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The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.
It seems that while most readers would use an encyclopedia to learn things they perhaps never heard of before, there is a type of wikpedia editor that only wants to read the familiar things they have always heard, mentally rejects whatever they are not previously familiar with, and continually looks for pretexts to suppress things they have not been exposed to. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:29, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Inappropriate use of article: Presenting debatable material that already has a page
The Curse of Ham page was created as an offshoot of really both the Ham and Canaan pages, to discuss the possible interpretations of what that curse was and the impact that those interpretations have had on namely, religious movements. Because of the huge debates surrounding the curse, those debates need to stay on that page and no where else. One of the many debates is the race issue, inparticular being Black.
No where in any biblical translation or version is "Ham" and "Black", or "Canaan" and "Black" in the same verse. It is pure speculation. This is why the Curse of Ham page was created, to discuss THAT issue as that is the scope of the article. See also:WP:TOPIC.
NONE of these pages: Ham, son of Noah or Canaan, son of Ham should have statements or discussions or poving points about being Black, Nubian, or African. It is appropriate, however, to reference such material to the Curse of Ham page. It can also be mentioned that those interpretations are out there... but posting statements and direct quotes from commentators that support the highly debatable Race view is inappropriate for the Ham and Canaan pages.
Your determinations regarding what you see as "proper scope" of these articles are unilateral, relying on some racialist pov that I cannot share, and I will contest them to the fullest. The material from Al-Tabari regarding Canaan, son of Ham, belongs on the page Canaan, son of Ham. The material you are blanking from here is specific to Canaan, son of Ham, and his descendants according to various historiographic sources.
Al-tabari simply recorded traditions saying that Canaan begat Blacks, Nubians, and peoples of Sudan, etc. as well as some other specific ethnonyms and even the supposed name and family of Canaan's wife. That is specific information for this page, but you clearly have an agenda, first to blank out, and then to try and hide under the carpet in the obscurest possible location, information you are not comfortable with. How sad. You are now making up arbitrary "Scope" rules that involve reading inferences in between the lines with this straightforward simple statement about Canaan's descendants according to one source, and forcing a subjective POV that is hard to follow, that it really belongs on the "Curse of Ham" page just because it mentions "Blacks" among Canaan's descendants. Read the deleted text straightforwardly, it is not about the "Curse of Ham" whatsoever and any assertion that it is would be your original research interpretation of a primary source. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:39, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Discussing the narrative elements (Narrative criticism) for Canaan (i.e. plot, setting, background info, the specific things that happened to Canaan as related to the source material)
Engaged in scholarly information that is NOT "highly debatable" by avoiding topics and commentaries that support racial ties to being Black and/or slavery.
No. The Scope for this article is defined as "Canaan, son of Ham". Anything regarding what any pov has said in historiography regarding this figure, or who he was supposedly ancestor of, the name of his wife or his father-in-law from various sources, is fair material for his article. No "rules" designed to exclude information. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:55, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think I agree with Til here. I'm not sure why Jason thinks we shouldn't mention the connection between Canaan and any debate. These sorts of debates are a big part of religion. --GRuban (talk) 19:42, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am not opposed to "mentioning" it. I'm opposed to posting PROs and CONs on this page for or against Canaan being Black, Nubian or African or anything related to slavery... because all of that is already discussed on the Curse of Ham page. However... We could edit the Curse of Ham page and remove all elements related to the Curse of Canaan and bring them over to this page so that the "Curse of Ham" and the "Curse of Canaan" are two distinct topics. I don't know... Jasonasosa (talk) 19:51, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well... after thinking about it, maybe that's what we should do, since everyone wants to talk about Canaan being black... we can treat the curse as two seperate curses. I will start gutting the Curse of Ham page. (Goes off to call a demolition crew and a wrecking ball team) Jasonasosa (talk) 19:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Question: Why is it that the concepts of "being black" and "slavery" seem so fused in your mind that you take any sentence including the word "black" to be a solid connection to the issue of slavery and therefore trumping any other reason why it should appear on this page? I still can't follow it. People of other races have been slaves as well, eg. Hebrews in Egypt. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 22:47, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm speaking only in regard to the Curse of Ham page where "being black" and "slavery" is associated. I'm not speaking in general terms, here, folks. Anyway, I think the time has come to treat the curse of Ham and the curse of canaan as two separate curses, so I'm going to make the measure of splitting them apart... because this subject has caused way too much unnecessary confusion and it's been way long over due.Jasonasosa (talk) 01:20, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.
Hi User: Til Eulenspiegel, I'm not going to swap around the BCE or BC on this article... but, I do want to discuss something with you directly. I would love for you to provide me where it says in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style or anywhere else for that matter that Wikipedia "doesn't allow switching articles from BC to BCE or vice versa".
