Talk:Ahab

Old bibliography moved here

(Kamphausen, Chronol. d. hebr. Kon., Kittel)

(Horner, Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., 1898, p. 244; see the discussions by Cheyne, Ency. Bib. columns 91ff, and by Whitehouse, Dict Bib. i. 53).

(See Trumbull, Threshold Covenant, pp. 46ff; Haddon, Study of Man, pp. 347ff.; P. Sartori, Zeitschr. fur Ethnologie, 1898.)

Yahweh

I think instead of saying that Ahab was a worshipper of Yahweh, we should saying he was Jewish or something. The way it is currently formatted makes it seem he was a pagan or something. Also even though most scholars have a fairly good idea about the name, it is still speculative.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 03:29, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Changed this back to "worshipped YHWH", as it's an anachronism to speak of anyone as being Jewish before the reforms of Hezekiah at the earliest. PiCo 03:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Note: The prevalent English bibles do not say Yahweh, which is in dispute, but they use the English word Lord or LORD, capitalized. As this is an English language page, it does English readers a disservice as well as scholars, whose bibles use English.. because they are English... Yahweh adds something, vowels, not found in the original text we have, which may add meaning not there.

It also wasn't changed back to "YHWH", as the previous comment said, and is the underlying Hebrew Bible, but "Yahweh" which is not uniformly agreed on, and to which there are at least half a dozen other forms (at least) that add different vowels to YHWH and come up with different forms - which is not the scope of this article.

However, the difference between "baal" worship - a false lord and the meaning of baal, and LORD - the great I am as some put it - may affect understanding of the passages. Someone should put it back to the spelling in the English bibles - LORD, and footnote it with an explanation of LORD being used for YHWH, with a link to articles on YHWH the tetragrammaton, for where it appears; for more discussion on the meaning of the Hebrew. Tetragrammaton means four letters, not six letters - this page is adding vowels to that on top of using a different language, a discussion for someplace else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FCC8:A247:DE00:41D7:CFE0:D9CC:9129 (talk) 02:29, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Either that, or replace with YHWH, with a footnote that this is LORD or Lord in capitalization in English bibles, and a proper name for God. But I'm not willing we force readers to assume that something is true without proper scholarship - itself out of the scope of the article. All the standard bibles use LORD or Lord, referring to a transliteration of YHWH. YHWH never has vowels in it in the old testament. Which form of YHWH may be right belongs under an article on YHWH. Presuming one form is correct over others hides the discussion from the reader and does them a disservice.

MC Lars

MC Lars wrote a song called AHAB

it is about Moby Dick, the whale who took his leg.

Organization

This article needs to be organized by someone who knows the subject—Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 10:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

"Dear docter poo head murder of Naboth (see Jezebel), an act of royal encroachment, ..." Text vandals?

208.115.205.191 (talk) 14:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)John

Evidential basis unclear

Often, indeed in most of the text, it is unclear that the supposedly historical account is reliant exclusively on the text of the Bible, without even indicating when scholars believe that the relevant piece of Biblical text was written.

I feel we need a constant repetition of the phrase "Again, according to the Bible, with no supporting epigraphic or archaeological evidence", but I'm not sure how this can be done elegantly.

Perhaps it would be best to have a short passage at the top laying out what little archaeological and epigraphic evidence we have, followed by a short passage on when the relevant passage of Kings was redacted, and then the detailed account drawn entirely from the Tanakh, with explicit acknowledgement that that is the only source.

