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The emergence of Israel

I've reverted recent edits by John J. Bulten because, to put it unkindly, they're sloppy. I don't have time to go through every one of the changes, but there's this example:

Israel, identified as a people, tribe, coalition, or territory, was located in the northern part of the central highlands by Gösta Ahlström, and alternatively in their western border by Niels Lemche.Niels Peter Lemche, "The Israelites in History and Tradition" (Westminster John Knox, 1998) pp. 37–8.

Now, what's wrong with that? Just that when we check the referenced book, we find that Lemche says explicitly that Ahlstrom's suggestion has not been taken up. So it's not mainstream scholarship. We try to represent what's mainstream, not what anyone and everyone might say. And then he misinterprets Lemche's own ideas about where this Israel was: not the western border of the highlands, as John would haveit, but the highlands themselves. (Lemche is saying, in the para that runs over pp.37-38, that the list of places on the Merneptah Stele points to the Egyptian expedition terminating at the western edge of the central highlands - he does not say that Israel was somehow squeezed into this linear border). The entire set of edits is faulty like this, so I'm reverting to the better text. PiCo (talk) 06:32, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I first learned this "misinterpretation" from your own uncritical edit. You have Lemche as source for the line, "This Israel, identified as a people, were probably located in the northern part of the central highlands." And now you've just discovered it's a nonmainstream view, one which he repudiates? And you're acting like I'm the one late to the party?

Fact is, I documented several flaws in the text you reverted to in the edit history of Joshua. OTOH, I am seeing that when you claim generic flaws you revert, and when you claim specific flaws you list and wait for the other party to guess what you want, and here you do both. Since your text has all the flaws I documented, and since I've kept my text adjusted whenever you've claimed a flaw (which will include this latest claim), I think we'll go with the corrected text rather than the one you've neglected to correct.

BTW, for the record, I will repeat some specific flaws in your text that a mostly-reversion will correct:

Ann Killebrew pp. 10-6 does not say Israelites were indigenous (and Ann was misspelled);

"Recent research on the emergence of Israel points unequivocally to the conclusion that biblical Israel's roots lie in the final century of Bronze Age Canaan." (Killebrew, p.149)

Like most of your quotes, this one simply further demonstrates the truth of my assertion and the gap between the sources and the synthesis that formerly appeared in this article. JJB 00:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Thompson p. 413 does not say Canaanite dialects are an indicator of the indigenousness of Israelites;

"The various dialects of Canaanite...West Canaanite (Phoenician, two or more dialects of Israelite and Judean)...Core Canaanite (Israelite and Phoenician) can be distinguished from Fringe Canaanite ((Judean, Amonite, Moabite and Edomite) (Thompson, p.413)

Smith p. 27 does not say it is "impossible" (a strong word) to distinguish the subject inscriptions;

Can someone please check what the page says?

Golden pp. 155-60 does not say Phoenicians continued uninterrupted from the Bronze Age;

He does - the Phoenicians in fact continued uninterrupted right down to Roman times

But pp. 155-60 are not about the Bronze Age but Iron I, and have only one graf on Phoenicia! JJB 00:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Stager p. 91 does not speak of the first record but the first non-Biblical record;

The first non-biblical record IS the first record: see McNutt, p.41, and also p.46: "The most recent models of Israel's origins tend either to subordinate the biblical material to archaeological evidence or to exclude it almost completely from consideration." This article follows "most recent models"

McNutt pp. 69-70 does not say the highlands were unpopulated before Iron I but refers to older settlements;

She does. She refers to 300 new settlements in the highlands in Iron I, "some of (which) had been occupied in previous periods" - but which, obviously, were not occupied at this period (McNutt, p.69)

Killebrew p. 176 does not say it is "impossible" to distinguish Israelite from Canaanite except for pig bones (and, in fact, you just jumped on me for perpetuating the notion, inserted and reinserted by yourself, that Killebrew was talking about distinguishing Israelite ethnicity at all), but rather p. 176 as well as p. 13 give ethnic distinctions;

Not quite. Read the section "Diet: Animal Bones" again, but carefully - she says that the reasons for the l;ack of pigs is open to various interpretations, which is what our article says (Killebrew, pp.13,176)

Killebrew p. 176 does not mention a Canaanite god El;

Try a little higher up - a few pages back

Would you mind doing the edit and citing the exact page number please? JJB 00:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Miller pp. 97-104 does not say writing was known but uncommon (he says writing was available even in small sites); and so on.

Read the chapter again, more carefully.

I would prefer a quote and/or exact page number please. JJB 00:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

These are all "your" sources, in that you cut and pasted them; I merely, ahem, read them. If I have simply missed a reference to whatever the original Wikipedians meant, whom you were cribbing (i.e., cutting and pasting), it's not for lack of looking for it. Now then, can we stop the wholesale reversions to unvetted text? JJB 07:18, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

John, you obviously come from a very conservative Christian background and hold the Bible to be true as a historical record. This is where you come from and you can't help that. However, current scholarship holds views very different from yours. I think you need to relax your prejudices and read more deeply into the sources. All the books you see above are reliable sources. I suggest you go into them in some depth - don't skim, and don't read with the intention of scoring points against perceived enemies of the faith. Read to learn. And above all: there's no kudos for being right on the Internet.PiCo (talk) 23:43, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

It is not necessary for you to speculate about my background or intentions. Where I come from on WP is accurate reporting of reliable secondary sources. So far I have treated all your sources as reliable and merely reported what your page references indicate that they say, which the above still demonstrates is vastly different from what we said they say. Very basic WP:V duty. OTOH, your sentiments about all of us reading to learn can be applauded. If we agree on the fundamentals of WP process, the kudos arise independently from a job well done. JJB 00:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

If we can't agree (and I still hold that the article is supported by the sources it quotes), then we have to go to ANI and ask for an outside party to vet it for us. (Just those two subsections, or the ask is too big). Agreed? PiCo (talk)

If you're actually saying that what the sources don't say (in lightface) is what you say they say (in bold), then we would go to the cultural conflict noticeboard instead. This is a simple question of which phrasing makes for better source conformity, with allowances for article context and flow. Since you and Dylan have not proposed any specific flaws in my text, and since your text still contains this whole list of flaws above, with no indication that you see any need to change or that you see any difference between the text and the source, then after I refix the flawed text as I stated I would below, it would be fine for you to file a report at CCN. I trust mediation will be NPOV of course. JJB 18:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

What cultures are in conflict here please? Dougweller (talk) 05:20, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

That underused board also accommodates religious content; ANI is certainly wrong for content. But this should be straightforward reading of sources and reporting what they say, and as you can see above PiCo is supplying the source quotes and they still don't say what I say they don't say. JJB 05:39, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

It's for " ethnic, national, and cultural editing conflict" but you'd have to be specific, you'd still have to say what religious beliefs are in conflict here and I can't see where you'd be able to do that.. Dougweller (talk) 05:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm not planning on filing the report, I just didn't want him to clog up ANI. Maybe the basic content noticeboard would be best. That word "religious" just caught my eye for some reason .... JJB 05:51, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

He's not going to ANI. I've suggested an RfC. Dougweller (talk) 06:40, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Dylan

Dylan Flaherty has just reverted to the version that contains all these flaws listed in this previous talk section, while nuking a version that contains no flaw mentioned in recent talk. He may not recognize that, as he asked, I did seek consensus before editing: I negotiated a several-days stable text with PiCo and had stated that I would bring it to this article when it was stable. Now I agree that each article stands on its own merits, so I will hold off on Dylan's reversion for a day or two under WP:BRD; but if discussion and cited flaws in my version do not materialize, then I must remove the egregious violations of source conformity, in that WP:CON is not really the issue if one does not want to discuss it. JJB 17:33, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

If you sought consensus and obtained it, then I would not have had to revert. In fact, you did it all over again, which suggests that you did not understand in the first place. I strongly recommend that you make only a few changes at a time, justifying each one in advance. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 02:45, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Of course I did it again, that's how BRD works. I bolded, you reverted, PiCo discussed, you had a chance to discuss. Since I had addressed all PiCo's concerns that could be addressed from the sources, I bolded again, you reverted again. (Due to WP:SYN, I am not able to address it when PiCo sees something in a source that isn't on the page referenced.) Since your reversion text is so demonstrably flawed, I have now (rather than reverting back) deleted the flawed passages and left a minimum baseline from which we can build. (I hope you won't insist on retaining text that fails WP:V on several counts.) Now are you going to tell me all the obvious "bad" points about my text, just as I did about the text you reverted to twice, which contains several misspellings and about a dozen source misrepresentation errors? You can even use the section above if you sign your comments in place. JJB 04:19, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Merneptah Stele

Maybe we need to take these one at a time. I agree that Stager says first non-biblical, the issue really is whether it is the first written record to mention Israel, and that does seem to be the case and we can source it and which mentions a several century gap between the stele and the first written biblical sources etc. Dougweller (talk) 10:38, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Fine, good approach. Yes, the Merneptah stele is the earliest written recod the date of which is verifiable and uncontested. (The date of the earliest bible-books by narrative, namely the series from Genesis to Deuteronomy or Joshua, is highl;y debated, and I can provide good sources saying the generally accepted dates are 7th-6th century BCE). PiCo (talk) 10:59, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd tend to agree, but if we're taking them one at a time we should start from the cut-back baseline rather than either of "our" "preferred" texts. Accordingly, I'll write the next "bold" on those sources. JJB 20:45, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

The usual practice is to stick with the existing version until proposed changes can be vetted and accepted. We'll do as Doug suggests and go through line by line. PiCo (talk) 21:21, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I support this. If we take it a bit at a time, we can make judgments on a factual basis. When there are sweeping changes, the best we can do is sweep them back. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 23:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Ok, it seems we're at least agreed to take JJB's points one at a time - but based on the article as it existed before he started making sweeping changes. So, the Merneptah stele: Doug points out that Stager does say first non-biblical, not just first. In fact the point of that sentence was simply to establish a reference point for the stele saying that Israel was (a) a people); (b) located in the northern highlands; and (c) dated at c.1200 BCE. In other words the idea of first ever mention or first biblical mention wasn't one that struck me as important when I wrote it. However, and as Doug again points out, the Merneptah stele is in fact earlier than the biblical mentions of Israel by several centuries. Ironically, Joshua/Judges and the Torah books aren't the oldest in the bible - some of the prophets are older, and that's where you find the oldest mentions of Israel. I can find a decent source for this (maybe Eerdmans) and put in an extra sentence or half-sentence. PiCo (talk) 07:42, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I've made the edit, JJB, if you don't like it, please discuss it here, although I can't see anything wrong with it. Dougweller (talk) 08:27, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Much as I'm uncomfortable with the process, the fact is that if we are all on the same page that's better than the 13 times I've gotten cold-reverted on these three articles when I'm not cold-reverting myself. Now we've finally, after all that time, gotten to one clause that, we agree, does say what its source says (basic WP:V), so we can now move on to WP:NPOV. Here I must advocate for both Stager's POV, which differs from McDermott's on three points, as well as of course the literalist POV, which is still held by wide swaths of people. Fact is, no matter how monolithic the "scientific" POV, if an article on a religiously-related history omits the traditional POV, it is saying that that POV merits no discussion whatsoever as if that POV's population is slighted (see WP:RNPOV); and, of course, the POV should be discussed with the weight of its adherents. Any statement whatsoever about the scientific POV being "better" should be based solely on (a) a neutral reliable source saying so, or (b) the majority of sources. I've heard several statements as if there is only one POV here, or only one worth discussing ("the generally accepted dates", "wasn't one that struck me as important", "the prophets are older"), but that's not how WP works. So now that we've gotten admissions on WP:V on this sentence, NPOV would be satisfied by something like:

The first record of the name Israel occurs in the Merneptah stele, erected by or for Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah c. 1200 BCE (possibly 1209), "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not" (also called the first non-Biblical reference in that longstanding tradition assigns Biblical texts to the eras they depict). This identifies ...

Again, this is very similar to the paradigm sentence at WP:RNPOV, and giving no mention to the traditional POV at significant junctures would be a pretty egregious failure of WP standards. JJB 18:54, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Is your objection that the current formulation implies that the biblical stories are later than c. 1200 BCE? Martijn Meijering (talk) 18:59, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

What it implies is that that is the only POV when sources show it isn't. JJB 19:20, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

What sources are you referring to? Stager doesn't seem to be saying there are earlier biblical references unless I've missed that, are you simply referring to literalist sources? Sure, any YEC, or any literalist, will say that's wrong, do you want 'but those who take the Bible literally disagree' here? I'm off now. Dougweller (talk) 20:55, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

At least a brief mention of the literalist biblical view would be good. On the Book of Joshua page I have argued for a more extensive discussion of religious views, but Joshua is a religious text so an extensive discussion is more appropriate there than is the case here. As an agnostic I wouldn't think of such a discussion as a source of information about the events depicted in the book of Joshua, but as a source about the points of view of various religious groups. Literalists can choose to read the same discussion in another light and there is no need for Misplaced Pages to take sides. Seems like an elegant solution to me. As long as we avoid quoting covert apologetics as a notable historical minority view. Martijn Meijering (talk) 21:10, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Martijn Meijering, as you rightly say, this isn't an article about religion, but about history. It's therefore not appropriate to mention views that are held on purely religious grounds - i.e., the view that the bible texts were written at the time of the events. There are a very, very few literalists who do try to argue this, but their numbers are miniscule. On the grounds of due weight, we can't include them. We have a good academic source, and which says the earliest biblical books come from several centuries after 1200 BC. I'm happy with Doug's version. I think everyone except JJB is happy with it too. PiCo (talk) 23:36, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget your mediation with RomanHistorian in which he says he is too tired of getting reverted, from which I infer that I am speaking for him as well. JJB 16:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking of something as simple as a sentence or two and/or a link to a page describing the various religious views. On reflection, the Hebrew Bible is on topic for this article, which deals with a very long period of time. By comparison, can a page on Roman history be considered complete without mention of the works of Tacitus, Suetonius etc? Martijn Meijering (talk) 00:02, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

We're getting a little away from the Merneptah stele here, but I do agree that the bible as a source-book needs to be discussed, and I think it needs to be discussed in depth. I've been thinking about the shape of the article, and I'm coming to the view that the "history" part - most of it - needs to be drastically shortened, and more sections added on other topics, including one on the bible. But I don't think this section, which is on archaeology, is the place for it. PiCo (talk) 00:19, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Martijn Meijering (talk) 00:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

As for the literalist view, there is no reason to mention it every time it is in conflict with other evidence, although we could put it in the lead perhaps in some fashion and elsewhere where clearly appropriate - the stele is not an example where it needs to be used however, in my opinion. The problem with the Tacitus etc comparison is that we know for sure that they were contemporary with many of the events they describe and when they wrote (although we don't know how often they told the truth, as everyone writes for an audience, & certainly with Tacitus some of his statements are contradicted by the archaeological evidence). Dougweller (talk) 06:08, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Most adherents of the literalist view also believe it is never in conflict with evidence, just like adherents of most all views in fact. Evidence is facts, interpretations are POVs and opinion. So, again encouraging you to be sure you've read WP:RNPOV closely, I would hold there is a reason to mention a significant POV every time it is in conflict with another POV. That's basic NPOV! It is fine to provide secondary-source statistics as to how many adherents of each POV there are, as to how this translates into the different world of academia in past and present, and as to tertiary-source overviews of whether certain secondary-source POVs are to be preferred; but we are not to go on our own suppositions about these matters, as I've seen done.

