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The lead should point out that Abraham is a fictional character. The article body does, but the lead talks about him as a real historical figure 193.27.45.80 (talk) 08:46, 11 November 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The third paragraph of the lead section, starting "Most historians ...", does in fact make it clear that there is no evidence for him as a historical figure. IMO this is just about sufficient, even if the first two paras can be read as if factual. An unrelated issue with the lead section is the "out of the blue" mention of the Torah in paragraph three. This could be better linked in with what has been already said. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C8:7B09:FA01:F8D4:3C0:8B3C:C6E3 (talk) 23:12, 25 November 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
He is referenced in the Bible and the Qur’an as existing. While most of history of key figures is solely based off word of mouth and historic written documents. I’d say there is no evidence, to the contrary, he didn’t exist. 2601:680:8380:43F0:7484:316C:43DC:D0E1 (talk) 12:37, 12 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
the Bible and the Qur’an are not WP:RS, see WP:RSPSCRIPTURE. Wikipedia isn't affiliated to either Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, see WP:RNPOV. the Bible and the Qur’an were not written by modern, mainstream historians, so the Bible and the Qur’an do not make the call.
My own take: we do not know anything about Moses and Abraham, to the extent we don't even know if they existed or not.[1]tgeorgescu (talk) 13:17, 12 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Potatín5: There is a variety of scholarly opinions, especially from the interplay of higher criticism with mainstream archaeology, but no definitive evidence that he existed. And the consensus view seems to be that searching for such evidence is futile. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:01, 12 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
References
^15:23
but what about Moses himself surely
15:27
there must be some evidence for this
15:29
most famous Old Testament hero perhaps
15:32
the most famous of all Old Testament
15:34
figures even if there's no evidence of
15:37
the exodus they must surely be some
15:39
record of a leader as important as him
15:43
the name Moses is a name which is very
15:47
popular from early periods right down
15:51
into late periods so it's a fairly
15:54
common Egyptian name that's that's all
15:57
that we can say there is no text in
16:00
which we can identify this Moses or that
16:04
Moses as the Moses the question of the
16:08
historicity of Moses is the same as the
16:11
question of the historicity of Abraham
16:12
that is to say maybe there was a figure
16:16
maybe there was a leader I am NOT here
16:20
to
16:22
undermined historicity of Moses I think
16:25
that it is possible but I would say it's
16:27
beyond recovery John Van Seters și Israel Finkelstein pe Bible Unearthed Discoveries of Old versions of the bible) on YouTube. Corectat: „The question of the historicity of Moses is the same as the question of the historicity of Abraham. That is to say, maybe there was a figure, maybe there was a leader. I am not here to undermine the historicity of Moses. I think that this is possible but I would say it's beyond recovery.”
There are two different Abraham's in the bible. One who interacts with Nimrod (Ibiranu I of Ugarit)(1458-1435BC), and another who interacts with Chedorlaomer(Kuder-enlil), Ibiranu II of Ugarit(1274-1251BC). 2601:58B:E7F:8410:8929:E4B7:307D:B301 (talk) 20:06, 7 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
we need more information :
Joseph Family Name
Ward Petion-ville Port-au-Prince Ouest HAITI
HT 6142
yvonjoseph969@gmail.com or jylab2006@gmail.com 190.115.175.190 (talk) 05:09, 23 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Early Iron Age bull figurine from Bull Site at Dhahrat et-Tawileh (modern West Bank, ancient Ephraim), representing El, Baal or Yahweh[32][33][edit]
Extended content
El or Maleachi, is not a god or goddes, they dont have son and kid also they dont do marriage.
as the picture in wikipedia, yhwh is not a bull or baal or moloch. he doesnt created or have a child, he only have a prophet. please seek on genesis. also quran
please dont compare in adonai, elohim and yhwh with baal and moloch. it is such full disgrace and neglecting 10 commandment
You've got a good point. The root problem is that this article is really about "Religion in Iron Age Israel" (as reconstructed by modern secular scholars), and that should be its title. "Yahweh" is a lot of things, most prominently an important theological concept for Jews, and also for Christians. An article title "Yahweh" should certainly discuss the term's theological meaning. RogerBurk (talk) 22:12, 19 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
WP:SCOPE is This article is about the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
Otherwise, all our ancient or medieval history articles are as reconstructed by modern secular scholars, why should be this article singled out?
