Talk:Books of Chronicles

Identified as vandalism? That was a little harsh.
As I mentioned in the edit summary, throughout the article, Chronicles is repeatedly referred to in the singular, thus (also mentioned in the edit summary) there is probably a need to discuss the plural vs singular question in Talk (I guess this thread will do). If we change the (grammatical) number in the lede, we would need to go through the entire article and change the number throughout. This (reading throughout the article) being needed has been demonstrated by both your initial edit, changing that lede sentence, as well as your revert to my edit (identified as vandalism??? that still stings). In both cases, you changed "it" to "they" but kept the verb "appears" in singular form (id est "they appears" — an ungrammatical construction). Even further, with both that first edit and with all your subsequent revert and edits, you left the word "book" — in the very same sentence — in the singular. Thus, a simple "it"»"they" mass change would not be sufficient. Thus, part of the reason why I edited it back after your initial edit, and part of the reason for the edit summary I gave for it. — al-Shimoni (talk) 23:38, 23 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

The "vandalism" revert was a totally accidental application of Twinkle's rollback function; I reverted my own rollback and did it manually to make that clear. I never thought your edit was any type of vandalism whatsoever, so let me offer you my apologies for that. My preferred solution would be to refer to Chronicles in the singular throughout the article, if possible. I propose we make those changes to the article and then move to Book of Chronicles rather than the current title. Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 23:44, 23 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

"Book of Chronicles" would work well, I would support that. The article already mentions that it is found in both a single book form (notably among Jewish versions) and as a double book form (with Christian versions, but not always), so changing the body of the article wouldn't be much of an issue. However, this would also suggest that Books of Samuel and Books of Kings may want to do likewise; I notice the use of singular in those articles, as well, and are found in single book forms. Each of those, as well as this one, would each need some kind of consensus on a move (possibly not an easy thing, some folks are passionate about the form they grew up with). :) — al-Shimoni (talk) 00:23, 24 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

Samuel and Kings would certainly need to be moved as well, if we establish a precedent here. If it's an issue of whether the singular (one-book) or plural (two-book) form is used most often, the standard Christian two-book division probably wins out there. However, as far as I know, the practice of dividing them into two books each originated with the LXX, so historically, the one-book form is more true to how the text originated. I'll have to do some reading on titling procedures in cases like this. If you're open to getting one or more move discussions rolling, don't feel you have to wait for me. :) Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 08:53, 24 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

I am in favor of the singular. If a book is too large and we have to divide it into two parts, these are called "Title" part 1 and "Title" part 2. So the title is still "Title". Debresser (talk) 10:28, 26 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

Support merge move though it probably should have been done through WP:RM. Book of Kings needs to be moved to Book of Kings (disambiguation). But the singular designation is the most common approach in scholarship and few people would say "Books of Samuel" anyway - "1 and 2 Samuel" is more common. StAnselm (talk) 02:15, 27 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

For Evan2008 or Imeriki al-Shimoni. Please continue, which English language Bible/Tanakh translations/versions have only 1 book of Chronicles? In ictu oculi (talk) 17:42, 27 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

Hi Evan2008 No evidence has been produced that any English Bible version exists, Christian or Jewish (or even a Messianic Jewish Bible version) which doesn't follow the standard "First Samuel" "First Kings" distinction, and the same usage is still current in mainstream scholarly texts and SBS style:

"Do the books of Chronicles and those of Samuel and Kings share a common source? Do the books of Chronicles draw upon and rework only the available materials of Samuel and Kings? Framing the issue in terms of a set of rabbinic... Jacob Neusner Neusner on Judaism: Literature 2005 Page 17

I'm sorry but this is a very major rename on WP. Even if there are twenty supports here it shouldn't be done on the basis of users agreeing with claims made in the proposal which are demonstrably incorrect by simple checks on Amazon.com and Google Scholar. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:52, 5 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

No need to be sorry, but have you read this, and can you disprove Imeriki's statement about the unreliability of Google results when it comes to establishing the common names of the books in question? If you can't do that, then we will go by consensus regardless of what you happen to think is true.

Here are Google Scholar results for "Book of Kings", excluding individual terms (note the references to "Persian Book of kings" and "A king's book of kings". As near as I can tell, it's next to impossible to remove the results pertaining to the extra-biblical texts without otherwise compromising the results. If I'm entering these wrong, let me know.