To cut through the stele problem, I think it would be better to go back to the original source of Stager in that the deliberate use of the word "nonbiblical" is already accommodating of other POVs and does not need additional source balance, rather than use the brasher statement of McDermott's popular overview, which would require us to perform that accommodation ourselves. Again, Stager also gives an exact date (not challenged by others) of 1209, and states it was built for, not by, Merneptah. If he is (per Doug) not saying there are necessarily earlier Biblical sources, but leaving it open, then WP can use his words without saying that either. Can someone proceed with the edit or should I? JJB 16:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The fact is that there is no dated mention of Israel before the stele - or do you disagree with that? Stager ducks that by saying non-Biblical, and readers might not understand the difference. I'll leave the exact date and 'for' (which is literally of course the case, he didn't build it himself) right now as trivial, but I don't read NPOV as saying we can't actually say that the stele is the earliest known dated mention. I'm happy somehow to make it clear that literalists don't agree with archeologists and historians on this and many other related aspects of the history of the area, but just saying non-biblical is not actually reflecting the pov of anyone who doesn't think there are biblical physical texts earlier than the stele. & I am off to bed. Dougweller (talk) 21:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks, done, unless someone else objects. JJB 22:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Offhand I can't think of any mainstream source that thinks there are biblical sources from before 1200 BCE. If you want to be really accurate, the oldest biblical texts are the Dead Sea Scrolls, from about 200 BCE at the earliest. Older than that are a very brief Ketef Hinnom scrolls, but even they are from around 600 BCE. So the Merneptah stele is far older. As for when the biblical stories were written, the common view these days is that the Pentateuch dates from the Persian period, Joshua from the Babylonian or later monarchy. PiCo (talk) 22:52, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand why PiCo continues to revert. PiCo is the only one arguing that the traditionalist POV should not be represented. That is, PiCo is against a consensus that stems from NPOV. Would someone else please enfold my concern before this subhead gets too long, as PiCo undid my attempt? JJB 10:20, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I revert because you're trying to imp

Then you can add your section for review. JJB 16:00, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

How to present the biblical literalist view

It appears that there is an issue about how we present the view of those who take the Bible literally. I've suggested just above that this might be mentioned in the lead. What we don't need is a series of 'historians/archaeologists say X but this is denied by biblical literalist'. I'd also note that the biblical literalist approach already is well represented in many articles where it dominates the article, and that shouldn't, in my opinion, happen here. Dougweller (talk) 11:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually WP:RNPOV says we do need more of that kind of interaction. And WP:LEAD implies the purpose of mentioning controversies in the lead is because they summarize the expanded description of the controversy in the article. This is a situation with many "traditional" and "modern" POVs. Further, the best-practice historians and scientists in most eras except our own are also dismissed as traditional because they often agree with the literalists, even though they are no different from today's historians in most respects. One solution is to present the POVs in different sections: a literalist narrative, a minimalist narrative, any in-betweeners as appropriate, and non-POV evidence sections that remain very factual and noninterpretative. Any controversy that comes up on the evidence sections gets separated and moved to the POV sections. I don't know if that's best for this article eventually but it's worked on others.

In practice, however, that much work might not be needed. I wouldn't mind going through the disputed sentences one by one (if discussion stalls I'll just delete another disputed sentence to restart it), although this is much slower than bold editing and I may use bold if it seems warranted. The literalist POV need only be put in contradistinction when there is insistence on maintaining a source that does not accommodate it. As pointed out, Stager is preferred because he accommodates via the ambiguous qualifier "non-Biblical". McDermott, writing a popular overview, is not thinking about accommodating that POV, so if he is the first source, he needs a balance source. JJB 16:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

One of the articles I pay attention to is Homeopathy. Recently, it was argued that it should be considered scientific (as opposed to a pseudo-science), because it was -- by the standards of its day -- scientific. The response was that it is pseudo-scientific precisely because it only meets the standards of its day and not modern standards.

Now, history is at best a soft, social science, and at worst a branch of literature, but I think the point applies. Archaic sources did not have access to modern methods and techniques, nor the accumulated evidence and analysis since their time, particularly from archeology. Therefore, while their views may well be correct, and are almost certainly notable, there is good reason to lump them in with the traditionalists, apologists and fideists.

My feeling is that we need to represent the traditional view, whether we agree with it, because of its inherent notability, but when we represent the modern view, we have to highlight the most mainstream ideas and either omit or downgrade the fringe ones. As for bold editing, it seems to have a history of leading to edit wars here, so I cannot recommend it. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 16:52, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Another reason to include the biblical view is that it was widely held during (some part of) the period in question. It would be a notable view even if no one held it today, just as it is interesting to know how the Romans viewed their own history. In that case too modern historians know that much of that view was legendary, but it helps understand the thinking of the Romans. Martijn Meijering (talk) 17:01, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

We certainly need to represent the traditional view somewhere. We need to take into account that this article is already long at 90kb, "This page is 90 kilobytes long. It may be appropriate to split this article into smaller, more specific articles. SeeMisplaced Pages:Article size." This is one reason why we can't have a large amount of 'interaction' if that increases the article size. I'm not sure how we can deal with this but deal with it we must. I guess for each period we could have a short summary of the biblical story with pointers to appropriate articles, and then an 'ordinary' historical section (which as it would be more detailed, including archaeological information, etc, would be longer). If we do that we need a very short section in the dispute over when the relevant biblical literature was written. We can state the claims that the composition was actually earlier (which is what JJB is, I presume, getting at over the stele, as I don't think anyone is claiming the existence of actual earlier texts unless I've missed something-- JJB?), along with any counterclaims, but that all has to be short as it's tangential to the article. Dougweller (talk) 17:57, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

These are good points and I can't disagree. It does seem that we have enough material to split the article, although I'm not entirely sure where to draw the lines. The alternative is to treat this as an overview article which avoids going into any more detail than is absolutely necessary to get a general understanding across and relegates the meat to the article for that particular book. I think this makes sense because, really, each book is a thing in itself, with its own complex history, opposing interpretations and interrelations. Rather than try to combine all of these articles into one huge listing, we can do something that none of the articles in isolation can: show the big picture. That's my suggestion. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 18:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for agreeing on enfolding the POV, but let's keep a different question separate. I'm talking about correcting a few sentences that failed either V or NPOV or both and was told to go slow. If we are now talking about restructuring the whole article, well, there are quite a few articles on this topic with some overlap and not much hierarchy. This article itself is a subsection of History of Israel. Without discussing Jewish history, History of the Jews in the Land of Israel, or History of the Southern Levant, it would be very appropriate to first consult WP:SUMMARY and then merge the later sections of this article (leaving either summaries or nothing), into Babylonian captivity, Yehud Medinata, Hellenistic Judaism, and Hasmonean. Simply deleting most duplications would solve the whole problem, not to mention you could drop another 5K just by using short references, and another 5K by deleting insignificant uncited books. (Or create an article "Bibliography of the history of Israel"!)

In short, all this restructure talk is fine, but right now the verification failures need addressing, and not by a consensus that nothing need be done until I convince everyone else one sentence at a time. Addressing these errors will not balloon the article even into 100K. I am just here to address a problem I observed at another article that arose from here. It appeared to me to be a simple source conformity fix. When that problem is addressed I can help you with other problems that are lower on the WP priority scale (rearrangement of content is usually trumped by correction of content). Can we agree, under this subhead, that taking concerns one sentence at a time will also address the concern that tradition might (gasp) become an overweighted POV in this article? Thanks. JJB 18:54, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Fine, someone then needs to start a new section with another sentence with a verification failure. I can tomorrow, not now. Dougweller (talk) 19:08, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Doug, are you saying I can use my long sentence on the stele, or that we can revert to the short Stager-only sentence, or are you saying you think the stele sentence is settled and my concerns have been addressed, or something else? Hint: One option would be a case of not getting it. JJB 20:57, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

We're talking about completely restructuring the article, so what's the point of worrying about particular sentences that may well not survive these changes? It would be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 19:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Dylan, because you guys reverted a version that had only undisputed summary text and no verification flaws, in favor of restoring the verification flaws. If this is your argument, can I at least try removing the flaws again? JJB 21:04, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

You can do anything you want. However, so can I. If I'm unhappy with your "verified" changes, I can reject them. And, really, this has nothing to do with being "verified". We're trying to figure out what belongs in the article at all. Only what remains needs sourcing, and we'll make sure not to let anything remain that cannot be sourced. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 22:57, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

And why should the biblical literalist view be represented at all? They aren't regarded as reliable in academic circles, so why should they be given room here?PiCo (talk) 23:47, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Because of the reasons everyone but you have raised. Please stop reverting. JJB 10:22, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Since there is basic consensus on including the literalist POV and a silence in discussion, and since it hasn't been done yet to my knowledge, I am inserting one (1) clause based on a sentence PiCo accepted at Joshua. If this sentence were to be reverted without accounting for the consensus above, I would take it as being against consensus. JJB 12:10, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I haven't reverted it but I have changed the wording to say texts referring to the first half of the first millennium, which thus doesn't make any claims as to when they were written. I'm a bit concerned about the 'first half' 'second half' bit I can't find it in the source. Dougweller (talk) 12:23, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that edit is fine because it wasn't my language. I'll take your edit as accepting mine, and add your concern to my source verification failure list. I trust this is all you meant by not seeing a consensus for "my" wording. JJB 13:24, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Canaanite language

Next failed verification for discussion:

the Israelites are just as clearly indigenous to Canaan: to take language as just one indicator, Canaanite dialects of the 1st millennium divide into a core group made up of Phoenician and Israelite and a "fringe" group of Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite and Judaean, and it is impossible to distinguish between Hebrew and Canaanite inscriptions down to the 10th century.

Here's my most recent attempt to quote the sources and supply a balance source:

while Israelite sites are distinguished from Canaanite via number and distribution of ceramics and by more agrarian settlement plans. The dialects of first-millennium Canaanite, a sister language to Hebrew, include a core group of Phoenician and a Canaanite dialect of Israelite, and a fringe group of Ammonite, Moabite, Edomite and a Canaanite dialect of Judaean; the languages of the inscriptional evidence are of limited help due to not distinguishing between Israelite and Canaanite culture down to the tenth century.

This has the drawback of some choppiness, in that the sources chosen didn't actually fit together without some synthesis, and I don't know why we're talking about first-mill dialects in the Bronze Age section. But I will let others have first go at analyzing this section. JJB 22:17, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

It has the drawback of being misleading. The sources say, for example, that Israelite and Canaanite were dialects of a single language, not "sister languages" (a phrase that doesn't appear); your sentence "the languages of the inscriptional evidence are of limited help due to not distinguishing between Israelite and Canaanite culture down to the tenth century", apart from being just about unreadable, obscures the important point the source is making, which is that Hebrew and Canaanite are so close to identical that the inscriptions can't be used to distinguish them (in fact, although it's not mentioned, "Hebrew" inscriptions for this period are distinguished from Canaanite ones purely on the basis of where they're found); Israelite sites are not distinguished from Canaanite ones "via number and distribution of ceramics and by more agrarian settlement plans", and the source doesn't say they are (and what on Earth is a "more agrarian" settlement plan?)" So I think we better drop your proposal for the sake of accuracy. See next section. PiCo (talk) 23:44, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

It's confused - what Thompson means by 'Israelite' is the dialect of Canaanite referred to above as Hebrew, so we are calling the same language by two different names and describing that language in two different ways. Dougweller (talk) 05:10, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I understand Thompson to be referring to epigrahy - the inscriptions. Thus he speaks of "Judahite" (inscriptions from Judah) and "Israelite" (inscriptions from Israel). These are to be opposed to "Hebrew", which is the language of the bible (which exists only in the manuscripts of the masoretes).PiCo (talk) 09:56, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

That's what I understood also. Dougweller (talk) 11:22, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Canaanite language II

I've got a better idea, let's look at the passage as it stands:

• "...the Israelites are ... clearly indigenous to Canaan: to take language as just one indicator, Canaanite dialects of the 1st millennium divide into a core group made up of Phoenician and Israelite and a "fringe" group of Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite and Judaean, and it is impossible to distinguish between Hebrew and Canaanite inscriptions down to the 10th century. The process, (of the collapse of Canaanite culture) nevertheless, was spread out over more than a century, and extended well into the following Iron Age period."

This gives us four points to check:

• 1) "The Israelites are clearly indigenous to Canaan"

Killebrew, Anne, "Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, and Early Israel, 1300-1100 BCE" (Society of Biblical Literature, 2005) pp.10-16

• 2) "Canaanite dialects of the 1st millennium divide into a core group made up of Phoenician and Israelite and a "fringe" group of Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite and Judaean." (Note that Canaanite and Israelite are described as dialects of the same language)

Thompson, Thomas L., "Early History of the Israelite People" (Brill, 1992) p.413: The various dialects of Canaanite ... display some interesting distinctions and variations. "West Canaanite" (Phoenician, two or more dialects of Israelite and Judean) distinguishes itself from "East Canaanite" (Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite). Even more clearly, a "Core Canaanite" (Israelite and Phoenician) can be distinguished from "Fringe Canaanite" ((Judean, Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite)."

• 3) "It is impossible to distinguish between Hebrew and Canaanite inscriptions down to the 10th century."

Smith, Mark S., "The Early History of God" (HarpurSanFrancisco, 2002) p.27

• 4) "The process (of the collapse of Canaanite culture), nevertheless, was spread out over more than a century, and extended well into the following Iron Age period."

Golden, Jonathan Michael, "Ancient Canaan and Israel: new perspectives"(ABC-CLIO, 2004) p.62 "The transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age began in the late 13th century BCE (i.e., around 1200 - ed.) though much of the first part of the Iron Age ... can be regarded as a transitional period. The collapse of Late Bronze Age Canaanite culture was a gradual process..."

Since JJB seems to distrust me, I'll leave it to others to fill in the remaining gaps. PiCo (talk) 23:38, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

While I would be glad to help, I don't feel qualified. Perhaps it would be best if you did this, regardless of how JJB might feel. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 01:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I can't - googlebooks says I've exceeded my quota of views for those books. Someone else? PiCo (talk) 09:53, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Combining these two talk subheads split unnecessarily:

1. PiCo claims not to understand the meaning of "more agrarian" (i.e., having greater comparative agricultural focus), as if this is a sticking point. PiCo does not observe that the source says (how many times must I look at the same page?), "These population groups formed the ethnogenesis of what was later to become the people identified as Israel. These small sites are distinguished by the limited number of ceramic forms and their relative percentages, as well as the agrarian nature of their settlement plans." Killebrew pp. 10-16 does not say Israel was indigenous, it only uses that word to distinguish some pottery from other (Aegean-style) pottery.
2. The POV that Hebrew is a sister of Canaanite, not a daughter, appears in the source I added, which PiCo is not acknowledging seeing when it was there. Since PiCo's source refers to Canaanite dialects of Israelite and Judean, not to Israelite and Judean as separate daughter languages of Canaanite, there is no reason to equate these with Biblical Hebrew or its predecessor. Rather, it is implied there are non-Canaanite dialects of Israelite and Judean. (Besides, which of the two would be the presumed predecessor of Hebrew?)
3. PiCo's source does not say inscriptions "can't" be used to distinguish languages, it says they are of limited help distinguishing cultures, recognizing that there are distinguishable purely linguistic differences. "Inscriptional evidence is likewise of limited help in this regard, since down to the tenth century the languages and scripts of the epigraphic sources do not provide distinctions between the two cultures."
4. I did not challenge this sentence in point 4 above, but PiCo threw it in anyway for some reason.

