The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep.  Sandstein  11:15, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Early Israelite Campaigns[edit]

Early Israelite Campaigns (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Still unreferenced although article was created in 2011 Editor2020, Talk 04:36, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WP:MUST? StAnselm (talk) 04:54, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the reason that the sources have not been provided, and probably will not be provided, is the archaeological consensus that an Israelite invasion and conquest of Canaan did not happen. Editor2020, Talk 05:38, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the vast majority of scholars don't think the conquest per book of Joshua ever happened - see that article for sources. Also this article is poorly defined - what exactly is "early"? Plus of course it has no sources and is in any case extremely thin.PiCo (talk) 07:53, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, PiCo, I added sources, see below or in article. Articles don't need to be about things that actually happened (cc: Editor2020), we have articles on fiction, the question is whether there are reliable secondary sources that address this as a specific topic, right? ProfGray (talk) 15:17, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete There is nothing substantive here, and nothing worth saving. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:44, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (chat) @ 20:18, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete let's not forget that WP:MUST is just an essay; it does say "it's enough to show that those sources exist". This fails WP:V and it's already discussed at History of ancient Israel and Judah. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:29, 1 January 2015 (UTC) Changing to Keep based on the excellent work of ProfGray and Editor2020. It still needs work but it looks far better. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:03, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Chris Troutman . I do think the topic can be verified by the sources I've added below. I've looked at the linked article and it doesn't really give this much treatment. Thanks, ProfGray (talk) 15:17, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Currently, this article is based on the Biblical narrative alone. Hence, its content could be inserted into (is that a merge?) Israelites#Biblical Israelites, which is a synopsis of that section of the Hebrew Bible. However, this could easily be a Keep because this topic can be based on such sources as:

• Albright, William F. "The Israelite conquest of Canaan in the light of archaeology." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1939): 11-23.
• Wright, G. Ernest. "Archaeological News and Views: Hazor and the Conquest of Canaan." The Biblical Archaeologist 18.4 (1955): 106-108.
• Van Seters, John. "Joshua's campaign of Canaan and near eastern historiography." Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 4.2 (1990): 1-12.
• Dever, William G. Who were the early Israelites, and where did they come from?. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003.
• Hess, Richard S. "The Jericho and Ai of the Book of Joshua." Critical Issues in Early Israelite History (2008): 29-30.
• Kennedy, Titus Michael. "The Israelite conquest: history or myth?: an achaeological evaluation of the Israelite conquest during the periods of Joshua and the Judges." (2011). http://uir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/5727
• Levin, Yigal. "3 The wars of Joshua." War and Peace in Jewish Tradition: From the Biblical World to the Present (2012): 37.

In other words, this is a notable topic in the academic study of the Hebrew Bible, so maybe the article can be improved instead of deleted? If you don't mind, I could add the sources and a sentence, but I don't want to write it up at the moment. Thanks! ProfGray (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Edits. Okay, I added this lead sentence: "Biblical narratives of an Israelite conquest have long been a subject of religious inquiry and, in the 20th century, a debate over the archaeological evidence and historicity of the putative conquest. " Also added the 6 sources above. Is that sufficient to Keep it?

Btw, in a few weeks I start teaching this Hebrew Bible course , so maybe y'all could persuade my students to improve this or similar Hebrew Bible stubs? Thanks. ProfGray (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just added another 13 reliable secondary sources on this topic. See there. Should these be in alpha, chronological, or topical order? Thanks. ProfGray (talk) 14:59, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:57, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 14:09, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 14:09, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Israel-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 14:11, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Can I ask what this course actually is? You've put a lot of work into it, but I'm not sure I'd ever use Wikipedia as the basis for a university course. Anyway, the point of bibliographies on Wikipedia is to allow readers to verify information - so they're the books etc used in the article, not a general reading list. You could possibly get your students to collaborate on a new article on the Conquest narrative - we don't seem to have one at the moment - but "early conquest" is too narrow. Also, be careful of your sources - Albright and Wright, for example, are well out of date. PiCo (talk) 21:13, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. You might be right that "early" is unnecessary, but that's a renaming not a deletion question. For sure, Albright and Wright should be used only to report on the shift in scholarly assessments. I just added the sources to show Notability and WP:RS for the article. I don't know which would be refs for the article body and which in a Further Reading section. I'd be glad to start a Talk thread with you about the course. Cheers, ProfGray (talk) 21:24, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per PiCo and Cullen328. This article is nothing but a title, a sentence, and a reading list – which is not an article by Wikipedia standards. The title of the page does not reflect the lead or the purpose of the article at all. Yoninah (talk) 23:02, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge and Redirect into both Book of Joshua#Themes and genre and/or Book of Judges#Themes and genre as that is where this "early conquest" is primarily recorded. There is yet time for better more independent articles such as this as it seems WP is neither ready nor mature enough for a full presentation of the topic that gives Biblical accounts "equal time" with extreme anti-religious hodge-podge bigotry. Keep [article has subsequently been brought up to speed.] WP is not here to "prove" or "disprove" the veracity of the Hebrew Bible and the Tanakh based on vague and purely secular-oriented prejudiced POV theories that reek of WP:DONTLIKEIT and WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 09:24, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete -- This article consists of an introduction; a stub on Ai; and a long bibliography. Te bibliography might be useful if it were supporting something but essentially it has no substantive content. I gather that there is difficulty in relating the Biblical account to archaeology, or at least the accepted archaeological interpretation. Accordingly, there is nothing to use apart from Joshua. I would love to able to support the existence of an article such as this, but the present one cannot be allowed to survive. Peterkingiron (talk) 13:19, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

More analysis based on sources. In response to Peterkingiron and others (cf. Yoninah) requesting substantive content, I have added a few paragraphs so far using the reliable sources. Let me know what you think, thanks! Diff here [1] thanks ProfGray (talk) 15:08, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep as this is clearly a topic of academic and religious study, and archaeology and there is a specific plan to expand it.Legacypac (talk) 07:54, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep but tag as incomplete. The historical (as opposed to historiographic) content of the article is far too brief. Ai was not the whole of the campaign. However the detailed discussion on the historicity of the accounts is well worth having. This is something that cannot conveniently be accommodated in an article on the book of Joshua. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:47, 16 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. The article has been transformed since it was first brought to AfD. It is a topic of academic and archaeological study and debate, and text and sources now reflect that. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 02:24, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Although the article should be expanded, it's notable and has enough sources from archaeologists and scholars to justify its existence.--Ashurbanippal (talk) 03:40, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.