Anyway, the ancient polytheistic god Yahweh has to have a place within Wikipedia. And true believers are seeking to deny it such a place. The Wikipedia Community will never make peace with such true believers, since obviously, the ancient polytheistic god Yahweh passes WP:N. So, it is a match (i.e. dispute) between true believers and WP:PAGs. The true believers are seeking to bully the god Yahweh out of Wikipedia, and the Wikipedia Community simply won't allow that. The true believers think that real, objective archaeological discoveries, such as that bronze bull, are blasphemy against their own religion. To any well-educated person appreciating WP:SCHOLARSHIP, their opinion seems exceedingly preposterous. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:45, 20 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The bronze bull thing is interesting - it might explain why there is such a specific Golden Calf narrative in exodus: it wouldn't be the first time a theological narrative was positioned to dislodge a pre-existing worship practice. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:34, 20 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I agree that there should be an article on Yahweh. The problem I have is that the article as currently written violates WP:NPOV. Whether or not Yahweh was a storm-god or that Israel used to be polytheistic is an extremely contentious claim. There are plenty of scholars who disagree with this reconstruction, sticking with the more traditional view that Abraham at least was monotheistic. That is the reason to treat this article differently than you might other reconstructions that have less contention.
There is precedent for how to deal with this sort of thing. Look, for example, at the various articles on the books of the Bible. On issues that are contentious among scholars, you will see multiple POVs given. For example, Book of Genesis mentions the traditional view that Moses wrote the book, only then going on to assert that the majority of modern scholars date it later. It follows WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, attributing the POV in the text, rather than just asserting things. It continues to do this with when it describes its composition. It doesn't say, for example, "The five books of the Pentateuch—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy—came from four sources." It specifically points this out as the POV that is most common in the 20th century among scholars.
It is my impression that the "true believers" (who often are just as much a part of the Wikipedia community as anyone else) do not tend to object to those articles. They still contain information that they may not believe is correct. Fixing up this article to be more NPOV would likely help.
Though, honestly, I also think having Yahweh link to the disambiguation page and rename this article to show its scope in its title might also help. I suspect that most people who stumble on this page are actually looking for an article on the tetragrammaton or the modern Abrahamic concept of God. Article names on Wikipedia are supposed to reflect what the reader would most likely be looking for. This sort of thing is also mentioned in WP:NPOV when it discusses titles.
I tend to agree although I'm not sure what the exact answer is. We have this article and we have Yahwism, God in Judaism, Jehovah, Tetragrammaton etc. It may well all hang together theoretically/academically but it's a mess for the general encyclopedia reader. DeCausa (talk) 23:59, 8 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Actually, no. Scholarship from the Ivy League and similar universities posits that Abraham was completely unhistorical, or, if he ever existed, he is irretrievably lost to history. There's not a shred of evidence that Judaism existed in the time of David and Solomon, let alone Moses or Abraham. That gullible people think so does not make it a fact any more than flat Earth is a fact because millions of uneducated people still believe it. In the supposed time of Abraham (whose mileage varies with a thousand years only counting major archaeologists who believed he existed) there was no such thing as Hebrew language. I can grant you that inchoate Hebrew language existed in the 11th century BCE, but no more than that. Nothing like Classical Biblical Hebrew existed back then.
There are too many disciplines involved for the denial to be credible: archaeology, source criticism, linguistics, and so on. I don't say that we know all there is to know about the composition of the Bible, but mainstream Bible scholars are zooming on something.
While the consensus that the Pentateuch was based upon four big documents is crumbling, it isn't going in the direction gullible people would desire, but in an even more "radical" direction. The main merit of the Documentary Hypothesis was that it could provide an orderly account of the composition of the Bible—now even that can no longer be taken for granted.
You misunderstand WP:NPOV; it's not about finding a compromise between academia and religion. It is about accurately representing what academics say about religion. Jeppiz (talk) 18:07, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
The more serious problem in your arguments above is that you continously imply we should find some middle road between faith and scholarship. We should not, as that would be the opposite of WP:NPOV. I know many people misunderstand NPOV and think it's about meeting halfway. It is not; it's about representing the most reliable sources as accurately as possible. Jeppiz (talk) 09:52, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't know of any serious body of scholarship that disagrees with the pagan and polytheistic origins of the worship of Yahweh. I looked up the bull thing after reading this, and it turns out that bulls were not just tangentially but strongly associated with worship of Yahweh, and this is a matter of not insignificant scholarly attention. It is known.Iskandar323 (talk) 06:36, 9 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
"strongly associated with worship of Yahweh" By its own or through identification of Yahweh with El? El's symbol was the bull, and his depictions in Ugarit feature him as a horned god, or at least with horns on his headdress. Dimadick (talk) 06:17, 10 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Referencing and citation: not checked
