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 of the debate was no consensus --Ichiro 23:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Matthew 2:21[edit]

n.n. Bible cruft. Content is

• 1 sentence overview of previous chapters
• a pretty picture that isn't specifically tied to this verse
• 2 translations of the verse,
• A statement that the verse is almost an exact copy of the previous one - Matthew 2:20, which, b.t.w. also has an article (Matthew 2:20), though if they are so similar I really don't see why they deserve an article each

The verse is "And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel". I really don't see how this constitutes notability.

• Delete --User talk:FDuffy 14:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and I just discovered that articles have been created of many individual verses from Matthew (and perhaps other books of the Bible?) I think that only whole books and significant Bible topics should be treated in separate articles. For example, this article could be merged into Birth and Childhood of Jesus or something like that. Logophile 14:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy keep this is part of a large ongoing project, there have so far been seven separate VfDs on this issue, six ended as keep and one that ended with no consensus:

Any such "project" would seem to be moribund. This particular article hasn't been edited in five months. - Nunh-huh 08:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/John 20:16, and future Bible verses
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/John 20 and all linked verses
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 2:16 also applied to Matthew 2:1-15
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Genesis 1:1
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 1 and all similar articles
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 1:verses
• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Individual Bible verses

There have also been two lengthy centralized discussions, one at Wikipedia:Merge/Bible verses and one at Wikipedia:Bible verses. Rather than VfDing individual verses in isolation, any discussion should be brought to those pages. - SimonP 14:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is just a red herring. Those votes ended without consensus. They discussed too many articles at once. You appear to be the creator of those articles, so I can see why you think they should stay. Can you justify why this particular article constitutes a noteworthy encyclopedic entry? --User talk:FDuffy 14:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

We don't delete stubs, especially when they can be expanded. A vast, and almost incomprehensible, amount of scholarly material has been written on the Bible. For the 7,957 verses of the New Testament alone there are some 1500 journal articles and 700 books of Biblical criticism written each year. In various forms Biblical criticism has been going on for almost 2000 years. I only used about a dozen sources in my work, as other readers consult other works much more will be added to each article. - SimonP 15:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please explain how, if, as the article states, Matthew 2:21 is almost identical to Matthew 2:20, they deserve seperate articles, when they are clearly connected and say almost the same thing? --User talk:FDuffy 15:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

