Talk:Historicity of the Bible

Dever

@Pbritti: I thought the general understanding is that we are not allowed to closely paraphrase our sources. Do you have a problem with that? Your requirement that "quite conservative" and "mainstream" should be found verbatim in the WP:RS is thus absurd, according to WP:PAGs. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:32, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

For someone who is very vocal about their understanding of the rules, you seem to have neglected to review WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:BLP. Additionally, starting a noticeboard discussion immediately invites questions of forum-shopping. ~ Pbritti (talk) 21:54, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Careful about WP:ASPERSIONS. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:56, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

There is sufficient evidence in your degree of experience and failure to follow appropriate procedure to suggest there may be an issue. Regardless, follow BLP. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:01, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

You take WP:OR and WP:BLP to absurd extent. Please address it rather than pontificating that I don't obey rules I have learned many years ago. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:03, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

There's nothing in the source about "mainstream" but it does characterize Dever as one of the more conservative historians of ancient Israel. Does that help? Schazjmd (talk) 22:07, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

And it also characterizes archaeologists more conservative than Dever as not being mainstream, i.e. doing apologetics instead of science. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:09, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

The appropriate phrasing in this case wouldn't be "quite conservative but mainstream". You can leave it at "more conservative". If you want to contrast him with archaeologists who are even more conservative, you use the content of the cited article to note the characteristics of these hyper-conservatives. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Again, I'm not defending a particular wording, but the WP:RS makes the following points:

• Dever is a conservative archaeologist;
• archaeologists more conservative than Dever do apologetics, not historiography. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:18, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Then use the wording that is verifiable. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:25, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

WP:V according to what: verbatim words or meaning? tgeorgescu (talk) 22:27, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

No set of words present mean "mainstream". "Quite conservative" departs from the source (and isn't standard in encyclopedic English). ~ Pbritti (talk) 23:02, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: I think it would be in place to note how Dever defines himself in the paper which you brought to this Wikipedia article:

Somewhat later, Finkelstein charged that I had gone to Gezer, Bible in one hand and trowel in the other, to “prove the Bible.” He ignored the fact that for nearly twenty years I had been challenging the older-style “biblical archaeology” in a series of publications.⁷ I am a very secular humanist, not a theist, and I have no interest whatsoever in “saving” either Solomon or the Bible.

Dever nowhere describes himself as a "conservative" in his paper on Solomon. On the contrary, he says he does not have any interest in defending the historicity of biblical narratives. Thus, I find very objectionable that he should be described as a "conservative", especially without clarifying what we mean by "conservative" in this context. Potatín5 (talk) 22:49, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to rephrasing those terms, but readers of archaeological papers know that Dever leans conservative. He is not a fundamentalist or inerrantist, but inside mainstream archaeology he occupies the maximalist flank. That's of course relative, since there are full-blown maximalists who are way more conservative than him. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:07, 25 April 2024 (UTC)