PiCo is also unable to view the sources but is still holding that my statements about the sentences failing source verification can be fully doubted. This after not responding above, at "The emergence of Israel", to this exact same charge of source failure. Now, since the clause I deleted is not found in its sources and is not NPOV, what should we replace it with? So far I keep getting reverted no matter what process I use. JJB 10:59, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

What exactly does Mansoor say? I can find several sources mentioning Aramaic as a sister language to Hebrew, none mentioning Canaanite, and if we can't find any other sources, and our articles on those languages don't mention this, I don't think we should be using such a description. I tried to search Mansoor using but that didn't find anything. Dougweller (talk) 11:27, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is what Mark Smith writes, note pages 20 and 21:

Both linear and cuneiform alphabetic scripts are attested in inscriptions in the highlands as well as in the valleys and on the coast during both the Late Bronze (ca. 1550-1200) and Iron I (ca. 1200-1000) periods. This continuity is visible also in language. Though Hebrew and Canaanite are the linguistic labels applied to the languages of the two periods in this region, they cannot be easily distinguished in the Iron I period. For example, most scholars argue that the Gezer Calendar was written in Hebrew, but E. Y. Kutscher labels its language Canaanite. Canaanite and Hebrew so closely overlap that the ability to distinguish them is premised more on historical information than linguistic criteria.7 The ancient awareness of the close linguistic relationship, if not identity, between Canaanite and Hebrew is reflected in the postexilic oracle of Isaiah 19:18, which includes Hebrew in the designation "the language of Canaan" {iipat kena'an; cf. yihudit, "Judcan," in 2 Kings 18:26, 28; Isa. 36:11, 13; 2 Chron. 32:18; Neh. 13:24).8 Similarly, Canaanite and Israelite material culture cannot be distinguished by specific features in the Judges period.

On page 28: From the evidence that is available, one may conclude that although largely Canaanite according to currently available cultural data, Israel expressed a distinct sense of origins and deity and possessed largely distinct geographical holdings in the hill country by the end of the Iron 1 period. The Canaanite character of Israelite culture largely shaped the many ways ancient Israelites communicated their religious understanding of Yahweh. This point may be extended; the people of the highlands who came to be known as Israel comprised numerous groups, including Canaanites, whose heritage marked every aspect of Israelite society. In sum, Iron i Israel was largely Canaanite in character. Dougweller (talk) 10:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Fine, and thanks, but those are not the pages PiCo cited, and they do not use words like "impossible", or "can't" without qualification. So what edit would you make? JJB 11:03, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Your rushing things, not a good idea, and I haven't finished. Dougweller (talk) 11:08, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Anne Killibrew: Attempts to identify early Israel in the twelfth- and eleventh-century archaeological record are highly contested. In chapter 4 I propose that we consider the settlement and development of the central hill country region during the twelfth and eleventh centuries b.c.e. as representing a "mixed population" or "multitude" resulting from the upheavals at the end of the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages. These population groups formed the ethnogenesis of what was later to become the people identified as Israel. There seems to be a deliberate isolation and separation of the inhabitants of the large Iron I settlements and the smaller village sites, which are characterized by their size, limited ceramic repertoire, and, to a certain degree, cultic practices, all of which demonstrate Canaanite roots but also ideologically distinguish the highland village settlements from their neighbors. I propose that we are dealing with a mixed population whose ethnogenesis was forged by primordial, circumstantial, and ideological ties and whose origins lie in Canaan. Dougweller (talk) 11:08, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. The overall impression I get is that Killibrew says Israel emerged from a Canaanite background ("origins lie in Canaan") during upheavals at the Late Bronze/Early Iron transition. We possibly should re-write the intro to the article to make this clearer. I'd also like to add a prior section on the sources for this period of Israelite/Palestinian history - archaeology and the bible, and how both should be used. PiCo (talk) 11:35, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Mansoor p. 7 has "Chart Of The Semitic Languages (Main Distribution)" in which "Northwest Group" is divided by a tree into the branches Ugaritic, Canaanite-Phoenician (dialects), Hebrew, Aramaic (the word "sister" is standard for such a tree structure). Then pp. 8-9: "Hebrew–the original language of the Semitic settlers in the land of ancient Canaan (Palestine). Hebrew is closely related to (1) Canaanite ... (2) Moabite ... (3) Phoenician ... (4) Ugaritic .... Hebrew was a living language, used for speech and writing by the Israelites, until the Babylonian exile in 586 B.C. .... There are four main phases of the Hebrew language: 1. Biblical Hebrew, known as Classical Hebrew. 2. Rabbinical, or Late, Hebrew . 3. Medieval, or Rabbinic, Hebrew .... 4. Modern Hebrew .... It is very probable that the Bible does not contain all the vocabulary in actual use in biblical times, as indicated by archaeological texts uncovered since the beginning of this century." Note that this refers to Classical Hebrew as found at least in the DSS prior to the Mishna and Gemara, and not just found in the MT. JJB 16:23, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I've seen Hebrew and Aramaic referred to as sister languages, but not Hebrew and Canaanite, and evidently Mansoor doesn't refer to them specifically as sister languages either. If linguists commonly refer to them as sister languages you should have no problems finding another source, and if not, then I don't think we should even mention it, especially as he doesn't say that specifically. And what he refers to as Hebrew before the exile is what some others refer to as Israelite. Dougweller (talk) 18:01, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Whatever word one would use for being a separate branch in a tree diagram is fine. Thompson doesn't say Israelite came from Canaanite or is wholly part of Canaanite, he said dialects of Israelite and Judean are classed as Canaanite, without saying whether these dialects are lingua francas from distinct languages that branched apart earlier from proto-Semitic, or whether these dialects branched out from Canaanite. So we simply don't have the sources to say Israelite is flatly a Canaanite dialect without alternate POVs.

Now let me make a general statement. I haven't gone to great lengths source-searching because I don't trust Google Books very much. The sources already in this article generally admit of the traditional or literalist view by using certain disclaimer words such as "nonbiblical" and "dialect". IMHO, WP can follow suit by tacitly admitting the POV using similar disclaimer words, without getting into the rigmarole of explicitly stating the significant POV or arguing about which is "fringe" or "scientific" or "professional". It was my impression that sticking close to the sources would be an agreeable approach and that removing SYN that does not appear in the sources would be an obvious improvement. If the consensus is that source conformity is good and POV exclusion is bad, then we should simply proceed with what the sources say. This would naturally exclude arguing from what we think we read somewhere else without telling the group what (no particular reference is intended here of course). JJB 18:22, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you are reading Thompson correctly. He clearly says that Israelite is part of the Canaanite language family - ""Bearing in mind the caveat that the present stage of scholarship in historical linguistics is insufficiently independent of arguments from related disciplines, Knaufs differentiation of the "Canaanite" language family into "West Canaanite." (Phoenician, Israelite, and Judaean) and "East Canaanite." (Amnionic Moabite, and Edomite) has much to offer.87 When Knaufs further distinctions between these languages and the literary language of biblical Hebrew, as well as that between a core CCanaanite (represented by Phoenician and the dialects of Israelite) and "Fringe Canaanite." (Judaean, Ammorite, Moabite, and Edomite),89 are maintained, the potential for using epigraphic materials (in support of conclusions drawn independently from historical, economic and geographical arguments) for understanding the development of proto-ethnic groups in Palestine of the Assyrian period is substantially enhanced." Dougweller (talk) 21:07, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

"Mansoor" is presumably Menahem Mansoor, who wrote a popular beginner's guide for learners of Hebrew. He was professor of Hebrew at some American university. He was also a rather old-fashioned man who believed to his dying day that Abraham was a real person and that the Israelites were from Mesopotamia (Ur of the Chaldees). He was a linguist but not a philologist. Mansoor isn't regarded as an authority on these matters (he knew Hebrew, but not the history of Hebrew). Here are some books by scholars who know this field:

• Garr, "Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, p.229 ff. You'll find a table there setting out the "chain" of dialects: each link in the chain was mutually intelligible for the dialects on either side, and Hebrew falls between Edomite and Moabite. Hebrew falls about the middle; Phoenician is at one end; but even so, over 80 of the vocab of Phoenician and Hebrew was common to them both, and the only major grammatical difference was that Hebrew had lost its case endings.
• Angel Sáenz-Badillos, "A history of the Hebrew language" - try pp.29ff on Northwest Semitic, and pp.45 ff on dialectic development.

PiCo (talk) 23:55, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Which is further confirmation that we shouldn't be using Mansoor. We need to show significant POVs, not all POVs. If several sources made this claim, that would make it more likely we could use the claim, but until those show up... Dougweller (talk) 05:36, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me

This section (ADD: reorganized by PiCo to previous section) is generating heat and not light, such as with PiCo's unsourced bio of Mansoor's beliefs; Garr and Saenz basically agree with Mansoor on the key point (Hebrew being Northwest Semitic). But my edit was about three challenges, not four, nor one. On points 1 and 3, no objection has been raised to my charge of source failure, so I will proceed with edits that have been accepted previously (even enfolded by PiCo) at other articles. Thus my edits to these clauses can be taken as silent consensus that the verification failures needed correction.

On point 2 (language tree), I trust we can start by cutting the synthesis clause "to take language as just one indicator", as no source uses the tree as proof of indigenousness. As to what the tree actually says, there is a necessary disambiguation between the "Canaanite" language (essentially Phoenician) and the "Canaanite" group (essentially Northwest Semitic), so I propose we use the latter unambiguous names, following Saenz and Mansoor. It is true that the second Thompson gloss (it's p. 338, since Doug didn't say) is not ambiguous like I noted the first was, so 338 would work better. However, Thompson says the view of linear polar continuum found in Garr is "insouciance", "mechanical and naive" (337), so there are two opposing POVs among "your" sources. (Further, Garr doesn't say each language on the continuum was mutually intelligible with the next, and Garr and Saenz both list many grammatical differences (not just one) between Hebrew and the other tongues, so PiCo's summary is mistaken, again.)

If we take Thompson p. 338 as the main support (reading "Ammorite" as "Ammonite" rather than "Amorite"–who scanned that?), augmented by Saenz, this should address the prior source failure as an acceptable compromise, in that it arises from consensus sources.

Finally, in dealing with the many additional verification failures, I would appreciate it if editors worked from a perspective of accommodating and enfolding my policy concerns. This section has instead been a good illustration of failure to propose changes that would deal with the source misrepresentation. Thank you. JJB 13:19, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

JJB, I know you mean well, but you consistently misunderstand and misrepresent books. First, you haven't demonstrated a single source failure, so please don't make any changes. Second, absolutely everyone agrees that Hebrew belongs to Northwest Semitic - it's a language family. Third, every one of those books - Garr, Saenz and Thompson - is saying that Hebrew is a dialect of Canaanite, which is the language of the indigenous peoples of Canaan. Fourth, I suggest we ignore Mansoor - he's not an expert on languages, just on Hebrew. Fifth, while Thompson faults Garr for using a linear graph, he doesn't disagree with the underlying idea that is a dialect of Canaanite. Finally, while your contributions are of course welcome, you need to read with far more attention to detail - to repeat, not one of your so-called "authentication failures" has been found to be a failure. PiCo (talk) 03:36, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

PiCo, your making sweeping changes to other sections while asking me to go one sentence at a time and reverting my text without addressing my reasonable concerns (plus your habit of arguing illogically, which has already been evidenced and ignored, and need not be harped on) is turning me off on the concept that responding to your rhetoric is useful to you; however, while I may or may not hold that thought in abeyance, I will continue to respond when necessary for the sake of others not misunderstanding. Your claim, that I have not demonstrated failures, does not make itself so. Right now the list above Talk:History of ancient Israel and Judah#The emergence of Israel is still mostly unaddressed, although we've agreed so far on removing the language not in Killebrew that Israel was indigenous, and the language not in Thompson that dialect indicates indigenousness. However, you've undone Doug's phrasing that admits Biblical sourcing (Doug, I habitually capitalize that due to AP style) to address the assumption not in Stager that Bible can be ignored, and you've reinserted the word "impossible" not in Smith, saying "bring this back to what the source says", when at that prior section you admit not knowing what the source says. You also have at least five cases in that section where I demonstrate source failure, you baldly assert without proof that the source does say what you think, and then act as if I have the WP:BURDEN of proving a negative. I say eight pages in Miller do not say writing was uncommon, and you say, "Read the chapter again, more carefully"? Looking for evidence for your unsupported thoughts is not my job. And all this is not to deal with what might be massive additional failures in several articles (based on your past history), this is only an attempt to deal with a few unbalanced, unsupported sentences you inserted from here into another article, and it's been dragging out for a long time, although progress is being made. I am reverting these two changes under WP:BRD as against the consensus demonstrated above and as infractions of WP:NPOV and WP:V, and creating new sections below. JJB 11:44, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Bible in lead

PiCo deleted, and I reverted, the phrasing Doug enfolded, "and its mention in biblical texts", from the lead, despite agreement by everyone else, already noted, that Biblical texts are worthy of mention as sources for beliefs in themselves (thus, leadworthy), and that in fact source analysis needs its own section as well. Obviously an ancient people's origin traditions are an important part of their article, especially given that these particular traditions have a worldwide following. Sources for this article make constant mention of the history present in Biblical texts. Please provide below any reasons that mention of the Bible should not appear in the lead. (I might add, this article is about an "and" relationship, but not until I inserted the word "related" was there any apparent mention that Israel was in some relation to Judah, and a tremendous source indicating such a relationship is the Bible.) JJB 11:44, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be seriously confused. What we were talking about was a section weighing the e3xtent to which the bible can be used to reconstruct the history of ancient Judah/Israel - this is something I agree with and I'll get around to a draft in the not to distant future. Or you can start it yourself if you wish - there's plenty of sources down in the Bibliography section. But the idea that the bible is simply a collection of "origin traditions" is seriously flawed - you need to ask questions, such as when these texts originated, who wrote them, what audience they wrote for, and more. I'd be inclined to put in the lead a sentence to the effect that the biblical history can't be taken at face value and needs to be treated with caution. Would you agree to that? PiCo (talk) 22:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Impossible to distinguish inscriptions