I'm more than open to being proven wrong; you successfully proved me wrong regarding the NJPS (though I have yet to determine why my copy of the same work lists it differently), so keep them coming. If you know how to make Google Scholars results workable in spite of Imeriki's comments and our own policy on the matter., then please let me know. And I don't mean that sarcastically or facetiously; if I'm wrong, I genuinely want to know. Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 23:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Hi Evan2008

Good to be open :) I like your attitude.

What is the ISBN of your copy of NJPS?

With Google Scholar the trick is that you need to put in the variables using quote marks in the third box of Advanced Search named: "[with at least one of the words: ]," hence "books of kings" OR "first kings" OR "second kings" OR "1 kings" OR "2 kings" OR "I Kings" OR "II Kings" OR "first book of kings" OR "second book of kings". Compare:

"Book of Kings" Bible -First -Second 58x since 1980

1 Kings First Kings First book of kings variants 17,000 since 1980

In any case, even without Google Scholar results above this still would not really be a tenable move without a single English Bible version in support of "Book of Samuel" rather than "I Samuel" "I Kings" "I Chronicles" separated out. Cheers In ictu oculi (talk) 06:22, 6 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

The usage of First Kings or First Chronicles isn't what is contested. This usage is even used among Jewish publications because it is a handy way of locating a verse, chapter, et cætera, in a almost unanimously standard way (there is some variation in actual verse numbering in places, but nothing too drastic). But among Jews and many scholars, Chronicles (First and Second) is considered a single book, and is referred to as such. Consider, for example, a non-precise comparison with Frank Herbert's "Dune" which Herbert divides into 3 books (within the book). "Dune" is not referred to as his "books of Dune" (which would instead refer to the entire book series) but rather his "book, Dune."

With Google Scholar you are still getting results with non-related phrases, as well as eliminating pages which would be related (the same commentary I gave on Google Search applies to Scholar). Also, your search terms still conflict with what is actually contested ("First" and "Second" usage isn't disputed, it's the use of "Book" or "Books" when speaking of the entire work of Chronicles, the topic of this article).

Something I think has also been lost in this discussion is that in each of the articles (Kings, Chronicles, Samuel), the singular form of verbs/nouns/pronouns/etc is the most (almost consistently) used rather than the plural. It was this matter which originally raised the question about the titles of these articles. If we agree that the plural title be kept, we would be required (consistency per mos) to go through each article and adjust the words (not just a couple nouns such as "book") to match the title. The text of an article not being consistent with its title would be a significant inconsistency. — al-Shimoni (talk) 02:53, 7 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Hi Imeriki

Out of interest, do you own an English language Bible? Does it divide the books?

I don't know about Imeriki, but I own many English Bibles (they don't wear out very quickly even with much use), and the most recently published and purchased of all of these is The Books of the Bible.

I don't think that there's any question that most Bibles divide these books, and that putting them back together is a recent trend. However note that WP:AT#Common names reads in part If the name of a person, group, object, or other article topic changes then more weight should be given to the name used in reliable sources published after the name change than in those before the change. This article topic is in exactly that position. Andrewa (talk) 04:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

As mentioned before, the question isn't whether the book gets divided (first/second chronicles), the question is how the entire work (the topic of this article) is most commonly referred, id est "The Book  of Chronicles" or "The Books of Chronicles". Requesting bible versions is pointless since few non-ceremonial versions will lack the common verse mapping system, and (except for maybe a study bible) probably won't speak of the entire work of Chronicles (thus it would be hard to see how they refer to themselves). Scholastic and religious documents of a scholastic nature, which comment or discuss the entire work of Chronicles, are the primary source from which we'll find how the entire work is referred, so this is where we should be likely looking.

In short, whether they are divided or not is not the issue, it is the Common Name (of the entire work — the topic of this article) that is the issue. — al-Shimoni (talk) 01:21, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Yes, good point. Andrewa (talk) 03:42, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Re the search, no, afraid not, sorry I did various searches, fine-tuning it to reduce the random readings. There's no search that produces perfectly clean results on this. 58x since 1980 vs 17,000x from 1980 was a fair result. You can duplicate it if you like.