I can go into any artilce and edit it from BC to BCE or BCE to BC, so long as no one has a problem with it. Should there be a problem, it goes to discussion page... usually for a vote. You need to read Wikipedia:Editing policy#Talking and editing. Another thing... please don't sling around that word consensus... I don't have to consult the discussion page first for a "consensus" on any edit if I don't want to. Just to make another point in case you throw this word in your rebuttal, a "consensus" is not always a vote. Thanks for your time Til, Jasonasosa (talk) 12:15, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your edit and comment "doesn't allow switching articles from BC to BCE or vice versa" directly pertains to this page. I don't need to talk with you on your "direct discussion" page for the edit/comment you made on this article's page... espcially now since the vote goes to BCE. Jasonasosa (talk) 12:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Years ago, there was a massive site-wide edit war on BC vs. BCE. It went to arbitration which declared both acceptable and imposed a status quo ceasefire along the lines of English vs. American English. Now articles are supposed to be left in their original format unless there is no opposition to change. This requires a formal discussion poll with reaonable amount of time to establish consensus, and technically we operate by consensus, and not by "votes" Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:50, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Since it's only used in one place, here, that shouldn't be too hard. No objection to changing to BCE. In fact, have a slight preference for it. --GRuban (talk) 13:07, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Funny, it takes up megabytes of archived heated debate from 2006, from tons of users, if one can be bothered to find it. It's a surprisingly touchy subject in places like Australia. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:46, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Woops, sorry, it was me that changed it to BCE. I should have checked the talk page. I am a little new to Wikipedia, I changed it to BCE because in my field that is the more accepted way. As such, I would put my vote in for BCE as opposed to BC, however, either way, no hard feelings? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BeforeTheFoundation (talk • contribs) 15:23, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose switching to BCE - no need for the extra awkward-looking E. BC has been established among English speakers far longer, while frankly BCE is still a Johnny-come-lately among the roster of recognized date era abbreviations, one that has failed to find universal acceptance, has met with massive documented opposition in different parts of the English speaking world, and has in fact proven quite divisive, even here on wp. I suspect one reason it has met so much resistance among English speakers has been the pushiness and impatience of its minority proponents who demand everyone switch to their way overnight. Many have do not see the extra E as conveying neutrality so much as a partisan point of view of recent 'political correctness' to force changes in everything which seldom fails to backfire in the long run. So for this article I prefer the more familiar and concise BC, but I will submit to popular demand if the ratio remains about the same after a few days or so, to give other collaborators a chance to opine. Personally speaking I'd rather spend my time adding informative new content than get bogged down with infighting over this sort of pettiness. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 17:40, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have to respectfully disagree. about the "awkwardness" and the "lack of conciseness" of the additional E. You are correct that BC has been well established in the English speaking world. Indeed it has been well established, just like many other terms that have been abandoned as of late. Few people refer to each other with thee/thou language and most people prefer to go to the pharmacy rather than the apothecary. The change from BC to BCE is a difficult one, but in the end BCE actually makes more sense. I am a Christian, but when you are talking about things that don't specifically deal with Christ, why is he being used as the reference point? This becomes more obvious when speaking of areas outside of the Levant. For instance, it makes little to no sense to date the Jōmon period of ancient Japan to 14000 to 300 Before Christ. Indeed, the Common Era faces its own brand of problems (mainly that, despite the name change it still is relative to Christ) but it at least provides some consistency across fields.
The real problem actually arises not with the BCE/BC debate but with the CE/AD debate. As I am sure everyone is aware, AD stands for Anno Domini which means "In (the) year of (the) Lord" (Latin has no definite articles). Indeed its full version is actually Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("In the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ"). This is of course problematic because it assumes a Christocentric point of view.
Furthermore, far from being a new politically correct fad, the use of CE and BCE are well attested and in fact are pretty much the standard in academic literature. The SBL Handbook of Style which is essentially the MLA for Biblical Scholars and is endorsed by the Society of Biblical Literature states in 8.1.2 that "the preferred style is B.C.E and C.E." Although, I would be being dishonest if I did not point out that it allows for A.D. and B.C. as a less preferred alternative. BCE and CE are also the standard in introductory texts and in academic literature. Also, as to this change being some new fangled idea put out by the PC crowd, look at Common Era which makes clear that the first English use of Common Era is at least 1708. The equivalent Latin term vulgaris aerae is found in the works of Kepler as early as 1615.