PiCo changed "the languages of the inscriptional evidence are of limited help due to not distinguishing between Israelite and Canaanite culture" to "it is impossible to distinguish between Israelite and Canaanite inscriptions", against at least a silent consensus of not objecting when I pointed out this source failure and Doug's acceptance of this edit while making other changes. I reverted since this is a continuing WP:V violation, and since PiCo claims both to know and not to know what this source says. Source (once again) says, "Inscriptional evidence is likewise of limited help in this regard, since down to the tenth century the languages and scripts of the epigraphic sources do not provide distinctions between the two cultures." It is clearly possible to distinguish some inscriptions, because they are "of limited help", but the source adds that cultures are not distinguished; PiCo's other sources, already alluded to, provide many markers that distinguish Hebrew from Canaanite languages. The word "impossible" is impermissibly strong and does not account for the source nuances. Please provide below any evidence that Smith p. 27 says distinguishing inscriptions is impossible. JJB 11:44, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The quote you give us is saying that it's impossible to distinguish Canaanite from Hebrew inscriptions down through the 10th century.("Down to the tenth century the languages and scripts of the epigraphic sources do not provide distinctions between the two cultures" - i.e., you can't tell Hebrew and Canaanite apart from the language and the script). Wjhile we're on the subject, the sources are all saying that Canaanite is a language, and that Hebrew, Phoenician etc are dialects of it - and Northwest Semitic is not a language, it's a language family (to put that in perspective, Indo-European is a language family, English and Bengali are languages within it, and Lellans and Standard English are dialects of it). It's all in the sources. PiCo (talk) 21:33, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Linguists distinguish languages from dialects by the following criterion: a language is a dialect with an army and a navy... Martijn Meijering (talk) 21:57, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes :). Though in their more serious moments I think they have other definitions. PiCo (talk) 22:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The formulation is humorous, but as I understand it they are very serious about it. There is no technical criterion for distinguishing between dialects and languages, although in a specific geographical location at a specific period in time one dialect may have more status than another and may be considered a separate language. But it isn't even always a matter of status. The various Ancient Greek dialects originally had no difference in status, all were considered Greek and all were considered dialects. The Greek language consisted of a series of dialects with no unique standard form of the language. Various literary genres used various dialects. Only later did Attic Greek rise to preeminence among the other dialects. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I understand the basic criterion is mutual intelligibility - if X and Y-speakers can understand each other, they're dialects. I also remember reading that someone very diligently mapped dialects at village level and discovered that there's a chain of mutual intelligibility from France across the border into Italy - but not at national level, of course. Anyway, what you say seems to support what our sources say, which is that Phoenician, Edomite, Hebrew et al are properly regarded as dialects of a language called Canaanite. PiCo (talk) 22:39, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

": As per Doug's request, deleting next sentence for consideration, see talk."

I did not ask JJB to delete anything and I object to edit summaries that put words in my mouth that I didn't say. Nor did I suggest the change in the Merneptah. Nor, although I used the word known, did I say 'known record'. And I was not the only person in the discussion, and it might have been thought a good idea to let others have a say. Dougweller (talk) 04:58, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I apologize, I did not find a request to move on to the next point under your name as I thought I had seen. You did permit the correction to "1209" and "for" Merneptah, and you did acknowledge the need to admit a POV that is (still) notably lacking, if not totally absent, from this article. And I did listen to the others' say. But a significant problem here is that my V and NPOV concerns do not get addressed through a variety of rationales, none of which actually deals with these core policies. Now, if you can accept my apology, I trust we can get around to fixing these core complaints. Thank you. JJB 11:10, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

1209

The Merneptah stele was inscribed in the fifth year of Merneptah, and despite the dates in our article on him, there is uncertainty surrounding those dates. We could have c. 1209 and that wouldn't be wrong. There is a slow effort in our AE articles to make the uncertainty a bit more obvious, but its slow. Dougweller (talk) 15:27, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

"C. 1209" (with the space, which others have omitted) would be fine if you just source the uncertainty. JJB 16:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

"c. 1209", see MOS:DATES. Dougweller (talk) 16:56, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Hellenistic period

I've shortened the section on the Hellenistic period considerably, because it's far too long - longer than any other of the history sections. However, it covered some valid subjects, such as the rise of Jewish sectarianism and the codification of Jewish literature. These will be put back in to new sections. PiCo (talk) 22:53, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Serious problem

I've never seen this done before, but PiCo not only reverted the previous week of consensus-building by restoring (PiCo's own) edit of 10:04, 29 September 2010 (or its twin of 21:22, 29 September 2010), but also made a tremendous number of changes and deletions after restoring that edit. This is a serious no-no for the obvious reason that PiCo's presumable improvements are not enfolded with the improvements made during (what is now) the consensus fork. That latter set of improvements includes many bot improvements to PiCo's poorly coded reference style; consensus on the first two of about nine verification failures that PiCo believes will not be failures if only the obviousness of their nonfailure is repeated often enough; consensus on some lead improvements (such as why the article has "and" in the title, and exact dates, at least one of which PiCo put in (6 CE)); many fixes of disambiguation and broken links; and (once again) correcting spelling of Ann Killebrew. Not only does PiCo reinstate the misspellings, the broken and ambiguous links, the KB-wasting reference style, the failure to explain in the lead that Israel "and" Judah have some relationship, and of course the consensus to which PiCo alone takes exception; PiCo also rewrites thoroughly the uncorrected text (and this is the serious and unprecedented part) so that it is impossible to enfold even the noncontroversial (e.g., bot) changes without close analysis of the history and/or trial reversions for the sake of comparison. This is the classic definition of content forking (and/or edit warring): the inability to understand the edit history as one organically growing improvement, but only as a competition between alternating growing versions. (PiCo's straight-faced claim of undoing departures from source conformity, made while reinstituting misspellings and what are agreed to be failed glosses, and PiCo's claim that too many changes are happening, made immediately before instituting wholesale abbreviations of longstanding text, can be judged on their own merits.)

My first analysis reveals that (after the restoration of what PiCo calls the consensus version despite the changing consensus evidenced above) all PiCo's changes were limited to the sections on the Persian empire and following. Since I haven't reviewed these in detail, I am not taking sides on them as yet. IMHO, the best way to enfold PiCo's nonpareil boldness is to restore the actual consensus version (Doug's edit of 14:59, 7 Oct) up to but not including the Persian empire, and to stick with PiCo's version thereafter, except for redoing a few dab links and recorrecting the spelling, and letting the bot refix the reference problems at its convenience. The number of diffs I needed to review to reach this conclusion is not worth reporting. I am also reporting this event and its history to the edit war board. It would be appropriate if someone else could confirm the new version as reflecting what I have read as "consensus other than PiCo". As for my own disputes with the text, two of them had been resolved and the remainder can continue going the long one-by-one process, so I will accept this consensus if it includes an ongoing discussion of the list I already provided. However, an editor that undoes this process is not IMHO improving the article. JJB 02:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

JBB, you seem hell-bent on ramming your changes through. I repeat, you haven't shown any "verification failures", and you've consistently misrepresented the sources. (Probably not intentionally). To take an example, all the linguists we source say that Hebrew is a dialect of Canaanite, yet you persist in putting in this unsourced thing about a non-existent Northwest Semitic "language" (it's a language family). Anyway, I've been very patient with you and shall continue to be. I've now reverted to the more accurate version, and, as a concession and because I think the article is too long in any case, I've cut some relatively unimportant material. See if you can accept this in the spirit of compromise. PiCo (talk) 03:21, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict with a comment that reads to me as if the last two weeks of discussion haven't happened:) In the above paragraph, PiCo succeeds in, first, misspelling my name; then, making an unfounded accusation of my seeming hell-bent on ramming when I have proceeded gradually for two weeks toward achieving consensus; confirming my prior characterization that PiCo talks as if verification failures will go away if only they are denied often enough; projecting (somebody else's?) source misrepresentation onto me when any diffs will show my text accurately represents sources; representing all sourced linguists as saying Hebrew is a dialect of Canaanite when none of them have been shown to make such an unequivocal statement; accused me of inventing "Northwest Semitic 'language'" when I have said nothing of the kind (WP:PROVEIT) and correctly distinguished it from being a language above (at "Excuse me"; although PiCo does use the word "language" incorrectly in this sense, 23:44, 1 Oct, by saying "Israelite and Canaanite were dialects of a single language", unless PiCo means Canaanite was a dialect of Canaanite I suppose); claiming that the "CFanaanite" version is more accurate when the version says Canaanite dialects divide into Israelite, Judaean, etc., even though no source says so and one source disagrees; patting self on the back for patience; making yet another unilateral judgment as to version accuracy without support; and treating, as if a concession, the deletion of a sentence I didn't challenge, and one of my own clauses, when we previously agreed that the deletion of a sentence would serve only as a baseline for starting discussion.

However, all that aside, it is possible to accept the deletion of my clause as a proposed fix for the verification failure it replaced (the one about distinction being "impossible", a strong word not in source); and to consider it as being proffered in exchange for my being willing to leave the phrase "CFanaanite dialects" or its like in the article. While it cannot be accepted as an exchange on these terms, because it is one-sided as noted and it does not address the WP:V failure to source the idea of "Canaanite dialect", it's possible it can be taken at least as far as a good-faith attempt to keep discussion going and to avoid getting slammed for edit warring, in spite of the behavior noted in the previous paragraph, and the very inappropriate cold-reversion just prior. My response would be that, first, skirting the border of edit warring is not any safer than doing it outright. Second, I'd ask PiCo to consider the fact that "Northwest Semitic" instead of "Canaanite" is a nomenclature every editor and source agrees with, while "Canaanite dialect" is not in any source and controverted by Mansoor quoted above, and his POV can be supplemented at will. The closest you (meaning Doug) have come to source conformity is Thompson p. 338. So, third, if the wiggle room allowed by "Northwest Semitic" is still not acceptable, your other options for completing a level-field compromise would seem to be to cut this sentence too, or to run with a true gloss of Thompson, or to supply another source or page. A gloss might run, "Bearing in mind that historical linguistics is insufficiently independent of related disciplines, differentiation of the Canaanite language family into Phoenician, Israelite, Judaean, Ammonite, Moabite, and Edomite has much to offer." (See the source above if you disagree with the gloss, 21:07, 3 Oct.) Can anyone choose among these four options? Thank you. JJB 05:41, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Let's look at your most recent edits. I'll paste your version here, and explain my changes (this is your version we're looking at): — PiCo — continues after insertion below (& sim.)

I take it this means my last. This assumption may be important later. JJB 06:38, 8 October 2010 (UTC) (& sim.)

• The ancient history of Israel and Judah runs from the first mention of the name Israel in the archaeological record in 1209 BCE and its mention in biblical texts No problem, except for the reference to "mention in biblical texts." What mention? The reference to the Merneptah stele is precise and gives us a date to work from (1200 BCE); the reference to biblical texts is vague and no help in setting the limits of the period we're dealing with.
  • "What mention?" appears rhetorical because the answer is obvious, and the clause is not intended to be precise about biblical dates nor to set limits. The sudden insistence on precision is belied by PiCo's alluding to 1209 as 1200 and by the edit earlier today that removed several precise dates from the lead, including one PiCo edited. The point of including this clause is, naturally, to satisfy WP:LEAD by mentioning biblical texts as a significant part of Israel's history without contradicting any POV from fundamentalists to minimalists: deliberate vagueness. (Of course, the notable POV controversy could be described in detail per WP:LEAD also, but why push?) Any such clause that accomplishes that would be fine (not the clause PiCo proposed earlier about the unreliability of the Bible, of course, since that POV would need balancing). Any reversion to this clause that does not address this concern would be considered for an edit-war report followup.
    • JJB, please put your hostility to me to one side and listen to what I'm saying, because even people you don't like can be sensible sometimes. Now here goes: This sentence stands at the top of the lead, and it's setting the limits of the article: it's saying we're going to talk about these two kingdoms in the time-period 1200 BCE-6 AD, and it explains why: the Merneptah stele sets one limit, the end of Herod's nominal kingdom of Judah sets the other. That's all. We're not trying to make a point about the age of the biblical texts. I know the age of those texts is important to you., but for that we need a new section, one that addresses the biblical literature - at the moment it doesn't exist, but you're welcome to start it.
• In biblical texts referring to the first half of the 1st millennium "Canaan" can mean all of the land west of the Jordan river or, more narrowly, the coastal strip (the Bible narratives are ascribed to the eras they depict by Bava Batra 14b ff. (Talmud) and early Church Fathers). If you can see any connection between a sentence talking about the geographic limits of Canaan and the part in parentheses about the Bava Batra (a text that dates from the early Christian period), please let me know, but I can't.
  • Again, this last clause appears rhetorical, because the identity between biblical texts and Bible narratives is obvious, and the relative dating of the Bible and Talmud is irrelevant. This parenthesis was also formerly accepted by PiCo elsewhere, but any clause that admits the literalist POV, anywhere in the early section, would be fine; it was only inserted here because the texts were mentioned in that sentence. However, reversion that does not address this POV concern would be considered for reporting.
    • John, please: no-one is denying that the Talmud sets traditional dates for the books of the bible. The question is, what's that got to do with the geographical limits of Canaan? This sentence belongs in the section on the Biblical literature, which you might care to start.
      • I will accept the deletion of this clause as an invitation to create the section and allude to it in the head, which will need to happen when sources can be selected that have a reasonable hope of not getting reverted. JJB 07:35, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
• the Israelites are ... clearly indigenous to Canaan Killebrew, Anne, "Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, and Early Israel, 1300-1100 BCE" (Society of Biblical Literature, 2005) pp.10-16 You took this out, although it's sourced - why?
  • I kept the source and replaced the sentence with a proper gloss, to which PiCo even contributed the first word: "Archaeologist Ann Killebrew adds, 'Recent research on the emergence of Israel points unequivocally to the conclusion that biblical Israel's roots lie in the final century of Bronze Age Canaan.'" She does not use the word "indigenous" about Israel in these pages; her actual phrasing, that the roots lie in 13th-century Canaan, leaves wiggle room about how much further the roots go. The word "indigenous" does not. Since PiCo had previously enfolded this sentence by adding a word, there is no need for it to be reverted.
    • Yes, you did keep my refer3ence to Killibrew, and I thank you for it. But if Killibrew says that Israel's roots lie in the final century of Bronze-age Canaan, how does that mean anything other than that the Israelites were indigenous to Canaan?
      • If my roots lie in Phoenix, it's still possible I'm indigenous to Memphis. If you believe the phrases are synonymous, why insist on the unsourced one? JJB 07:35, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
• Canaanite dialects of the 1st millennium divide into a core group made up of Phoenician and Israelite and a "fringe" group of Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite and Judaean Thompson, Thomas L., "Early History of the Israelite People" (Brill, 1992)p.413 You deleted this too, but it's sourced also - why? And you changed "Canaanite dialects" to "Northwest Semitic dialects" - why?
  • I don't know how I deleted this sentence at the same time as retaining it with a word change. The edit I assumed above as the intended edit is the word change and not the deletion/replacement. The answer is given fully above at 05:41 in this section. A repeated potential inference, that I delete without retaining the source and correcting the conformity failure, is false. It's possible two weeks ago that I deleted a source that was so far from verifiably supporting its clause as to be unsalvageable, but whatever I did at that point has not been challenged in any discussion since. The options for this clause are also above at 05:41.
• it is impossible to distinguish between Hebrew and Canaanite inscriptions down to the 10th century.Smith, Mark S., "The Early History of God" (HarpurSanFrancisco, 2002) p.27 This is sourced too, but you took it out - why?
  • For the nth time, the source does not say "impossible". I replaced it with the clause quoted just below, which is almost exactly what Smith says, q.v.
    • See next.
• the languages of the inscriptional evidence are of limited help due to not distinguishing between Israelite and Canaanite culture down to the tenth century.Smith, Mark S., "The Early History of God" (HarpurSanFrancisco, 2002) p.27 This is your own (mis)interpretation of the source - quite wrong, since Smith is saying that the inscriptions themselves can't be distinguished, because the languages and alphabets are identical.
  • Here PiCo's genius is fully demonstrated. Without my requoting the source again, PiCo represents my simple gloss that deletes a few words and preserves Smith's thought as a quite-wrong misinterpretation; and PiCo also baldly says that, using the same source, it is sourced to gloss it as saying "inscriptions" are "impossible to distinguish", when the source says "cultures" are "not distinguish"ed by inscriptions . PiCo then repeats the juggling of Smith's words and adds a WP:SYN that the languages are identical, which is the foregone conclusion that has not been proven. And, in fact, the two later linguist sources provided said clearly that Israelite language has significant markers that distinguish it from the Canaanite dialects, and, IIRC, Saenz adds that Israelite/Hebrew has more distinguishing markers than any of those dialects.
    • John, again I ask you to put your antipathy aside and just listen: Smith is saying that you can't use the inscriptions to distinguish Canaanite from Hebrew sites, precisely because the language and alphabets are identical. This isn't my synthesis, it's what Smith is saying.
      • The language is not identical per Saenz, and Smith doesn't say it is "identical", nor does he speak of "alphabets" when he acknowledges (plural) scripts. When speaking of inscriptions, he nods at this nonidentity by admitting it is of limited help. Your first clause correctly changes the focus from distinguishing inscriptions to distinguishing sites, but you still say "can't", which is not in source. If you believe the phrases are synonymous, why insist on the unsourced one? JJB 07:35, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
        • John, Thompson is saying, quite clearly, that Hebrew is a dialect of Canaanite. Smith says the same thing, apparently not clearly enough for you to grasp. Same for Saenz. "Canaanite" is a broad term, a language made up of many dialects. I gather you're American (the references to American cities above). In America the variations are so slight that the word "dialect" hardly applies. But in the UK, if you walked into a pub in Glasgow, you wouldn't understand a word that was being said. That's what dialects are like in a country that has the real thing. But what they talk in Glasgow is English, just the same. And what they spoke in Jerusalem was a dialect of Canaanite - the bible actually says so. PiCo (talk) 08:21, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The overall pattern of your edits gives an impression of either deliberate of, to be charitable, accidental misrepresentation of the sources. In either case it verges on pov-pushing. I think you need to take a step back and consider whether you're really as impartial as you evidently believe. PiCo (talk) 05:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I reviewed the above another time to see if this charge of misrepresentation and POV-pushing was accompanied by any demonstration, other than bald assertion, that my glosses are actually faulty. The first two grafs above are not about source misrepresentation; the next three are about removal of PiCo's source failures; there was an earlier reference to "Northwest Semitic 'language'", which is an unsupported charge because not my phrasing and not proveable as such by PiCo; and there is the final claim about Smith. But I don't know how "languages of inscriptions are of limited help" is a "bad" gloss of Smith when those are his words, while "distinguishing inscriptions is impossible because the languages are identical" is a "good" gloss when those aren't his words. But if PiCo cannot gloss my own phrasing accurately, who would expect PiCo to gloss the sources accurately? Sorry.