As regards Users having put "the Book of Chronicles" in wp articles, I hadn't noticed, but there's so many other problems with the Bible articles on wp that fixing a minor issue like that isn't a big priority - besides it isn't "wrong" as text, text doesn't have to abide by WP:COMMONNAME. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:59, 7 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

That wasn't what I was referring to, but rather sentences throughout the article speak of it in the singular with words such as "it" or "book" et cætera. For example "In most printed versions it is the last book in Ketuvim [...]" (the three bold words are my emphasis). We would have to figure out how to address that, whether to change it to plural forms (a lot of work, which would also introduce confusing phrases such as "[...] Chronicles are a part of the third part [...]"; if not for the capitalization this could be confused with the general word "chronicles"). If we go with the plural title, I think we will need to discuss how to approach the rest of the article regarding this issue. — al-Shimoni (talk) 01:30, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Try The Books of the Bible. Andrewa (talk) 15:59, 7 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

I'll put that next to my Hello Kitty Version :). In ictu oculi (talk) 21:59, 7 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Droll. I was of course replying to your comment No evidence has been produced that any English Bible version exists... which doesn't follow the standard "First Samuel" "First Kings" distinction. I hope you will accept this as proof that such English Bibles do exist. Andrewa (talk) 02:22, 8 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

English-language version exist that treat them as a single work, and the move demonstrably comports with policy. Are there any objections that don't involve cartoon characters? Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 04:36, 8 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Hi Andrew,

When I said that no evidence had. In fact a claim about NJPS had been made which was incorrect. But credit where credit is due, I'm impressed you managed to find a special edition of the TNIV that doesn't. But it's clearly a gimmick, just read the blurb about no chapter and verse numbers... :)

Clearly a gimmick? Come on, admit it, you were guessing that it didn't exist. Bad guess, it does and there are others. But the more important point is that such guesswork is not helpful, and you're still guessing. And it's another bad guess. TBotB is a very serious project.

But is this latest guess of yours even worth debunking? It seems to have zero relevance to the matters under discussion. Andrewa (talk) 03:20, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Andrewa

I am not sure what exactly you mean by "latest guess of yours". What was the first? Please read what I said above. I said very clearly what I said, not what you appear to have read. Please, look again.

Your first guess was that The Books of the Bible did not exist. Andrewa (talk) 19:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

As regards expecting that it wouldn't exist. On the contrary I was pretty certain that it would exist, though I was expecting it to be in one of the various Messianic Jewish versions out there, I wasn't expecting to see it as a marketing gimmick.

In other words, you guessed that TBotB didn't exist.

Have you any evidence that it is a marketing gimmick? I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but your rhetoric has now descended to the ridiculous. Andrewa (talk) 19:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

PS If I thought I'd shelled out $14.95 (AUD) on a marketing gimmick I'd be a bit peeved, but TBotB is a very useful volume and I recommend it. One thing that has puzzled me over the years has been that many Christians say they believe in the inerrancy of the Scriptures in the original manuscripts but seem to make no effort to find a Bible that is as close as possible to these original manuscripts. (Personally I have several problems with the whole concept of inerrancy, but that's another story.) Anyway, given that inerrancy is a current doctrine adopted by many Christians, TBotB fills an obvious need. But on the other hand, the verse numbers etc are extremely useful, so I'll continue to use them and expect most others will too. Andrewa (talk) 01:50, 10 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

This proposal completely fails the test of WP:COMMONNAME and the information in the proposal is misleading.

In ictu oculi (talk) 14:58, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

It may be premature, and we should give regard to scholars like Walter Brueggemann who does refer to The books of Chronicles as late as 2003 (An Introduction to the Old Testament - The Canon and Christian Imagination, ISBN 0664224121, 9780664224127). But let's discuss issues and evidence. Andrewa (talk) 19:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Evan2008

As above, this isn't an an "English-language version" this is a special edition (limited print run?) of the TNIV which does have 1 and 2 Samuel. You said you had a version of NJPS that did. What is the ISBN?

As for the move, seriously, this move doesn't go anywhere near being supported by WP:COMMONNAME - there is no mainstream Bible version that does this, Google scholar doesn't do this, Google Books don't do this. So what exactly is the argument for moving counter common usage and counter all English Bible versions (including TNIV), Jewish and Christian? In ictu oculi (talk) 09:57, 8 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

For the record, my copy is of the JPS. It is an electronic text and as far as I can tell doesn't have an ISBN or other identifying mark. There's a screenshot of the thing here if you want to see it.