VEBott (talk) 14:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

As soon as you get in to "when the relevant passage of Kings was redacted", you are getting into controversial waters on which "scholars" are not a unanimous monolithic body of opinion, and possibly pushing your favored pov hypothesis. Per the synth rules, any reference used in this article has to mention the article subject, and if it is a controversial pov like that, it has to be clearly indicated as such. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not pushing any particular date/ hypothesis concerning the redaction of Kings; we could in fact simply put "variously estimated as ", and offer links to the article on the DH and other theories. I take it that Wikipedia recognizes the accepted scientific consensus as broadly minimalist? Or are the views of fundamentalists and maximalists taken as part of a 'controversy' which has to be accomodated in determining the boundaries of a contemporary NPOV ? VEBott (talk) 17:06, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Why would you think Wikipedia is officially pushing minimalism? Pushing controversial hypotheses and marginalizing others is exactly what our neutrality policy forbids. You do understand that Wikipedia is not like old Soviet "scholarship", rather it is open to scholars of all stripes; and per the neutrality policy, it is supposed merely identify what the competing points of view are and who holds them, without tipping the balance or endorsing one agenda's hypothesis as "correct" (as if the other schools of thought had simply packed up and gone home, when in fact they have not and aren't about to.) The neutrality policy is especially crucial when we are dealing with what are all unproven hypotheses and conjectures in the first place (Such as the hypothetical notion that Kings was ever "redacted" at all. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, I thought I was having a discussion with somebody who recognized the idea that there is a difference, on any topic, between a scientific consensus and pseudoscience. Are you saying that we should give *equal* weight to the idea that Kings was redacted at some stage and the view that it was not? If not, what is the "due weight" mentioned in the NPOV article that we should give to such a viewpoint?

There is nothing 'Soviet' about the idea of a scientific consensus; that's the whole point of the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view article isn't it?

“While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship. There are many such beliefs in the world, some popular and some little-known: claims that the Earth is flat, that the Knights Templar possessed the Holy Grail, that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax, and similar. Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or even plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship.”

We should of course acknowledge the existence of maximalist or pre-Documentary Hypothesis viewpoints, but that's not the same as asserting that they should be given equal weight in articles on historical figures.

Incidentally, I am slightly confused by the inverted commas you put around 'redacted' too. You may have doubts about whether the texts were redacted, but it's a respectable term, not some value-loaded neologism.

My main point here is in any case that the Wiki entry on Ahab and other such figures should draw a clear demarcation, in its very structure, between what we can say on the basis of archaeological or epigraphic evidence and what we learn from the text of the Hebrew Bible. Do you agree with that? VEBott (talk) 18:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Has anyone ever demonstrated unequivocally, to everyone's universal satisfaction, that Kings was ever redacted? No. On the contrary, one school of thought (the minimalist) advanced that as a tentative hypothesis, then after some years had elapsed, certain partisans of that agenda declared the "consensus" for their hypothesis as fait accomplis, without any new evidence whatsoever coming to light, and they sought (and clearly still seek) to marginalize any contrary opinions as "pseudoscience" (that is the illogical method that smacks of Soviet techniques in "scholarship"). That's fine for the minimalist POV, but neutrality policy requires us to look past our own noses and admit that in the absence of proof, other views are still viable and have an active following; to pretend otherwise is to bury one's head in the sand. The longer you stay on wikipedia, the more your mind will be expanded as you hopefully realize that not everyone is taught "facts" from the same perspective as you were taught. That is precisely why we have a neutrality policy in the first place. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:50, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

You ask "Has anyone ever demonstrated unequivocally, to everyone's universal satisfaction, that Kings was ever redacted?" Please abide by the recommendations of the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and cite a respectable contemporary academic source that does not accept that the text was redacted. I think you will find that difficult. We are talking about Kings as an historical account in this section, not its function as a source of spiritual guidance or as a work of literature. Even in the event that there was a single redactor, the text itself states that he was drawing on numerous sources rather than reproducing a single one. Judging by the material on your personal pages, I am pretty sure you are arguing for arguments' sake. Isn't that a bit like trolling? Has anyone ever demonstrated unequivocally, to everyone's universal satisfaction, that the earth isn't flat?