Anyway, I find it useful to repeat the editing paradigms I'm using, and particularly so when dealing with an editor that has hardly ever stated recognition of any such paradigm. PiCo's current version of 03:16, 8 Oct, is an acceptable interim consensus version, with the proviso that the word "Canaanite" is disputed and options are laid out above, and with the understanding that about seven other sentences are disputed for seriatim consideration, as soon as the talk page can get to them. These are the same sentences I've been disputing for over two weeks. I take PiCo's present edits as taking the current version as "interim" consensus as well, although PiCo disputes the list of edits just above, which are being discussed. I have already stated my reading of the other editors as not quibbling with earlier incarnations of this version either. The next step would be to nail down the compromise on this set of edits, along with any other editors that have concerns about these clauses, and to proceed with any other disputes within the "normal" editing cycle. Failure to engage in this consensus process will not be taken well. JJB 06:38, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

John, it's a simple fact, and easily verified from many sources, that Hebrew is a dialect of Canaanite. I've tried to explain this to you, but you refuse to understand, instead misrepresenting the meaning of the various scholars. Given this background, I think it might be wise if we dropped this fruitless discussion. I've invited you to start a section on the sources for the history of ancient Israel/Judah, and that invitation still stands - it will let you investigate current scholarly thinking on the bible as a history text. You should also look into the use of archaeology. Do this, and you'll have added something of value to the article. PiCo (talk) 08:10, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Conformity/verification of sources

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There is a dispute about conformity/verification of sources in this article after one editor made a number of new edits and another editor raised the issue of verification. This is meant to be a content RfC dealing with verification and conformity with sources and related issues. The talk page above lays out the dispute, and this link shows the difference between the edits up to September 26th, when the dispute began, and today. Dougweller (talk) 19:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

John's statement of issues

• Thanks Doug, this is a placeholder for a repeat of my and PiCo's lists of issues above, to which I will return soon. JJB 00:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is a much better diff, in that Doug's diff includes a lot of post-Persian changes that I have not reviewed or disputed. As another minor point, the history is actually that PiCo made significant edits to Joshua that arose from this article and I brought the V issue here from there. I will be treating the current version as the baseline because it appears there is a consensus on the first couple changes aside from PiCo (we had agreed to discuss the sentences one-by-one, and that was working to a degree and can continue to do so, but this list gives the current baseline for either seriatim or parallel discussion). I am also using this list as the baseline for PiCo's current concerns, as they appear to me to be shifting regularly. Much of this rehashes the list above at "The emergence of Israel". From these versions:

1. I would change the lead, "runs from the first mention of the name Israel in the archaeological record in 1209 BCE", by adding "and its mention in biblical texts", as per WP:LEAD mentioning salient points like the Bible. PiCo has permitted me to write a new section on textual sources of this history, which I may begin, but the validity of this point to the lead has appeared accepted to be consensus independent of the section being written. PiCo also asks the rhetorical question "what mention?" and has objected to this placement of the Biblical mention by inferring a chronological assumption that is not there, but has not proposed an alternate placement.  Done, PiCo apparently accepted John's summary of PiCo
2. In Bronze Age, PiCo would delete the clause "(the Bible narratives are ascribed to the eras they depict by Bava Batra 14b ff. (Talmud) and early Church Fathers)", which PiCo accepted in other articles, but has not proposed an alternative that would even acknowledge the significant literalist POV that disagrees with the main clause of that sentence. I have stated that any alternative that acknowledges this widespread POV would be fine. PiCo below implies a waiver of this point.
3. PiCo would change "Archaeologist Ann Killebrew adds: "Recent research on the emergence of Israel points unequivocally to the conclusion that biblical Israel's roots lie in the final century of Bronze Age Canaan"" (which PiCo enfolded in another article) to "the Israelites are just as clearly indigenous to Canaan", claiming this represents source Killebrew pp. 10-16. I respond that source does not use the word "indigenous" in this sense, which removes the wiggle room, and uses the more ambiguous "roots lie in", and that if PiCo thinks the versions are synonymous there should be no objection to retaining the more exact one. PiCo below implies a waiver of this point.
4. I would change "Canaanite dialects of the first millennium" to "Northwest Semitic dialects" because no source says outright that Israelite or Judaean are dialects of Canaanite; Mansoor's chart specifically says that they are lateral branches of NW Semitic; and the sourceability of the NW Semitic statement is not disputed like the Canaanite statement is. PiCo objects that I have treated NW Semitic as a language rather than a family.  Done, deleted
5. PiCo would add "it is impossible to distinguish between Hebrew and Canaanite inscriptions down to the 10th century" after this thought. I said source Smith p. 27 does not say it's impossible to distinguish inscriptions but that inscriptions are of limited help to distinguish cultures, and said that inscription languages have many marker distinctions mentioned in sources. Though this clause is missing now, my gloss of the source had been "the languages of the inscriptional evidence are of limited help due to not distinguishing between Israelite and Canaanite culture down to the tenth century", which is also acceptable to me. PiCo continued to treat the versions as synonymous ("the languages ... are identical", controverted by PiCo's sources), and I again replied that there should then be no objection to retaining the more exact one. PiCo below implies a waiver of this point.
6. In Iron Age, I would change "the Phoenician cities continued from the Bronze into the Iron Age without interruption" to "the Phoenician cities were held by the tenth century; Phoenician kings are also mentioned in Biblical texts" because source Golden pp. 155-160 does not say anything about Phoenicians continuing uninterrupted from the Bronze Age. PiCo said he does, without quoting him. Source mention of Biblical evidence was also brought in at this point to deal with PiCo's unsourced assertion that Phoenicia was not in the pertinent Bible passages.  Done, new source
7. This point edited per discussion, and sources added to each point below, JJB 12:42, 25 October 2010 (UTC): I would change "This Israel, identified as a people, was probably located in the northern part of the central highlands" to more exact "This Israel, identified as a people, tribe, coalition, or territory, was located in the northern part of the central highlands by Gösta Ahlström" (or simply "... was probably located in the central highlands") because source Lemche pp. 37-8 seems to disagree with the "northern part" proposal and present a western- or full-central proposal. PiCo appeared to me to be contradictory on this point and so I would not want to summarize that position. Lemche pp. 37-8: Ahlström points with good reasons at the northern part of the central highlands. It is remarkable that other scholars have not taken up Ahlström's interpretation. ... That is the end of the city line. The following is described as Israel, whether this reference is a reference to a specific population, a tribe or a tribal coalition, or just a territory carrying this name. When mapping the route of approach of the Egyptian expedition, there can be no doubt that we have arrived at the western border of the central highlands, at the southeastern extension of what would in the Iron Age be situated at the southwestern border of the kingdom of Israel.
8. I would delete "At the same time the highlands, previously unpopulated, were beginning to fill with villages" as not found in source McNutt pp. 69-70; McNutt says the villages were previously populated, as per next point. PiCo said she does say the highlands were previously unpopulated, without quoting her. McNutt (reused below) pp. 69-70.
9. I would change "surveys have identified more than 300 new settlements in the Palestinian highlands during Iron Age I, most of them in the northern regions, and the largest with a population of no more than 300" to "Although only village dwellers left behind sufficient archaeological remains, surveys have identified more than 300 settlements in the regional highlands dating to Iron Age I (more and larger in the north), a minority having been occupied in prior periods, and new settlements in the fringe regions as well" and add "Settlers were estimated at twenty thousand in the twelfth century and double that in the eleventh" or similar phrasing. Source McNutt pp. 69-70 emphasizes the archaeological unknowability of the nonvillage nomadic populations, and that they should not be ignored; the Iron Age region was not primarily called "Palestinian" and was not so in source; source does not say they were new during the era but they were found dating to the era with some prior occupation; source's mention of highland-fringe settlements and population estimates were discounted by omission; and the max pop of 300 is contradicted by another source that says 400, below. McNutt pp. 69-70: Historically in the Middle East, what appear to be isolated communities are always linked in some way to communities elsewhere. Because of the interdependent, complex, and ever-changing ways of life in this region, social groups have not always fallen readily into neat classificatory niches such as villagers, pastoral nomads, or city dwellers. Although this was probably the case during Iron Age I, as it has been in other periods, only the villagers left behind sufficient remains for us to determine the character of their settlement patterns. ... Recent surveys have identified more than three hundred sites in highland Palestine that date to Iron Age I. Some of them had been occupied in previous periods, but most were in locations that had never been settled before. New settlements were also established in the agriculturally marginal areas on the eastern and southern desert fringes of Transjordan and in the Negeb. The populations of these villages were small, most of them supporting no more than a hundred individuals, and the largest no more than three hundred. The settled population for the twelfth century has been estimated at approximately twenty thousand, and for the eleventh century double that number. Settlement was most intensive, and villages were larger, in the northern regions of Ephraim and Manasseh.
10. I would change "It is impossible to differentiate these "Israelite" villages from Canaanite sites of the same period on the basis of material culture" to (after the pig bones) "Later Israelite sites are also distinguished from Canaanite ones via number and distribution of ceramics and by more agrarian settlement plans" or similar phrasing, as per Killebrew p. 13, in that Killebrew does not use the word "impossible" in this sense. PiCo said "not quite" and asked me to read the source again, without providing a specific additional quote or rationale. Killebrew (reused below) p. 13: These small sites are distinguished by the limited number of ceramic forms and their relative percentages, as well as the agrarian nature of their settlement plans.
11. I would change "almost the sole marker distinguishing the two is an absence of pig bones, although whether this can be taken as an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute" to "Israelite sites are notably absent of pig bones, and some archaeologists (cf. Finkelstein) interpret this as indicating distinct ethnic identity, but it could result from other factors" in that Killebrew p. 176 does not say "sole marker" and provides other markers p. 13, and because the source distinguishes the ethnic marker position as an archaeologist POV and the other position as generic rather than as equally weighted. PiCo's "not quite" and "read again" applied confusingly to this as well. Killebrew p. 176: One species, the pig, is notably absent. ... Some archaeologists have interpreted this to indicate that the ethnic identity of the highland inhabitants was distinct from Late Bronze Age indigenous peoples (see Finkelstein 1997, 227–30). Brian Hesse and Paula Wapnish (1997) advise caution, however, since the lack of pig bones at Iron I highland settlements could be a result of other factors that have little to do with ethnicity.
12. I would delete "There are no temples or shrines, although cult-objects associated with the Canaanite god El have been found" as not anywhere on source Killebrew p. 176. PiCo says to try a few pages back but has not sourced this claim any more specifically. This is a very basic source verification failure that is deleted under WP:V all the time, but all my citations of failure have been lumped together as needing careful individual review. Killebrew p. 176.
13. I would change "The population lived by farming" to "Villages had a population up to 400, which lived by farming" as per source Miller p. 98, and to balance out McNutt above. (It could also be "300 or 400", with the McNutt cite added.) I don't think anyone has objected to this other than by blanket reversion. Miller (reused below) p. 98: Small villages exploited economic niches variously of herding, cereal agriculture, and vine and olive horticulture. Although most of the local villages were self-sufficient, they presented tribute in cash crops or conscripted labor to higher levels of economic centers, although without specialized administrative control apparatus. These villages were on the hilltops – even the larger ones had a population of only about four hundred people.
14. I would change "and were largely self-sufficient in economic terms" to "and was largely self-sufficient" for verb agreement and because Miller does not use the redundant qualifier. No other comments found on this one. Miller p. 98.
15. I would change "but generated a surplus which was could be traded for goods not locally available; writing was known but was not common" to "Economic interchange was prevalent. Writing was known and available for recording society ethos, even in small sites" as per Miller pp. 99, 105, in that the attempt to summarize him differently on economic interchange is not traceable to a page in the given range 97-104, and his position on writing appears wholly contrary to our text. PiCo said, "Read the chapter again, more carefully", without quoting him. Miller pp. 99, 105: These five polities were of a single ethnicity, and economic interchange was prevalent. ... One way or another, the ethos of a society and the events that it endures will be encoded (Derrida 1970:249). There is evidence that writing was known in the Iron I highlands and was an available medium for this encoding.
16. I would delete "The north-central highlands during Iron Age I were divided into five major chiefdoms, with no sign of centralised authority", as not traceable to anything in Miller pp. 97-104 or Killebrew p. 176. No other comments found. Miller pp. 97-104, Killebrew p. 176.
17. Finally, I would invite comment on what I should do when I find this much source conformity failure propagated by one editor (in only one editing spate among several I have witnessed from the same editor), leading to the reasonable suspicion of additional significant OR and SYN findable in that editor's other edits. The fact that it takes this long to cover a few simple points about a source not saying what we say it says makes it hard for me to determine how to gauge the whole remainder of the article, which I have not reviewed. Thank you for your attention. JJB 20:14, 10 October 2010 (UTC) Comments still solicited.
18. I would delete PiCo's new sentence, "The origin of these settlers was probably mixed, including both sedentary peasants and former pastoralists", as not found anywhere on McNutt p. 69 as stated (a tag copied from another sentence). Also, a search of McNutt for "pastoralists" did not turn up any obvious text matches, so it is unclear how much is OR and how much actually resembles McNutt. JJB 04:21, 24 October 2010 (UTC) McNutt p. 69.