That sounds more like an argument for merging than deletin. I do now merge some pairs that are very closely linked, such as Matthew 5:23-4, and perhaps this one would be better with that format. - SimonP 16:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep unless a policy-level decisoion is made to remove all articles which relate to a single verse or paragraph of any religious text. Equalhandedness.--SockpuppetSamuelson 15:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete I don't think we need an article for each individual bible verse. --MisterHand 16:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep now, but consider a merge later. u p p l a n d 16:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep this one, based on the fact that it has some (little) content, beside the text, and even two references that could be used for expansion. - Liberatore(T) 16:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Bible available on wikisource. I disagree w SockpuppetSamuelson, each verse should be considered on its merits. If it is the subject of controversy, or has been used to support some political position, or if there's much to say about it's impact on culture, then an article is worthwhile. eg see Psalm_23. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 17:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Contra Liberatore's comment, the problem with this scheme from SimonP is that it is not focused onto the important biblical verses at all. There is insufficient notabliity about this material to merit any sort of merging. JGF Wilks 17:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete -- focusing on verses in isolation is meaningless and fallacious. Haikupoet 20:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as per Squiddy. Humansdorpie 20:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete This verse is an almost exact copy of the last one, expect it is in the past tense. so maybe they could be merged into a single article. Dlyons493 Talk 20:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Part of a valid project. Honbicot 21:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep we have had this debate already -Doc ^ask? 22:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And we'll keep having it again, I suspect, until ultimately Wikipedia's Bible articles are focused on meaningful units, like books of the Bible, rather than arbitrary subdivisions ("verses") created centuries after the books were written. - Nunh-huh 08:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• • Re Part of a valid project from Honbicot and we have had this debate already Doc could you expand and give links please? If this is an already-agreed policy decision then we should just live with it, whatever our individual views are - that wasn't my understanding though, so I'd appreciate being brought up to speed on this. Dlyons493 Talk 23:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, should have elabourated. User:-Ril- crusaded against Bible verses for months - all were kept, finally, he launched a poll see Wikipedia:Bible verses, which colcluded with a consenus that 'notable Bible verses' deserve articles. So unless someone want to argue that this one is 'not notable' - and I'd be willing to have that debate. --Doc ^ask? 00:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you should tell the truth. The consensus at that vote also concluded that notable Bible verses meant only a small minority OR LESS, in the order of 1-3 hundred. 200 verses from Matthew is clearly way too many in accordance with this. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 04:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete for exactly the reasons stated at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matthew 1:5 Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 22:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete or weak merge to Matthew 2:20, concentrate in important religious verses? feydey 23:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as per Just zis Guy, you know? - No Guru 23:57, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Doc. This is similar to WikiProject/missing encyclopedic articles/eastons, which is including all topics from Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), while the text of EBD is being included in Wikisource (project not completed). As to verse 20 vs verse 21, the last paragraph of the article provides the distinction between the previous verse and 2:21 and its significance. —ERcheck @ 01:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. This is simply not the way to treat books of the bible. Talk about subjects like the Genealogy of Jesus, not the verses one by one. The verse structure is a mediaeval construct. Often the books were divided into verses and chapters simply in such a way as to get a nice or significant number of them, like 50 (n.b. one of the gospels, I believe it is Mark, has 666 verses in total), rather than trying to respect the original sentence divisions. The only reason they weren't deleted/merged half a year ago is because the closing admin was biased and chose to count the vote as a keep despite the fact that twice as many people voted to delete and/or merge the articles than did to keep them. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 01:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and expand per above. Use of derogatory slang is not necessary. -- JJay 02:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, weak merge, or just merge into an article on Matthew. --Golbez 03:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Factually accurate and verifiable. There has already been precedent to keep articles on bible verses. Oldak Quill 03:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Personally, I think we should merge all articles on individual Bible verses into their respective chapters (except those that are especially notable in their own right, such as John 3:16), but the consensus seems to be in favor of separate articles. Note that this also sets a precedent: What will our response be when individual Qur'an verses start appearing? Indidividual verses of Atlas Shrugged? Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 04:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment -- At the end of the day there is very little value to individual articles on most Bible verses; there are of course exceptions, but for the most part it's logically fallacious to draw any conclusions from a verse in isolation. In addition, if an effort was made to put said verse in context (both Biblical and cultural), the resulting article would be ungainly and suffer from redundancy issues with nearby verses. If there is a precedent set for indiscriminately keeping articles on arbitrary Bible verses, then it's a bad one. If there's an acceptable level of granularity for such writing, it isn't this (except, possibly, in the case of Proverbs). (In the case of the Quran, it's likely to be by sura, though even then there's individual verses that stand out. I make no such definitive claims for the Bible, as even chapters are later emendations.) Haikupoet 04:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per Haikupoet's comment, and create a Centralised Discussion to settle the matter. -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 05:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • A previous such discussion failed to settle the issue. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: But, it did at least establish that only some verses were notable, and that those likely merit articles: see Wikipedia:Bible verses. I've seen no indication that this verse is notable, so my vote stands. -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 07:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, no convincing basis presented for deletion. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. The Bible is a major book, and the verses in them are things people may want to look up. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If they do, they should look in the Bible, then. - Nunh-huh 08:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge. The Bible is a major book, and it is good to have articles on this topic, but the division of the Bible into verses is mostly arbitrary. The most encyclopedic way of treating its content is by articles on passages or chapters. — mark ✎ 08:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete biblecruft. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 08:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• 'Delete. Articles on verses make no sense, and this one is no different. - Nunh-huh 08:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge or delete: Merge with an appropriate article or delete as non-notable verse. -- jaredwf 11:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete...is it that notable of a verse? KHM03 11:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete/Merge another article that really doesn't stand alone. CarbonCopy (talk) 23:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep, whoa whoa whoa, guys, I'm not religious at all, but the Bible (and the New Testament as part of the Bible) is the most obsessively studied and interpreted and commented upon book in human history. Every single verse has been subjected to endless hair-splitting and analysis by theologians. There is more than enough material out there for a lengthy, informative article on any bible verse. Are Bible verses less notable than individual characters from video games? I think not. Babajobu 01:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• You presume that I think characters from video games should have articles. This is a single, unimportant verse from the Bible. You might find, in a very large concordance, an analysis of every single verse in this way, but it's far more likely that you would discuss a passage rather than a verse. I can't think of very many verses which are in and of themselves notable, one being John 11:35 ("Jesus wept") which is famous mainly for being the shortest verse in the Bible. What people remember is passages, like Ps.23 or Is 9:1-6 (The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, etc. - an aria from Handel's Messiah). Individual verses are almost without exception ridiculously trivial. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 12:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. --Khoikhoi 02:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete biblecruft.  Grue  09:54, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge/Delete per nom. Wikipedia is easily changed if this article ever provokes any discussion, but we don't need hundreds of articles on bible verses when there's not much more than the verse itself there. The only bible verse article I would support is John 3:16, no other verse is a widely known. - Pureblade | ^Θ 18:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: We appear to have articles on every verse between Matthew 1-6 and John 20. I don't know if it's too much work to delete them all; deleting some of them piecemeal will leave us with a random collection of red wikilinks in the "next verse" segment of the page. It's too late for me to unravel this. No vote. Stifle 03:00, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Dsmdgold 20:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom
• Keep. Could become more substantial later, and will be useful to some people.--ragesoss 00:00, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. this is a very interesting project. Kingturtle 05:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per above. Eusebeus 18:24, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, merging any new information into Book of Matthew. SimonP's arguments are not persuasive. -- nae'blis _(talk) 19:33, 9 January 2006 (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.