But more importantly, since when is this an article about an English text, anyway? I realize we have to go by secondary data, but when did secondary data start overriding reality? Presumably this article is about the same Book of Chronicles that originated in the Hebrew language as a single text, so why does the fact that translations divide the material have any bearing on what the text was originally? As an example, the Lord of the Rings is a novel that was originally (and is still very often) released in three separate volumes as a trilogy. If you asked an average person off the street, or a casual fan of the films, they would probably tell you that Tolkien's work was a trilogy, but our article does not reflect this misconception. The fact that various publishers (and foreign translators, as well) have decided to divide the work for convenience's sake has no bearing on the fact that it was composed as a single work. I'm not even going to address GS again, as the results are clearly compromised. Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 21:03, 8 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

In case others didn't notice, there's also The Modern Reader's Bible (at Google Books here), which combines Chronicles with Ezra-Nechemiah and presents Samuel and Kings as a single narrative. I think this is peripherally relevant to the subject at hand. Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 21:24, 8 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

With the two comments I today added to this thread above in mind, I think I'll also comment on the combined versions you just mentioned. While Ezra-Neḥemia is known to have been a combined work, I'm not sure about Ezra-Neḥemiah combined with Chronicles, although I do know these two (Ch & Ez-Ne) are thought to probably come from the same author or school of authors. However, Ezra-Neḥemia is found on Wikipedia in three articles Book of Ezra, Book of Nehemiah, and Ezra-Nehemia where the latter discusses the two divisions as the whole work. To have the equivalent for Chronicles would add a separate page each for First Book of Chronicles and Second Book of Chronicles (currently these two pages redirect to the combined "Books of Chronicles" rather than discussing those divisions on their own). There's nothing wrong with discussing each division on its own as long as the division is significant enough to have its own section. Division is not the issue with the title of this article, it is what is the most common name for the entire work of Chronicles (the subject of this article). — al-Shimoni (talk) 03:38, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Ignoring any redactional history, "combined" may not be the appropriate word for me to use above since they are considered to have been a single work. — al-Shimoni (talk) 03:40, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Is there any question that they are a single work? The division was originally simply a matter of the work being too long to fit on a single scroll. The five scrolls were similarly short enough to fit on one scroll, but we don't consider them a single work just because of that. Andrewa (talk) 03:53, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Hi Evan2008, that is not an accurate copy of JPS, that is a Messianic Jewish believer's website, and he is almost certainly breaking US copyright, depending on when the authors died, even without chopping the JPS about.

Hi Imeriki al-Shimoni, the most common name is "1 and 2 Chronicles" or "Chronicles I and II" as St Anselm said. But Evan2008 hasn't proposed those names.

Hi Andrewa, 1 and 2 Chronicles were once 1 work, yes. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:40, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Hi IIO, is that change of tense intentional? Surely the issue here is the current situation? Is there any reason to think that they somehow became two works at some stage, as your use of the past tense subtly assumes?

The volume numbers, like the chapter and verse numbers, are just used to help to locate particular passages. Similarly, in a reference to a printed multi-volume encyclopedia, we will give a volume number and a page number.

At the risk of labouring a point, you don't seem to have addressed the question: Is there any question that they are a single work?. That surely is relevant? Andrewa (talk) 19:25, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

I don't quite know what you mean. Yes 1 and 2 Chronicles were once 1 work, yes. Since 300BCE they've been numbered as separate books. It'd be relevant if we the majority of GS sources had corrected modern usage to reflect that. But they haven't. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:38, 10 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Again you are playing with words. There is no dispute that they were once 1 work. The question here (which is itself peripheral to the discussion but which you yourself raised) is, what is the situation now? Are they (note the present tense, please) one work or two? Or don't you see it as relevant? Andrewa (talk) 20:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Mechon Mamre is absolutely not a Messianic organization. They're very much Orthodox, and do not hold to any beliefs concerning anyone, particularly Jesus, being the Jewish messiah. They address the concept of Jesus as Messiah quite specifically on their site, stating that "Jews know that Jesus could not possibly have been the mashiach. Assuming that he existed, and assuming that the Christian scriptures are accurate in describing him (both of which are debatable), he simply did not fulfill the mission of the mashiach as Jews have always understood it." I have no clue where your claim guess of them being Messianic comes from.

I'm not sure about copyright. But at any rate, it's clear that the JPS divided the books originally, so your point is now moot. At what point did the Book of Chronicles cease to be a single work? Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 02:32, 10 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

You're correct. I incorrectly assumed they were Messianic Jews from having seen Messianic Jews in the past use it. It is however still a fringe website which has chopped about JPS.