John, I think you should step back at this point and let the RfC process proceed - outsiders can look into the question of the sources that bother you. PiCo (talk) 08:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion 4

Thank you John. I don't think it would be fruitful for me to respond to your points, we've been over this many times already and you don't seem inclined to shift your position. What I want to do now is to ask an outsider to look at the paragraphs that concern you. Please confirm that these are the relevant paragraphs:

"Egyptian control over Canaan, and the system of Canaanite city-states, broke down during in the Late Bronze period, and Canaanite culture was thereafter gradually absorbed into that of the Philistines, Phoenicians and Israelites. Archaeologist Ann Killebrew adds: "Recent research on the emergence of Israel points unequivocally to the conclusion that biblical Israel's roots lie in the final century of Bronze Age Canaan." Canaanite dialects of the first millennium, for example, divide into a core group made up of Phoenician and Israelite and a "fringe" group of Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite and Judaean;

"The transition from the Late Bronze to Iron Age I was gradual rather than abrupt: Egypt continued to be a strong presence into the 12th century, and surviving Canaanite cities shared the territory with the cities of the newly-arrived Philistines in the southern plain. Further north along the coast the Phoenician cities continued from the Bronze into the Iron Age without interruption, while beyond the Jordan the states of Ammon and Moab (or at least polities which were precursors to those kingdoms) existed by the late 11th century.

"The first record of the name Israel occurs in the Merneptah stele, erected for Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah c. 1209 BCE, "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not." This Israel, identified as a people, was probably located in the northern part of the central highlands, when the Canaanite city-state system was beginning to collapse. At the same time the highlands, previously unpopulated, were beginning to fill with villages: surveys have identified more than 300 new settlements in the Palestinian highlands during Iron Age I, most of them in the northern regions, and the largest with a population of no more than 300. It is impossible to differentiate these "Israelite" villages from Canaanite sites of the same period on the basis of material culture - almost the sole marker distinguishing the two is an absence of pig bones, although whether this can be taken as an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute. There are no temples or shrines, although cult-objects associated with the Canaanite god El have been found. The population lived by farming and herding and were largely self-sufficient in economic terms, but generated a surplus which was could be traded for goods not locally available; writing was known but was not common. The north-central highlands during Iron Age I were divided into five major chiefdoms, with no sign of centralised authority. In the territory of the future kingdom of Judah the archaeological evidence indicates a similar society of village-like centres, but with more limited resources and a far smaller population.

If you agree that this is the material in dispute, I'll ask EdJohnston to check ("verify") the sources for us, since he's taken an interest. He might feel it's too much, in which case we can approach others as well and ask them to divide it up between them. I'll also ask Ed to suggest who these others might be. Are you ok with that? PiCo (talk) 00:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Did you even skim what I said above to see that point 1 is an issue with the lead, not the 3 grafs you quote? Did you see that point 2 is your own issue with my language in another graf, beginning "In the 2nd millennium", or are you waiving that point? Are you waiving your points 3 and 5 by not advocating for them to be checked also? Is there some reason you need to quote the material I already linked and to lump in the material I did not challenge? Did you not notice my stated concern in the last point, 17, about how to deal with you for future concerns after this one wraps up, due to the way you change (as here) what other people say? Do you believe that Ed should redo all my checking work, and much work I didn't request, even though we already have this very RFC that Ed proposed, as if the RFC process doesn't matter? Do you think you know my position, the one I don't seem to you to be inclined to shift, as if you've presented anything that addresses my repeatedly stated concerns, or as if you can cogently restate my concerns accurately (as you don't here)? I don't know Ed, but why are you asking me to abandon a community RFC in favor of a venue change of your selection? To answer your question, only parts of these three grafs are applicable, and only to disputes 4 and 6-16. JJB 01:22, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The issue is that you claim the content isn't supported by the sources. I don't agree with you. Therefore we need some independent person to check them for us. PiCo (talk) 05:12, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

John, I apologise if I've offended you in any way, we really do need to decide how we're going to tackle this. I doubt that your 17 points will attract much comment - not to mention that this is your list, without any input from me. (I hope you can agree that this has to be settled by cooperative effort, not unilaterally). Since your original concern was over sources, I don't see that it's asking too much to keep sources as our focus. And taking the diuspute to a third party is a more pro-active course than just sitting here and seeing who wanders by. Can you give me a response, please? PiCo (talk) 07:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for apologizing, but if you do it simultaneously with blithe ignorance of what has been said and/or rewriting what has been said, that would be a continuation of the offense. 3 of these points are, as I said, yours, taken from your cited list in a good-faith attempt to represent them, but if your statements here are taken as dropping those points, that reduces it to 14. The lead concerns, and the ongoing practice concerns, are natural branch-outs of the source concerns, and, sorry, conflicted editors do not generally get to use "I don't see that" as a reason to not discuss others' concerns (which is why I attempted to discuss your expressed concerns with the present text). Ed, others, you, and I are all free to comment; but I've already made my comment and would have little to add. If RFC and Ed remain silent, that implies the other editors are not sticking with you and then a third opinion might be fine, although I will probably try another bold before the RFC closes. This is a simple matter of reading the source and determining which quote glosses its thought better, which could be done by anyone with an analytical mind. If you consider yourself analytical, I ask this: "Source says A. WP says B. PiCo says A means the same as B. John changes B to A. PiCo reverts. Does PiCo's revert imply A does not mean the same as B? If YES, how does PiCo resolve the contradiction? If NO, why revert a synonym, when not to do so would make peace?" JJB 15:58, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

John, you can't expect to set the the terms of the RfC unilaterally. Doug Weller's intro post says: "This is meant to be a content RfC dealing with verification and conformity with sources and related issues." It's not meant to deal with your 17 points. Let people look at the sources that you dispute and give their opinions. PiCo (talk) 23:01, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for not answering my logical question and diverting to yet another side argument. My points are the very ones Doug refers to in alluding to your source-unsupported insertions, and I am not setting RFC terms nor preventing anyone from looking at the sources and giving opinions. Now, the same question: in two or more cases where you said your gloss and my gloss are essentially synonymous, what reason would you still have for preferring yours? JJB 23:36, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

The issue isn't your gloss versus my gloss, the issue is the conformity of the article to the sources. After that's settled we can look at your "gloss". PiCo (talk) 01:04, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

You see, once again you change what I say. "Conformity of the article to the sources" is conformity of your glosses to the sources, i.e., the phrasings that you inserted and defended. That means you're now saying first we should determine whether your glosses fail verification (as if you don't have enough evidence), then we can determine what we should replace them with (as if anyone has proposed anything else). I'm saying as long as someone is comparing your gloss to source, it's much easier to compare my gloss to source at the same time; I listed them both together above in each case. The way you've challenged my edits, I've navigated Google to the same pages 5 and 10 times to try to discern in good faith what you are seeing in them when you don't quote or give single page numbers, and now you're asking third parties to do the same, as if there is a natural two-step process involved that you see. Please do not continue to change what I say in the same way I have documented you above as changing what all your sources say. That is a different game.

Now, back to the question. You said, "If Killibrew says that Israel's roots lie in the final century of Bronze-age Canaan, how does that mean anything other than that the Israelites were indigenous to Canaan?" If in your POV "its roots lie in Canaan" means "they were indigenous to Canaan", then why can't WP say (sourced) "its roots lie in Canaan" to satisfy my objection without doing any disservice to yours? If "of limited use distinguishing cultures" means the same as "impossible to distinguish languages", then why can't WP use the former (sourced) language because in your POV they are synonymous and in my POV only one complies with sourcing policy? I don't see any good answer other than to back down, my friend, as continuing to unanswer will worsen your position. JJB 01:21, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

John, attempting to get you to see the obvious is an exercise in pain. Dougweller laid out the RfC as follows: There is a dispute about conformity/verification of sources in this article after one editor made a number of new edits and another editor raised the issue of verification. This is meant to be a content RfC dealing with verification and conformity with sources and related issues. The talk page above lays out the dispute, and this link shows the difference between the edits up to September 26th, when the dispute began, and today. That's what the dispute is about, not your unilateral and unnecessary 17 points. Anyway, I'm happy to let this rest for now, on the understandijng that we're dealing with Doug Weller's RfC, not yours. PiCo (talk) 01:59, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

So you back down and unanswer simultaneously. EdJohnston told you that if you follow WP:DR everything will come out OK and implying that if you don't there is potential for admin review; and that was his view as opposed to having you leave the topic for a month. If you fail to deal with my proposed changes, or to answer my questions relevant to retaining your text, you are not following WP:DR, and by your silence I may proceed with my best proposal for the texts in accord with bold again. (ADD: If this remains a two-party issue, I may also go to third opinions, which are voluntary mediators rather than selected mediators.) Once again, if the texts are synonymous, why do you prefer yours to mine? JJB 02:21, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

This is silence? John, I'm starting to lose faith in your faith. I've asked Ed Johnston for advice on where we can go from here. You're welcome to look and even add your two cents. PiCo (talk) 02:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Silence on the key question, et al. If the texts are synonymous, why do you prefer yours to mine? JJB 02:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding point #4 above, can somebody quote what the sources have to say on this? JJB proposes:

I would change "Canaanite dialects of the first millennium" to "Northwest Semitic dialects" because no source says outright that Israelite or Judaean are dialects of Canaanite; Mansoor's chart specifically says that they are lateral branches of NW Semitic; and the sourceability of the NW Semitic statement is not disputed like the Canaanite statement is. PiCo objects that I have treated NW Semitic as a language rather than a family.

It appears that only one sentence of the article is in question here:"Canaanite dialects of the first millennium, for example, divide into a core group made up of Phoenician and Israelite and a "fringe" group of Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite and Judaean;" This should not be too hard for you guys to find agreement on, though I must say the present sentence is not crystal clear. Does Misplaced Pages have a sub-article anywhere that talks about the evolution of the Hebrew language? EdJohnston (talk) 02:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what fn.10 is supposed to be verifying - the phrase in front of it reads: ""Canaanite dialects of the first millennium, for example" - that's just a fragment, why does it need a footnote? Are we verifying that there were Canaanite dialects in the 1st millennium? I'd just drop that one. (The book and page it refers to is some rather abstruse stuff about whether Northwest Semitic languages consist of two subgroups, Canaanite and Aramaic, or just one, Canaanite-Aramaic; you'll be happy to learn that Eblaite is definitely out).

Fn.11 is T.L. Thompson talking about population coherence and proto-ethnicity (that's his attention-grabbing chapter title). He's talking about another scholar named Knauff, who apparently differentiated the "Canaanite language family" into "West Canaanite" (Phoenician, Israelite, Judean) and "East Canaanite" (Ammorite, Moabite, Edomite), and broke these down even further into "Core Canaanite" (Phoenician, Israelite) and "Fringe Canaanite" (the rest). He doesn't use the word "dialects", which I guess is what John is getting so excited about, but he does call them all Canaanite.

Hope this helps :) PiCo (talk) 03:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Would I be wrong to assume that one side of this debate wants to highlight the relationship of the Hebrews to the Canaanites, and another wants to keep them distinct? What is all the fancy linguistic discussion doing in this article? Wouldn't it fit better somewhere like Semitic languages? We are after all dealing with a period (1200-1000 BC) about which not much is known. Why can't this period of history be described in our article in a suitably vague way that doesn't speculate too much about the difficult questions? EdJohnston (talk) 04:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Ed, I agree 100% with sufficient vagueness (i.e., "Northwest Semitic"). Don't care much about Hebrew-Canaanite relationships as long as they're sourced and all POVs are represented. This sentence was originally introduced by "The Israelites are just as clearly indigenous to Canaan: to take language as just one indicator," which was a synthesis deleted by consensus as unsourced as I alluded below; that explains why the language detail was brought in. I left it in without the syn because it was sourced. Anyway, here's what I'd written pre-e.c.:

Thank you Ed. was my adding Saenz, who PiCo said "knows this field", to support my version, "Northwest Semitic dialects ..."; it was added midsentence to support the subpoint that Hebrew is a dialect of the Northwest Semitic group. The ref is to the first-sentence chapter summary by Saenz, on the page recommended by PiCo: "The geographical and historical facts of Hebrew place it within the Northwest Semitic group of languages." Somebody changed NW Semitic back to Canaanite, breaking source conformity. This version, except for the name of the language group, was built up by prior consensus to which other editors contributed. PiCo believes "Israelite and Canaanite were dialects of a single language", that is, that Israelite aka Hebrew is a dialect of the larger Canaanite-Phoenician language, not just the Northwest Semitic group (the group is also called Canaanite and as such should be disambiguated to NW Semitic). PiCo says this due to Thompson aka , but it is not found in what Thompson says and is contradicted by Mansoor, who says Hebrew is lateral to and not dependent from Canaanite-Phoenician.

The current (i.e., p. 338) says (punctation in original), "Bearing in mind the caveat that the present stage of scholarship in historical linguistics is insufficiently independent of arguments from related disciplines, Knauf's differentiation of the 'Canaanite.' language family into 'West Canaanite.' (Phoenician, Israelite, and Judaean) and 'East Canaanite.' (Ammorite, Moabite, and Edomite) has much to offer. When Knauf's further distinctions between these languages and the literary language of biblical Hebrew, as well as that between a core Canaanite (represented by Phoenician and the dialects of Israelite) and 'Fringe Canaanite.' (Judaean, Ammorite, Moabite, and Edomite), are maintained, the potential for using epigraphic materials (in support of conclusions drawn independently from historical, economic and geographical arguments) for understanding the development of proto-ethnic groups in Palestine of the Assyrian period is substantially enhanced." This text was mistranscribed by Dougweller and misspelled by PiCo. Note it never says Hebrew is a dialect of the Canaanite language (aka Phoenician in this text), only that dialects of Israelite and Judaean are in the Canaanite family (aka the NW Semitic group). Since this page (proposed by Dougweller from PiCo's original source) was closer to PiCo's text than PiCo's page was (originally p. 413), I agreed with Doug as long as the unambiguous NW Semitic was retained, and supplied Saenz to make that explicit, although Thompson's cautionary intro caveat might be needed also. PiCo's insistence that some source says Heb/Isr/Jud is a dialect of the Canaanite language remains unsupported. While we successfully deleted the other clauses that implied that Canaanite in our text was a language rather than a group, I'd like to finish the process by disambiguating this per Saenz, and in harmony with Mansoor.