More interestingly, at least tell me what you think about my proposal concerning the best structure for articles on these topics? Perhaps the summary of the Biblical account could be given using the historical present ? VEBott (talk) 20:36, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

This conversation is going downhill rapidly, now you just dropped the T-bomb. What you need to understand is that wikipedia has never endorsed minimalist POV, and it is rather surprising that you would imagine it has all of a sudden. It does not impose a litmus test on sources such as "Well if they aren't minimalist, then they can't be reliable sources." It doesn't matter how militant of a minimalist you are, we operate by consensus here and there are many others besides minimalists on this project. You may trust my word here; I have been an active wikipedian for six years. That's the way it's always been and that's the way it will continue. Every so often someone comes along and insists that we adopt an exclusionary policy toward non-minimalist povs or editors, but the people who insist on that have been beating their heads into the same old brick wall for so long, it's got to be painful. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 00:27, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I feel that maybe we're getting bogged down in semantics. Perhaps I shouldn't have used terms like maximalist and minimalist, although redactor seems to refer fairly unambiguously and uncontentiously to someone who selects or adapts sources in order to produce a new account. To address your substantive point: I'm not asking for non-minimalist references to be excluded, (although I do feel it would help if academic accreditation could be specified). I'm simply suggesting a structure, and a use of tenses, for articles on historical figures, that enables the reader to understand the evidential basis of what is being put forwards. Is there anything 'soviet' about that? VEBott (talk) 01:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Do you have anything more specific you're proposing about this article (Ahab), or are you simply grousing about wikipedia's balanced ("equal weight") coverage of religion topics in general? If the latter, making new policy proposals on the talkpage of an obscure article isn't really fair to the large number of other voices who would doubtless be interested in any such proposal. If you want to give it a go, you'll find them at the relevant wikiprojects like WP Bible, WP Christianity, WP Judaism, etc. Bon appetit! Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 02:29, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I'll do that. VEBott (talk) 09:46, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if categories like 'redaction' are even especially useful. Even the name 'documentary hypothesis' is telling: it implies an idea of a purely literary tradition at perhaps far too early a period. Thinking of the earlier OT books as a written record or portion of a largely oral tradition would, I think, produce a very different terminology.

But then, I'm definitely not minimalist by anybody's standards. And not just on the Bible -- I feel that the general current of modern historical scholarship is far too critical/skeptical of what the ancients wrote about history and of the validity of tradition and the more historical sort of 'legend', and far too willing to attach significance to a mere lack of archaeological evidence (when after such lengths of time the finding of anything at all is often exceptional). 165.91.166.150 (talk) 04:16, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

not "Jezebel"

Isabel... Izebel... Jezebel is how it gets translated in Greek... Which is DUMB, because even in Greek, Ἰεζάβελ is pronounced Izevel. The name shares origins with elishiva. Perhaps the "bell" was added by the gals... Or it could be another case of the "el" fragment... not sure, to be honest. Worth looking into.Lostubes (talk) 23:56, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Google search for Jezebel has 17,100,000 result and Izebel has 335,000 results. Isabel is a common name. Correct or not, Jezebel is the most used here. Roostery123 (talk) 04:04, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Date of Reign

This is very confusing to me: "Ahab ... reigned for twenty-two years. Albright dated his reign to 869–850 BC, Thiele offered 874–853 BC, Coogan [proposes] 871–852 BC." The sidebar says "ca. 885 - 874." So, first, the sidebar has no attribution or citation. Second, the reign is claimed as being 22 years, but the scholars cited list date ranges of 19 years each. Third, all of those conflict with the proposed range listed in the sidebar, which is 11 years, unless the sidebar is using "Reign" to list proposed dates for when his reign began, rather than its span, which is unclear. So what am I missing here? Do the 22 years refer to some ancient Semitic lunar calendar, while the cited dates are for the contemporary calendar? What does the "Reign" section of the sidebar refer to? Can someone who knows this subject clarify this in the text, please?DILNN1 (talk) 05:23, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

It looks like this problem is solved. Alephb (talk) 03:08, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Revert

@Nycarchitecture212: If you seek to remove mainstream academic knowledge from Wikipedia, you're in for a rocky ride. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:30, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Namely, according to WP:RSPSCRIPTURE, citations to the Bible should not be used to replace modern WP:SCHOLARSHIP. And a book from 1911 I don't think it makes a great source. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:54, 5 April 2024 (UTC)