Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matthew 4:14

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. Another one where it's far from clear from the debate whether it should stand alone, be merged or hacked about a bit. Certainly no consensus to delete, and I'm not happy declaring an 'editorial' outcome in the face of so much disagreement. -Splash^talk 01:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Biblecruft. Content is

• Two translations of the verse
• 1 sentence stating what was in the previous verse
• 1 sentence stating that Matthew 4:14 is the 14th verse of the 4th chapter of Matthew
• Statement that the verse introduces an Old Testament prophecy (because obviously the big clue in the translations - "spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying" - isn't enough to tell you that)

This is all it is ever going to say. --User talk:FDuffy 14:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete --User talk:FDuffy 14:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• 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:

• 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]

Why? This verse is clearly not notable. And if they didn't end in consensus it appears the reason was because too many were discussed at once.

And notability is not a reason to delete articles, see Wikipedia:Notability. Wikipedia also does not delete stubs, which seems to be the reason you are nominating these. - SimonP 14:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As for the list you give. Matthew 4:14 is not John 20:16, it isn't amongst John 20, it isn't Matthew 2:1-16, it isn't Genesis 1:1, it isn't amongst Matthew 1, so really much of that is a red herring. --User talk:FDuffy 14:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone could argue that articles on the Gospel of John should be kept does no also mean that articles in the Gospel of Matthew should also be retained. The worthiness for encyclopedia articles is identical. - SimonP 14:52, 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 14:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

As with the others this may be a stub, but there is still considerable room for expansion. It is also useful to have this article for ease of readability, as some readers will want to read several verses in order. While this verse might be short, those around it are quite substantial. Deleting the stubs breaks the navigation bar at the bottom of the article, and prevents readers from moving from Matthew 4:13 to Matthew 4:15 and beyond. Having the ability to read verses in order is an important compromise for those who feel these subjects need more context than a single verse offers. - SimonP 15:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The navigation bar at the bottom of the article is POV. It seems to suggest that there is something automatically noteworthy about all verses in the bible. Verses were created in the mediaeval era. The division is entirely artificial, as acknowledged by many modern bibles which re-arrange verses into paragraphs and quotes, reading verses in order is NOT the purpose of an encyclopedia. --User talk:FDuffy 15:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Organization by verses is still the universal scholarly standard. It is far better to go with this than try to develop our own divisions, which would infinitely more POV. All verses may not be noteworthy, but there is no notability requirement. Verifiability is a requirement, but with the vast literature on Biblical criticism, writing a verifiable non-original research article on each verse is quite straightforward. - SimonP 16:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep unless a policy-level decision 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]

This vote is just about this particular verse-article, not those of any religious text, and not about deleting all verses. --User talk:FDuffy 15:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete I don't think we need an article for each individual bible verse. -- MisterHand 15:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as per SimonP. There is no reason to delete this. If it can not be expanded, it can be merged later. u p p l a n d 16:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Whole bible in wikisource, this verse is just another verse. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 17:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Contra Uppland, I cannot see that this merits merging with the rest. The project is miguided. JGF Wilks 17:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. What's important is the meaning of the whole work, not one particular verse analyzed in isolation. (corollary: Prooftexting is a logical fallacy.) Haikupoet 19:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete or merge anything worthwhile Dlyons493 Talk 20:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep we have had this debate already -Doc ^ask? 22:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC) see Wikipedia:Bible verses[reply]

Maybe you should tell the truth. The consensus at that vote 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 04:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't accuse me of lying. I provided the link - people can read it for themsleves. Depite the fact that you engineered the poll to support your deletion nominations, there was a consensus than 'notable Bible verses should be included' and no consensus as to the number that were notable. --Doc ^ask? 16:26, 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 01:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. We need more like this. -- JJay 02:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge or Delete - A list of old testament references in the new testament, or a short description of Matthew, but the verse itself seems unworthy of an article. --Golbez 03:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This verse has already been a topic of an AfD - with decision to keep. See Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Individual_Bible_verses. Article part of Project akin to Wikipedia missing encyclopedia project/Easton's. —ERcheck @ 03:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you'd like to check the actual count of the votes at the bottom of that VfD, and Sjakkelle's comment below, you will realise that the closing admin was really quite biased, and the true outcome of the VfD was quite the opposite. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 16:11, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Factually accurate and verifiable. There has already been precedent to keep articles on bible verses. Oldak Quill 03:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as not notable, if not then Transwiki to Wikisource, and create a Centralised Discussion so that the issue can be settled. -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 05:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, no convincing basis presented for deletion. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. The Bible is a major book and people might look up the verses in the encyclopedia for information on them. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That isn't an argument for the verses existing as seperate articles, just one suggesting that we should have redirects to suitable articles covering at least that verse but also covering other additional verses. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 16:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge. Yes, the Bible is a major book, 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! - <*> 08:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge or Delete Merge into an appropriate article or delete as non-notable verse. -- jaredwf 11:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete...is it that notable of a verse? KHM03 11:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete/Merge not significant enough for a standalone article. CarbonCopy (talk) 23:10, 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 01:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong delete we don't need an article for each sentence of Harry Potter book. Let's not go down the slippery slope.  Grue  09:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete verses of the bible are an artificial construct. Passages from the bible, yes, whole psalms, yes, but individual verses on their own are trivia. Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 12:08, 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 18:21, 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 20:49, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom --kingboyk 23:17, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep.--ragesoss 00:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. this is a very interesting project. Kingturtle 05:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete agree that individual verses are rarely notable, and this one is certainly not. We going to have every hadith next? Eusebeus 18:22, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, merging any new information into Book of Matthew. SimonP's arguments are not persuasive. -- nae'blis _(talk) 19:35, 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.