Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Source criticism

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. GRBerry 01:40, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Source criticism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

The article is not substantial, is not referenced, and does not contain anything that is not already in other articles, such as Historical method and Bible Rick Norwood 21:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The article has real shortcomings at this point, but the subject certainly deserves an article of its own. This gives the reader a little information at least, and hopefully will inspire other editors. Put a cleanup tag or similar on it instead. Katherine Tredwell 04:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would be interested in what you see as the subject of this article. The phrase "source criticism" seems vague to me.Rick Norwood 13:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Source criticism is the attempt to identify the sources underlying biblical texts. It begins with the assumptions that the Bible is not a divinely revealed text, and that many (maybe all) books of the Bible were compiled from older works. For example, some New Testament scholars hypothesize that a list of sayings by Jesus (or attributed to Jesus) was circulated in the first century. A biography of Jesus without these sayings (what we know as the gospel of Mark) was also available. Then, a couple of people decided to combine the list with Mark to create expanded biographies, which we know as the gospels of Matthew and Luke. (Keep in mind that this is a hypothesis; the list, the so-called Q document has not been found, even though the Gospel of Thomas shows that such lists did circulate at some point.) Another well-known example is the Documentary Hypothesis, which identifies four main sources for the Pentateuch. Ever notice that Noah gets two lists of animals to take on the Ark, or that humans are created last in Genesis 1 and early on in Genesis 2? That's because there are probably two sources which have been edited together. Source criticism is the process of identifying these sources and trying to identify who wrote them, when they were written, and so on. You can read another explanation here which might help you. (I picked this external link out of many because it's to a university page and it has a bibliography.) "Source criticism" is not a term made up for Wikipedia; it has a long history and has been the basis of many books. It's well worth an article of its own, in my opinion, and should not be abbreviated to a paragraph in an article on the Bible or even Higher Criticism. I hope I have clarified things for you, but don't hesitate to ask more questions. Katherine Tredwell 01:18, 30 September 2007 (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.