My prior WP search turned up only Semitic languages#Northwest Semitic languages, which is a completely unsourced section containing the tree "Northwest Semitic languages -> Canaanite languages -> Hebrew", which may be a transmission error because contrary to Mansoor explicitly and to Thompson implicitly.

But I must add, Ed, that PiCo took yet another opportunity to dodge here. PiCo did not quote the sources in context, but summarized them, which is problematic because summarizing skill is exactly what is being challenged; did not answer your question about other WP articles; added sarcastic editorial commentary like "attention-grabbing" on his own source; raises the new potentially specious objection about sentence fragments and the very off-point summary in favor of deleting his own other source; and again dodges the question I am now asking for the eighth time (though it is about other points like 3, 5, 6, 11, 15): PiCo, if two texts are synonymous, why do you prefer yours to mine? JJB 04:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

What is all the fancy linguistic discussion doing in this article? Good point. Let's just drop it then. (It was in there because it illustrates how the Israelites were originally Canaanites - which is exactly why John doesn't like it ;). PiCo (talk) 05:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Wrong: I don't mind this linguistic discussion being here. What I don't like is that your unsourced POV about the Israelites keeps affecting your analysis of the sources. But since you propose this deletion to see if I'm "the concessioning sort", I'll be happy to drop the clause right now, without doing more than allude to the amount of time and words spent getting you to agree to replace one clause with ... nothing. Now, in addition to proceeding to the next point, I must ask proforma: if two texts are synonymous, why do you prefer yours to mine? JJB 06:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The two are not synonymous: you're misreading them. PiCo (talk) 06:26, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for answering. So you now admit that the source and your gloss, speaking generally, are not synonymous? "By the tenth century ... held" is not synonymous with "continued uninterrupted from the Bronze Age"; "indigenous to" is not the same as "having roots in"; "occupied in previous periods" is not the same as "unpopulated"; and so on. Correct? JJB 07:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion 6

In Iron Age, I would change "the Phoenician cities continued from the Bronze into the Iron Age without interruption" to "the Phoenician cities were held by the tenth century; Phoenician kings are also mentioned in Biblical texts" because source Golden pp. 155-160 does not say anything about Phoenicians continuing uninterrupted from the Bronze Age. PiCo said he does, without quoting him. Source mention of Biblical evidence was also brought in at this point to deal with PiCo's unsourced assertion that Phoenicia was not in the pertinent Bible passages. Since it seems the only way to make headway is to retype your Google Books sources myself, the one graf on this is, under "Iron Age I", "The Phoenicians at this time held several important cities, including Tyre and Sidon on the northern coast. Phoenician kings are mentioned in both biblical and extra-biblical texts, often in terms of having friendly relations with the Israelites and not-so-friendly relations with the Egyptians. At the port city of Tel Dor, there was an important harbor and a glacis fortification system." Also, "At this time" is defined by the prior sentence, "By the tenth century B.C.E., Ekron ...." Since you believe that Golden's commentary on the Iron-not-Bronze age with a single graf on Phoenicia is synonymous with saying that Phoenicia continued "without interruption" from the Bronze, why doesn't WP just quote Golden's words, since Golden's words convey the thought "continued without interruption" to you? (I know this judo-move question is starting to sound repetitive, but it gets more fun every time you ignore it.) JJB 06:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Since the Phoenicians were still around in Roman times, your idea that they didn't survive the Late Bronze collapse is extraordinary. But since you don't seem willing to accept Golden on this point, here's a different source: Glen Markoe, "Phoenicians". See page 23, beginning in the para at the bottom of the page, then over to page 24, the second para, which talks about "the Phoenician mainland" (odd term, I'd call it the heartland): "he archaeological record, although incomplete, does not support the occurrence of massive disruption or destruction at any of the major coastal sites." Personally, I'd gloss that as continuity. And then have a look at Sabatino Moscati, "Face of the Ancient Orient", page 196, where he says that the term Canaanites "broadly covers the Semitic inhabitants of Palestine and the Phoenician coast... includes the Amorites, the Moabites, the Edomites, the Ammonites, even the Hebrews." Perhaps I'm getting off-topic here though - nothing about Phoenicians surviving the Late Bronze collapse, just stuff about Hebrews being Canaanites. Let's just ignore that.

You want us to have: "the Phoenician cities were held by the tenth century." Held? What strange English you write. I assume you mean that they existed by that time. Indeed they did - and for several centuries before. They were busy sending out colonies to Africa in the 11th century, and in the 12th they were fighting off the Sea Peoples - successfully - and in the 13th they were being raided by the Egyptians (that's what the Merneptah stele is all about). Seriously John, your grasp of history is dreadful. Let's just leave this one as it is. — PiCo — continues after insertion below

Great, now we're talking, I'm glad the ball is finally rolling. Why don't you propose a text to replace Golden (who never uses the word "interrupted") with whatever you think best from those two sources? Then I won't need to rebut everything above specifically. I'll let you have a couple hours to yourself here. Please don't forget to answer my followup question above. JJB 07:23, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

(Oh yes, you can't find the part of Golden's book where he talks about continuity from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron. Try the box on page 61: "Considering the evidence for cultural continuity during the Late Bronze Age-Iron I transition, and the lack of evidence for securely dated destruction layers, the literal truth of the biblical narrative concerning the conquest becomes increasingly difficult to support". He's talking about Canaan there, the Canaanite cities. Since you're so concerned that we mention the bible, perhaps this passage is the one we should use?).PiCo (talk) 07:01, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

That's potentially an includible POV when kept in balance. But don't you think that would better go to battle of Jericho? Does this article talk about Israelite conquest of Canaan c. 1200? JJB 07:23, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Why? This article discusses/should discuss the hypothesis/biblical story of an Israelite conquest of Canaan, surely these comments belong here? I hope we are over any discussion about whether the Phoenicians were disrupted by the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age transition, as they weren't. And John, your language sometimes does grate - why do you need to use 'graf' as a word for instance? Most readers won't immediately understand it. I have Gulden now, and Markoe, Cline's book From Eden to Exile, various other books. Dougweller (talk) 15:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Two other things. One, this page dropped off my watchlist somehow. And John, the link to Gulden above doesn't work for me, some US links GBooks links don't seem to work in the UK - a page number would have been useful, but Amazon.com worked and then I could read it in context there or in my copy. Dougweller (talk) 15:46, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec)I never said the Phoenicians were not disrupted, I said the source pages didn't say they continued uninterrupted (or when they began at all). I asked for a proposal based on the new sources. If you prefer "paragraph" to "graf" (or "para"), you say it, you get it (I prefer "Golden" to "Gulden" myself, just saying). I don't mind making discussion of conquest point 18, as it's not point 6 and I have been in queue awhile; I also don't mind PiCo just going ahead and inserting conquest sentences boldly (as PiCo has felt free to do similarly in great swaths prior). But I simply want to ensure that the verification failures will be addressed through process, which means keeping you on track. Since discussion has restarted well, I'll probably break from this article today to see what edit(s) you and PiCo propose to address point 6 or any other. Thanks. The page number of that paragraph is 160, sorry that I only said 155-160. JJB 15:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I prefer Golden but I have it in my head that it is Gulden. I also prefer paragraph, although 'para' is clearer than 'graf'. So far as I am concerned, the sources pages are saying interrupted, I think that to take them any other way would be perverse. Dougweller (talk) 17:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

That's not a personal comment, by the way, as I don't think you are taking them any other way. I just don't see a sourcing problem while you do. Having read Markoe probably gives me an advantage as I know the broader context, which is also relevant to the sourcing. Dougweller (talk) 17:46, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Hearing none, "WP:BOLD again". JJB 03:01, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I moved the sentence in which Killibrew says that Israel has roots in the last century of Bronze Age Canaan to a more logical place, immediately prior to the sentence about the Merneptah stele (which dates from the Late Bronze Age). PiCo (talk) 03:44, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion 7

PiCo, thank you for sticking with this. Is what you said above correct concerning "Lemche's own ideas about where this Israel was: not the western border of the highlands, as John would have it, but the highlands themselves"? If so we can just delete "the northern part of" before "the central highlands" from our sentence (and the word "central" too if you like), and be done with this one. But since it appeared to me you contradicted yourself on this issue, I wanted to ask first. It would also help if you have any points that you can advance the discussion on yourself rather than have me sit and wait one at a time while my position is already stated and you have ample time to propose a way to enfold my concerns. For instance, you could start the proposed section on historical source texts rather than me, because I'm not sure my time would be well-rewarded preparing something that has a risk of getting shot down, and you would not have the same risk as long as you stick to what reliable sources say. JJB 04:08, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Lemche and Ahlstrom agree on where Merneptah's Israel was located - Lemche says: "Ahlstrom points with good reason to the northern part of the central highlands." Ahlstrom disagrees with practically everyone, including Lemche, over the nature of this Israel - he thinks the stele is referring to a territory, everyone else thinks it means a people. PiCo (talk) 04:41, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The idea that they are arguing over territory v. people was not my first reading of this difficult text, though I'll consider it. Lemche says, after Yano'am, "That is the end of the city line. The following is described as Israel, whether this reference is a reference to a specific population, a tribe or a tribal coalition, or just a territory carrying this name. When mapping the route of approach of the Egyptian expedition, there can be no doubt that we have arrived at the western border of the central highlands, at the southeastern extension of what would in the Iron Age be situated at the southwestern border of the kingdom of Israel. The Egyptian army is said to have wasted the territory of this population group." — John J. Bulten — continues after insertion below

Yanoam is the last item in a set of three cities that Merneptah claims to have destroyed - Ashkalon, Gezer, Yanoam. Before the set comes a region-name, Canaan; after comes another name Israel. Israel is definitely not a city, but the question Ahlstrom raises is whether it might be another region, like Canaan; it's usually taken to be a people. Lemche is saying that whether it's a people or a territory, the sequence of the three cities leads to the western edge of the central highlands, which is the southwestern border of the biblical kingdom of Israel.— Preceding unsigned comment added by PiCo (talk • contribs)

Also, given your reading, your quote is in Lemche's context that if Israel "is here a territorial designation", it's the northern part. But since Lemche says in my quote that it may or may not be a territory (thus does not take sides on this point of Ahlstöm as you say he does), it is not clear at all that he believes, if it's a people or tribe, that they live in the northern part; he says they live at the W border of the Ctl highland at the SE ext of the later SW border, whatever that means. (Maybe the border being southwest means they later lived north of the central west border, I suppose; I get accused of OR so often anyway that a real OR leap wouldn't hurt, right?) He then implies Shechem in the northern part was not intended. Given all that, it is not clear at all that his later statement, "The important evidence of the inscription is its reference to an Israel placed in the northern part of the central highlands", means that he is doing any affirming of the placing, which was done by Ahlström. That is why your gloss, which specifies "northern part", "probably", and no attribution in a POV dispute, is not supported by any clear and unambiguous statement he makes. — John J. Bulten — continues after insertion below

In the text you quote Lemche is leaving aside the question of whether "Israel" means a territory or a people, and concentrating on where it's located. ("The following is described as Israel, whether ... a specific population, a tribe or a tribal coalition, or just a territory carrying this name"). He does not say they (Israel) lived at the western border, he says the Egyptians arrived at the western border on this raid. I can't see how you can interpret "The important evidence of the inscription is its reference to an Israel placed in the northern part of the central highlands" as anything other than a definite opinion about where Israel was placed. I'll grant you there's some fuzziness over the way Lemche uses "central" and "northern" - he uses both, regferring to the same area - but the overall meaning is clear: he's saying that this Egyptian Israel was located in the general area where the later kingdom of Israel was to be found.— Preceding unsigned comment added by PiCo (talk • contribs)

Since you don't like the more ambiguous text by dropping "northern part", and since you hold that territory v. people is an issue (one on which Lemche does not take sides), I'll need to go back to a form of my older safer gloss: This Israel, identified as a people, tribe, coalition, or territory, was located in the northern part of the central highlands by Gösta Ahlström. The differences with the current version arise because whether Israel meant a people is a disputed POV; "probably" is a weasel word alluding to greater knowledge than it gives (like your repeated reference to "everyone"); and attribution is required in the POV difference over location, in that Lemche does not unambiguously support "northern part" but Ahlström does. If you believe that the "territory" argument is so fringe that Ahlström shouldn't be mentioned; or that "probably" is sourced; or that Lemche's explicit position about being at the western border of the central highlands (not linearly, thank you) is fringe, then please provide other sources, but this one doesn't do it. — John J. Bulten — continues after insertion below

Lemche does take sides on the territory vs. people argument (he goes for people). Our article is making two statements at this point: Merneptah's Israel refers to a people, not a territory; and it's located in the northern highlands (roughly where biblical Israel later emerged). So we're going with Lemche, who claims to represent the general opinion.— Preceding unsigned comment added by PiCo (talk • contribs)

Now as to station identification, I need to back up and say a perceived subtext of this "amicable" Normal Editing Cycle may be present, in that either of us might read the other as defensive and thus standoffish and thus tempting incivility. I will be happy to admit some defensiveness of my original assertion that what the sources say is not what you say they say. The primary reason for this is the hope that you will begin to see the difference between words you read and the inferences you add to them. It's quite all right for you to believe that "practically everyone" disagrees with Ahlström, or whatever, but you don't show recognition that your belief is a POV that you have not sourced to us, and as such it gets you no debate points to wave about the word "everyone". As I hope you've seen so far, when you give me a source that gets close to saying what you say it says, I can work out an agreement with you. But when you have insisted in the past that your summary is wholly identical to the text, you not only fail to perceive that there is a textual difference, but you also fall prey to the judo question that demonstrates the difference: if the source and your gloss are synonymous, what reason would yet remain for preferring your gloss? (You finally said they're not synonymous (though ambiguously) and ignored my followup that showed that, if they're not, we need to stick to the sources and not slow up the process of doing so.) So if Lemche's words are wholly unambiguous to you about preferring the northern part, let's use Lemche's words, including those about the SE ext of whatever; but if you're ready to admit Lemche is ambiguous, let's limit ourselves to what he does say that's relevant. JJB 07:06, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the more civil tone. I gloss sources because it's necessary in order to produce a readable prose narrative.— Preceding unsigned comment added by PiCo (talk • contribs)

Would it help if I asked Lemche, which I can easily do? And I have another language problem which you may have explained, what's a 'judo question'? Dougweller (talk) 07:34, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Go ahead, ask him, and give him my regards. PiCo (talk) 08:34, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Doug, that's fine, but what you need to ask him is where in his books he makes this point clearer, because to ask him what he thinks would be OR unless supported by what he sources. But it might be simpler just to find a more explicit statement in his book or another book ourselves. JJB 15:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC) Also, I explained to PiCo above what the judo question is. It's any debate-shifting question, in this case the question that if PiCo reads a source that says one thing and thinks it means the same as another thing, then he has no reason not to use the original source language because it means what he wants it to mean. And yet he inconsistently insists on his own text, continuing to say that it correctly represents the sources but not yielding to the source text itself, implying he really does think it says something different. He then dodged this question over ten times above.