And yes, maybe it's a shame that something as ahistorical as 1 and 2 Chronicles was introduced by the Septuagint, and perpetuated by the majority of English sources. But WP doesn't have a "WP:correct usage back to 300BCE" guideline. Lots of ancient books have modern names. This RM is never going to pass because the majority of GS sources and all mainstream versions have plural books. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:38, 10 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Agree that the RM above (which this section is discussing but of which it is not part so far as I can see, by your choice of formatting above) is unlikely to pass, there is no consensus to move likely so far as I can see, and there are policy based arguments both ways... but that's not my call. I wouldn't be confident that the the closing admin will even read this section, there seems no reason that they need to.

But several things about your arguments still fascinate me. Elsewhere, n the matter of diacritics, it is often argued that including them makes the name more accurate. You often participate in these discussions, and I can't off-hand recall whether you have ever proposed this argument yourself, but you certainly have not supported my many appeals to either abide by the policy or (preferably) change it.

Is the accuracy of those diacritics in the article titles an issue? If so, isn't that also a consideration here, in that any suggestion that Kings is two works is both inaccurate and misleading? And if not, shouldn't the same apply to the many discussions on diacritics? Andrewa (talk) 20:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

There are several differences between a living person, such as François Hollande, and a 2,600 year old religious text. The vast majority of wp Users interpret "We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high quality sources" "German for German politicians" and so on, to mean that anglicizing a living persons name because it gets anglicized in English trash-sources, tabloids, websites and so on, isn't encyclopedic.

But as regards restoring a 2,600-2,300 BCE name for a book, that's an issue of religious correctness, something that has to be driven/led by modern source usage. Otherwise we'd be going over every religion restoring what was religiously correct. And we'd have a 101 different POVs as to what was. If the Book of Chronicles was a living person I for one would view the issue differently, yes. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Of course, if we really wanted to be accurate, the title of this article wouldn't be "Books of Chronicles" or "Book of Chronicles", but "דברי הימים" (or, to use the plural, דברים הימים), but that would violate our naming convention on books. Shouldn't we be as accurate as possible within the constraints of policy? I have yet to see a response to either of these policies, and would be interested in how you might think about their relevancy here.

Wikipedia:Religion doesn't appear to be a policy, it has been labelled a working draft for over a year, and there are some active discussions at Wikipedia talk:Religion. Andrewa (talk) 07:35, 11 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

I'll ask again: why does the fact that translations divide the work mean that it ceases to be a single work? Why do you believe that we have a different standard for accuracy in titling BLP articles? Why is the most common anglicization of Hollande's name not relevant for the purposes of his article, but the Hellenization and anglicization of דברי הימים is for this one? Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 22:49, 10 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Matters of religious belief or correctness do not come into it, any more than matters of musical taste affect the title of the noise music article. Many would dispute that this is music at all, but the authorities call it music, and we follow this usage. Andrewa (talk) 07:36, 11 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Much ado about nothing, in my view. The article treats the book(s) as the single work that it is, and in any event, both a "Book" version and a "Books" version would have to redirect to the same place anyway. Handle this issue in the lede, if you absolutely must. But I'd personally save editing energy for articles that really need work. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:59, 22 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Can anyone please revise the last three sentences of the section ORIGINS, because the logic does not make sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.134.197.47 (talk) 15:27, 23 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I notice that an IP editor has changed the occurrences of "BCE" to "BC". Now, that's fair enough, because the article originally had "BC" - see WP:ERA. Looking through the edit history, it's not really anyone's fault - content was added with "BCE", and then the BCs were changed to make the article consistent. But it means we should discuss it here in order to get consensus. StAnselm (talk) 03:05, 30 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Under Composition > Sources, it says: 'There is also the question of whether the author of Chronicles used sources other than those found in the Bible: if such sources existed, it would bolster the Bible's case to be regarded as a reliable history.'

This sounds like opinion rather than fact, and it doesn't logically follow. If two people wrote synopses of a Harry Potter book, it wouldn't make it more likely that Harry Potter is a factual story, merely that two people had read the same text.--Jcvamp (talk) 12:02, 22 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Zhomron Where is that policy? What's another page that uses this? GordonGlottal (talk) 23:10, 17 January 2022 (UTC)Reply