adding a small source to the heap, "What Genesis is Really About". NCSE. 4 March 2016. – per WP:WIKIVOICE, "Avoid stating facts as opinions. Uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertions made by reliable sources should normally be directly stated in Wikipedia's voice. .... the passage should not be worded in any way that makes it appear to be contested." If it's an ancient text that has been argued over for thousands of years, then there should be plenty of published sources showing if the issue is still contested in expert opinion. As for there being "no contemporary witnesses", feel sure I've seen that argument somewhere not entirely unrelated to this topic...... dave souza, talk 21:03, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

So, let me lay all my cards on the table here: first, I have some education in this realm. Just enough to be dangerous. Thus I usually avoid the more contentious corners. I approach the bible from a more academic and humanist viewpoint. That being said, I had some sympathy for the arguments of Oldstone James, Epiphyllumlover, and ArnoldReinhold (and others, I am sure). I was a bit uneasy with the strong stance seemingly taken by the Wikipedia voice here. So, I set out to find sources for the per contra position. I have put some time in, but thus far, it has only been online and in my personal library. I am having no luck finding any reliable sources for the proposition that the book was intended to be read literally. They may well be out there, but I confess, I am surprised at my difficulty. I sort of echo jps and dave souza here; we need more sources before making the proposed changes. Cheers all. Dumuzid ( talk) 21:12, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

See the references section on Historical-grammatical method if you want references for another interpretation method. These interpretation methods are used for the entire Bible, and that is enough.-- Epiphyllumlover ( talk) 16:06, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

One does not need a source to assert that a text means what is says. It is the contrary view that needs support. There are dozens of English translations of the Hebrew Bible. Here is a site that compares 37 of them: [33] In all the ones I checked, Genesis 1 describes the world as being created in six days, without any interpretation otherwise. The NCSE "What Genesis is Really About" article linked above say: "Read through the eyes of the people who wrote it, Genesis 1 would seem very different from the way most people today would tend to read it — including evolutionists who may dismiss it as a pre-scientific account of origins, and creationists who may try to defend it as the true science and literal history of origins." He thus acknowledges that both pro- and anti-religion groups read the text literally. Indeed some atheists would dismiss the experts you all seem to prefer as apologists for religion. And the NCSE author's view about what the people who wrote Genesis 1 thought is just informed opinion, not fact. Indeed his thesis is that the purpose of Genesis 1 was to establish monotheism; other would argue that the purpose was to justify the Sabbath day of rest. No one can say with factual certainty what was on the mind of an author 2500+ years ago. Wikipedia should not attempt to do so.-- agr ( talk) 14:30, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

We're not interested in your speculative thoughts about mind-reading, what Wikipedia requires is expert opinion published in reliable sources. The clear majority view is that the various recent "literal" readings misunderstand what the texts meant in the original context. If there's any controversy about that, scholarly good-quality sources are needed to give any weight to any supposed controversy. . . dave souza, talk 15:00, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

See the references section on Historical-grammatical method if you want references for another interpretation method. These interpretation methods are used for the entire Bible, and that is enough.-- Epiphyllumlover ( talk) 16:06, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

No, it's not enough. You need to show that there is a reliable source that directly contradicts what the sources we are currently use are saying: that those kinds of literal interpretation of these passages are not misreadings. jps ( talk) 16:33, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

The problem as I see it, Epiphyllumlover, is that there are a plethora of sources saying that literal interpretations (historical-grammatical or other hermeneutics) exist, and are a thing. But saying a thing exists is not to say it is proper or preferred (is-ought, anyone?). We have sources here that say the bible should NOT be read this way, I am having trouble finding one that it says it SHOULD. There are lots that say "some people interpret it literally," but we're missing that last logical jump to "it SHOULD be read literally." But I could also be way off base. Cheers all, and happy Friday. Dumuzid ( talk) 17:31, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

@ Dumuzid: Just saying: what about the authors mentioned in the Wiki article themselves? Brevard Childs believes it can be read as history, while Speiser believes it can be read as ancient science. Also, you don't need sources that say it SHOULD be read literally to falsify the statement "reading the Genesis creation narrative literally is misreading it". You just need sources that say it COULD, which itself means "one can read the Genesis creation narrative literally without misreading it". Besides, there are also plenty of sources suggesting it SHOULD be read literally. See my earlier replies to jps. Speiser, for example, asserts what's described in Genesis is part of the prevalent model of cosmology at the time. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲} _{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 22:22, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

If you could point me a bit more specifically, I would appreciate it. I have scanned the sources, but I will be the first to admit my search was not exhaustive. And I disagree with your next point; in order to contradict sources saying "a literal reading is misleading" we need something saying the opposite, not something saying "many people interpret this literally." People (myself included) are prone to misreadings and mistakes. The popularity of horoscopes in newspapers does not imply that astrology is a verifiable science. I'll look again at Speiser, but saying Genesis comports with the cosmology of the time doesn't get us far. We still need to take that further leap of someone saying that the cosmologies of the time were intended to be taken literally. Again, I confess, I am surprised we're having as hard a time as we are coming up with something decent on this. Also, let me point out that I am, as ever, just a single voice. If you can get a consensus of editors to agree with you over my assessment, I will neither kvetch nor cavil. Cheers. Dumuzid ( talk) 00:40, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. The sources we have indicate that the literal interpretation is flatly incorrect whereas I see no sources which disagree with this assessment. jps ( talk) 18:29, 26 April 2019 (UTC)