Now all that being said, since this is wikipedia I will bow to wikipedia's policies, but to complain that this abbreviation is too new and has met with too much opposition and is too long (really, is BCE that much more cumbersome than BC?) falls short of being good reasons for not using it. After all, surely BC was new at one point. Likewise BCE is, well, actually better established than I had previously been aware. Language changes over time. Just like we aren't talking in thee/thou language and you all understood what I meant when I used the contraction aren't we all have to realize that sometimes language changes. BeforeTheFoundation (talk) 17:42, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All of these flawed analogies, comparing something that isn't obsolete and is still well established, with things that have been obsolete for centuries, besides being a form of "POV pushing", are taking us further and further away from the stated topic of this page, and rehashing the same tired old arguments we've already read a million times before, to the tune of several megabytes, like I said. That's kind of the impatience I was talking about. Reports of the death of BC are decidedly premature, and wikipedia's role is not to engineer social change, but the English language changes naturally and gradually of its own accord, without a small group of people or "elites" imposing linguistic changes that are unfamiliar to most people, which is what tends to backfire. We should reflect language as it actually exists in common usage now, not where you'd like it to be. And every single poll wikipedia did on what the website should use, involving hundreds of users, settled on the same overall ratio of slightly more than half favoring BC and slightly less than half favoring BCE. With no clear consensus, it was therefore decided to allow both, and to discourage editors from militantly trawling pages and switching alloccurences from one to the other, etc., without adding any real content. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:57, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My motivation is that this is a character from the Hebrew Bible, Torah, or Old Testament, and so dating him in relation to Christ is favoring one specific religion. I hope you will accept that in Jewish analysis of the subject, BC is not used. I don't know about Islamic analysis, but I wouldn't be surprised if it also prefers BCE to BC. --GRuban (talk) 19:26, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To Til Eulenspiegel: What part of me apologizing for not knowing the policy and then saying that I would be happy to conform to said policy is me being militant? Notice what I actually said when I realized my mistake. "Woops, sorry, it was me that changed it to BCE. I should have checked the talk page. I am a little new to Wikipedia, I changed it to BCE because in my field that is the more accepted way. As such, I would put my vote in for BCE as opposed to BC, however, either way, no hard feelings?"
The entire reason that I included my last post on the use of BCE in the field of Biblical Studies was because earlier you said, "This requires a formal discussion poll with reaonable amount of time to establish consensus, and technically we operate by consensus, and not by "votes"". I may have misunderstood but I thought this meant that we were trying to reach a consensus. Seeing as several others had voiced their opinions, I figured that I may be able to add to the discussion. Furthermore, I was the only one that actually provided citations for my point of view, both from Wikipedia and from standard Handbooks that are accepted in the field that this article pertains to.
Also, the accusation that I am part of a small group of "elites" trying to enact linguistic change is offensive. First off, by your own admission there are roughly the same number of people on each side, so to belittle the pro-BCE group as a "small group" seems rather odd. Second off, I for one have done my absolute best not to claim any superiority. I am very well trained in my field. But I have never tried to claim that that makes me more qualified to edit Wikipedia. Once again, notice how quickly I tried to rectify my change from BC to BCE. BeforeTheFoundation (talk) 19:29, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, BTF, those descriptions were not directed at your actions, but at the overall situation between the BC and BCE proponents worldwide and to some extent on wikipedia. I used the word 'militantly' to describe what the project does not want, but what we had before 2006, where editors feeling one way or the other would start major wheel-wars over the issue. And I didn't assume you are with any elites either, I used that word to describe the approach some have taken to the subject in academia. No worries. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:54, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
User: Til Eulenspiegel, How is CE / BCE imposing linguistic changes that are unfamiliar to most people”?I think by now, everyone is familar with CE / BCE. Since language evolves, no one on planet Earth is using Latin as an official social language anymore... so we ought to drop saying Anno Domini anyway. And on this article there is a clear consensus. It's called 3:1. Jasonasosa (talk) 19:32, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The source is here. Besides the fact that it’s more complex than the edit suggested, where is the African homeland claim? Maybe it’s there, I’m struggling reading it on my iPad,. 20:21, 12 October 2017 (UTC) --- comment by User:DougWeller.
It's not there. In a chapter on cannibalism, he writes:
" According to a persistent belief that shows up in several Byzantine authors, the ancestors of the Libyan Moors had been Canaanite refugees who fled to Africa to escape the Hebrew armies under the leadership of “that bandit Joshua.” This bizarre sounding claim finds some support in the fact that Libya was heir to a strong Semitic cultural heritage, dating back to the days of its colonization by the Phoenicians.
So deeply rooted was this tradition that the church father St. Augustine, who lived in the North African town of Hippo, related that local peasants were wont to describe themselves as “Chananaei”— Canaanites.
A similar tradition is preserved in rabbinic literature, where it is the Girgashile nation who evade Joshua’s onslaught by migrating to Africa." Doug Wellertalk18:05, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
See Jubilees 9:1: "And Ham divided amongst his sons, and the first portion came forth for Cush towards the east, and to the west of him for Mizraim, and to the west of him for Put, and to the west of him [and to the west thereof] on the sea for Canaan."
Clearly states that Canaan got his share west of Egypt.
Resolved