PiCo, to your comments above which I didn't see because they weren't signed, I must insist that Lemche's text is so rarefied about what we quote it saying, that we should get another source, cut the sentence, or change it somehow. You're not choosing any of these options, you're simply continuing to argue for status quo with incredible passion. But you don't prove that everybody thinks "Isrir" is a people by citing a source that says "A says it's a territory, but it could be a coalition", and you don't prove it's the N part of the central highland by citing a source that says it's the W border of the Ctl highland at the SE ext of the later SW border. While his following statement on the N part might be taken out of context as a quote support, the context is so confusing that it could be taken as Ahlström's view as well. But what I don't understand is why all this energy to claim sources say what they don't when so many other options are available to you. Not being open to options and dragging out discussions is known as tendentious editing. — John J. Bulten — continues after insertion below

John, I can only suggest that you read yourself into the subject. Lemche isn't at all "rarified", as you put it, but we do presume some knowledge from out editors (I mean our Wiki editors). Canaan. for example, is always a region - it was the what the Egyptians called the part of Asia that they controlled. This is the sort of thing that you just have to know, and the only way to know is by reading widely. And Lemche doesn't say "the W border of the Ctl highland at the SE ext of the later SW border" - what he does say is perfectly clear to me, perhaps because I've studied the subject and know the background. To repeat, what we're arguing heere is your inability to understand the source, and that seems a rather pointless exercise. PiCo (talk) 04:31, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

He says p. 38, "the western border of the central highlands, at the southeastern extension of what would in the Iron Age be situated at the southwestern border". But if you know the background, please source your knowledge. JJB 05:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Your latest specific misinferences in reading Lemche: You brought in the stele's mention of Canaan as if that's clearly a region, but Lemche says, if not favors, that it could be a city (Gaza) as well. — John J. Bulten — continues after insertion below

No he doesn't - I suggest you read it again, carefully.— Preceding unsigned comment added by PiCo (talk • contribs)

He says p. 37, "The Canaan mentioned here most likely means nothing except Gaza, the center of the Nineteenth Dynasty Egyptian province of Canaan, which says that in this place Canaan is the name of a town, followed by other Palestinian townships. If this is correct, then there is a geographical line of the Egyptian approach into Palestine .... Thereupon the inscription progresses from Canaan (Gaza), the natural point of departure ...." But if I'm unable to understand the source in the way that you do, let's just quote the source and it'll be correct for both of us. JJB 05:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

You turn "SE ext of SW border" into "SW border". Obviously the Egyptians arrived at the W border, but if any inference is drawn from that, it's either that Israel is in the "western part of the central highlands", or "somewhere in the central highlands" (an option I proposed before), not the "northern part". I don't know how you divine that Lemche uses "central" and "northern" to refer to the same area; my take is that he uses "northern" to modify "central". You say Lemche "goes for people" but you didn't quote it and I saw and quoted the opposite. You then say our article says the northern highlands when it says the "northern part of the central highlands", as if those two items can be identified precisely with each other. You conclude "we're going with" as if you have the right to conclude a conversation without ensuring the consensus of the other party, and throw in another reference to the general opinion, which you haven't cited. I'm not going to be around here forever to correct you every time you misrepresent what someone else says. JJB 03:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

John, I find trying to explain things to you both frustrating and tedious. I'm going to ask other editors to join us. PiCo (talk) 04:31, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a reason for that, PiCo. At least that's my POV. But thanks for resolving the two prior points with me, it was a rare feeling of getting through to someone. JJB 05:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC) PiCo followed this 04:31 edit by asking User talk:John D. Croft, who did not respond, and User talk:Dougweller, who said wait. While I have been offwiki a few days, nobody else has seen fit to address the source verification failures I have plainly and repeatedly spelled out. But when I make changes to fix them I am told it is obvious that WP correctly represents what the source says, and my facts and logic are met by fallacious arguments (which I demonstrate to be so) and hand-waving. It appears that the only fix for these few clauses, let alone the rest of the article, is continued active prosecution within DR policy toward removing the misrepresentations. Accordingly, the next bold edit is forthcoming, as nothing else seems to get editors to discuss this article. JJB 22:03, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Lemche's Israel

(Section title shpould perhaps read Merneptah's Israel). John, I've deleted your most recent addition because it's a misreading of the source. It's here:

Niels Lemche says this Israel is a population, tribe, coalition, or territoryNiels Peter Lemche, "The Israelites in History and Tradition" (Westminster John Knox, 1998) p. 37 somewhere in the central highlands.Niels Peter Lemche, "The Israelites in History and Tradition" (Westminster John Knox, 1998) p. 38

This is not accurate. Lemche actually says on p.37 that the stele lists a series of Canaanite towns and then Israel, "...whether this reference is a reference to a specific population, a tribe or a tribal coalition, or just a territory carrying this name." In other words, he's not interested in giving a view on what "Israel" might be, he's pointing out that it comes at the end of a list of towns which points in a certain direction of march for the Egyptian army. Elsewhere he makes clear that he believes the Israel of the stele is a people: "It (ie the stele) testifies only to the presence in we3stern Asia at the end of the thirteenth century BCE of something that constituted some sort of ethnic unity...". He also says why it should be seen as an ethnic designation: "he way Israel is introduced is different from the preceding place-names Canaan, Askalon, Geza and Yanoam; Israel alone is determined by the hieroglyphic sign for 'foreign people'..." He then goes on to discuss Ahlstrom's argument that, despite this, Israel means a place or territory, leading then into the passage you quote out of context. But Ahlstrom's arguments haven't been widely accepted by his colleagues, and the "ethnicity" reading is the norm - something Lemche also makes clear. (And on p.38 last para he says "northern part of the central highlands). PiCo (talk) 02:26, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I have been staying quiet to see what happens. PiCo starts by quoting me and Lemche, who use the same words, and saying we don't say the same thing. Then PiCo says Lemche is not interested in what Israel might be (PiCo may mean "not interested on this page") but then says Lemche says Israel is a people, which is contradictory. If OTOH PiCo means Lemche is uninterested once and interested later, well, that is PiCo's OR reading, which is not stated by Lemche. However, Lemche's alleged interest does not appear on the face of the text PiCo sees it in, which says "sort of ethnic unity" and not "people". The fact that Israel's sign means "foreign people" is not taken at face value by Lemche, whose statement (elided by PiCo) continues, "... sign for 'foreign people' , something that may be taken as an indication of a different status of Israel in comparison to the other names on the inscription." Obviously, neither quote supports PiCo's point beyond the fact that one has the word "people" in it. Then PiCo repeats the charge that I am out of context because PiCo sees Lemche as foreclosing the territory possibility, which is again OR not stated in the text. PiCo repeats the unsourced weasel-word charge that Ahlström is not "widely accepted" and an ethnicity reading is "the norm", as if a mainstream POV can be proven without further sources; instead, when Lemche says, "It is remarkable that other scholars have not taken up Ahlström's interpretation", he seems to be favoring Ahlström (though not committedly) while referring the alternative to (more weaseling) "other scholars". Finally, for WP to quote the reference to the northern part without quoting the reference to the western border does not seem to represent all POVs.

In short, PiCo continues to see things in a couple pages of Lemche that are not provably there, and to claim that what is provably there just isn't. My theory is that if one demonstrates such with facts and logic often enough, one's discussion partner will eventually find a relatively graceful exit from the faulty position. However, I believe I should continue to use every valid strategy to restore to policy compliance the article portions I chose to work on, so discussion under the RFC heading is not the only option. For another, see new section below, "One month". JJB 04:21, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion 1

Bible narrative in first para of lead

JJB, I reverted your recent addition to the first para of the lead: it says that the article treats the period 1200 BCE to 6CE because of two markers, the Merneptah stele and the absorption of the nominal kingdom of Judah into the Roman empire. In other words, all it's doing is setting the chronological scope of the article. The fact that the bible gives a narrative account of that period isn't the point. Please go ahead and write the section on sources, and we can include it there. PiCo (talk) 00:38, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Since PiCo has enfolded the lead sentence, "Sources for this history include biblical and non-biblical narratives, epigraphy, and the material archaeological record," this can be counted as a resolution to point 1 without responding to this paragraph. JJB 04:21, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations

Having been away from the article for some time, I would like to congratulate all those who have contributed to its rewriting. It is now beginning to resemble an accurate history rather than a rehashing of the Biblical account.John D. Croft (talk) 15:04, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Was Mark Smith actually there?

Why is a 21st century source used over the bible? Was Mark Smith actually there? Or is this wikipedia's lazy disregard for the Bible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.73.160.104 (talk) 13:23, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

We can only use the Bible as a source for what is in the Bible. We can't interpret it ourselves, we rely on reliable third party sources. And of course it says nothing about subjects such as linear and cuneiform alphabetic scripts, etc. If you don't like Misplaced Pages policies you'll be happier somewhere else. Dougweller (talk) 15:20, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

One month

This whole 17-point RFC arose from a single edit set on 21 Sep by PiCo to Joshua, which PiCo had not touched in over a year. I immediately identified via detailed edit summaries that every new sentence on Israel history misrepresented its source (I later discovered that PiCo had cribbed them uncritically from this article). After a month of discussion, which gravitated to this article, and during which some points have been beaten literally to death while I've called up the same Google Books page over and over again due to constant new misrepresentations, we have trickled through the settling of only a couple points. Other editors initially supported PiCo's edits but after a week or two it was just us two talking past each other. Comparing the pre-debate version to the current, and discounting minor style and undisputed points, the only points from the original disagreement that have been resolved are: adding a clause mention of the traditionalist POV; replacement of a clause on indigenousness and language with a Killebrew quote; a source change on Phoenician continuity; and a slight context improvement on McNutt on settlements that doesn't fix the source failure and has been unanswered by PiCo except by adding a new source failure (which I made point 18). At the same time PiCo made sweeping changes (also visible in that diff) to everything from Persian period on, which I haven't checked on solely because I haven't taken an interest in that section and because I believe it will lead to much more difficulty in source problems that I'd rather deal with more strategically if at all.

So in one month PiCo has never accepted a single sentence of my edits here without reversion or recast, while also feeling free to make sweeping changes without any need to discuss prior. This is not dialogue; it is evidence of obstructionism. While I believe in extending extraordinary good faith, and while I tell people when they're getting close, there comes a time when good faith means believing that one's discussion partner is a fool rather than a knave, to use Cardinal Newman's terms; or, to apply them in this case more charitably, to believe that PiCo's editing is unconsciously rather than consciously failing to admit a single sentence of my input at any turn. The facts do not speak well of PiCo, whether they arise consciously or unconsciously. I have never seen at WP such inability to parse source sentences and read what they say and distinguish that from what they don't say. I appeal to my fellow editors to consider whether my initial and immediate reaction of 21 Sep, to trim the sources back to what they say, should be sustained at this article or not. JJB 04:21, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Third opinion request

Do John's proposed changes numbers 7 through 18 (case by case) reflect better conformity to article sources than the present text, or not?

• John's biased recommendations: Please read this section, then my biased summary at "One month" directly above, then skim the entire long talk page briefly to get a feel for the tone and structure of discussion so far. Despite this length, it should still then be (presumably) a simple matter to read the article sources' pages and determine which phrasing better represents the source in each case. You might be needed for clarification afterwards please.
• John's best guess at PiCo's recommendations: "I think you should step back at this point and let the RfC process proceed - outsiders can look into the question of the sources that bother you." Apparently affirming Doug's RFC summary: "There is a dispute about conformity/verification of sources in this article after one editor made a number of new edits and another editor raised the issue of verification. This is meant to be a content RfC dealing with verification and conformity with sources and related issues. The talk page above lays out the dispute, and this link shows the difference between the edits up to September 26th, when the dispute began, and today."
• Neither Doug nor RFC respondents (if any) have been discussing the changes actively for weeks, so I trust 3O can proceed. JJB 04:21, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

SeraphimBlade deferred the issue from 3O to WP:NORN. Otherwise please proceed as above. JJB 12:42, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Chieftains of the highland clans

I've just checked " The population lived by farming and herding and were largely self-sufficient in economic terms, but generated a surplus which was could be traded for goods not locally available; writing was known but was not common.

Simple, see points 13-15 above. I grant the first tag is technically not keyed directly to its clause but is a placeholder for a different balance-needing clause, which I can fix now. JJB 19:45, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

So farming/herding and self-sufficient didn't actually fail verification. " five major chiefdoms" is verifiable unless you are going to say that 'polities/domains with chieftains can't be called chiefdoms. Dougweller (talk) 20:27, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Per point 16 at same link above, the sentence is "The north-central highlands during Iron Age I were divided into five major chiefdoms, with no sign of centralised authority", and I said it is not traceable to anything in Miller pp. 97-104 or Killebrew p. 176 (although I am now beginning to see hints of traceability). I see five polities p. 99, I do not see five chief/tain/doms, please source specifically (although I'm not sure it would help, because it appears this lingual kick is a novel theory of this author, as I've never seen it anywhere else and he uses the much more generic "polities" when speaking collectively; and other sources might totally adjust his view). I see fighting for control p. 99, I do not see "division", please source. I see nothing about centralized authority, which is an OR clause, please source. Further, the focus on control of the north-central highlands does not tell us much about Judah or control of the south, and so is likely POV as per article title. On "self-sufficient" I would drop the leading clause "in economic terms". However, please do not take my tone as failing to appreciate your engaging the issues on several points; thank you. JJB 20:52, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Miller talks about the chieftains of certain polities/domains on p. 99, where he also uses the word chiefdom. As for divided, that's my understanding of what he is saying on p99, five main polities with interchange. You know, we are supposed to use our own words, not just paraphrase, and this seems acceptable to me without a good reason to reject it. 'Divided' and 'fighting for control' aren't in conflict. I'm not sure I understand your pov comment. I'm going offline now. Dougweller (talk) 21:10, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

1. McDermott, John J. (1998). What are they saying about the formation of Israel?. Paulist Press. p. 17. ISBN 0-8091-3838-7.
2. Lawrence E. Stager, Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel, in Coogan 1998, p. 91.
3. Baba Batra 14b ff.
4. Cite error: The named reference books.google.com.au was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. Thompson, Thomas L., "Early History of the Israelite People" (Bril, 1992) p.413
6. Smith, Mark S., "The Early History of God" (HarpurSanFrancisco, 2002) p.27
7. Killebrew, Ann E., "Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, and Early Israel, 1300-1100 BCE" (Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), p. 13.
8. Mansoor, Menahem (January 1992) . Biblical Hebrew Step-by-Step. Vol. 1 (2d ed.). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House. p. 7.
9. Thompson, Thomas L., "Early History of the Israelite People" (Bril, 1992) p. 413.
10. Smith, Mark S., "The Early History of God" (HarpurSanFrancisco, 2002) p.27

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