Talk:Book of Noah

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Edit war

@Tuvyaamiller: You need to stop edit warring and begin to WP:CITE your WP:SOURCES. Till now, you have cited absolutely no source for your claims. Tgeorgescu (talk) 06:23, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu:

@Tgeorgescu the Wikipedia page does not currently cite any sources when it says "The Book of Noah is thought to be a non-extant Old Testament pseudepigraphal work." Therefore, it should naturally be deleted. It is also attempting to discredit religious doctrine.

If you want sources in order to get you to delete something which is already not sourced (which inherently makes no sense) though, here you go:

is a great start.

If you want websites then please look at

These above sources show that Noah's ark is not objectively believed to be false nor is it necessarily false. Some of these sources are better than others. However, Wikipedia is supposed to be non-biased, so it is important that you remove the current biased unsourced language on the page.

Here's some sources to prove that Noah is "נח" in Hebrew: (the most obvious one being Google Translate):

Tuvyaamiller (talk) 07:03, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tuvyaamiller: On your talk page I have offered you enough guidance. Your choice is simple: either kowtow to WP:CHOPSY or you're heading towards a block or a topic ban. The information from the lead section is summarizing the body of the article, see WP:LEDE. About It is also attempting to discredit religious doctrine, see WP:CRYBLASPHEMY, WP:NOTTHEOCRACY and WP:RNPOV rulez. Gerald E. Aardsma is WP:FRINGE/PS by our book. Flood geology ditto. If I have to translate from English to English, that means that Wikipedia considers that the global flood is WP:CB. The global flood has been debunked since almost 200 years ago, before Darwin set foot on the board of the Beagle.

... Wikipedia is based on empirical fact. If historical fact contradicts religious truth then NPOV demands that we write from the perspective of historical fact even when describing the religious truth. In matters of opinion, such as whether a belief is heretical, Wikipedia is not and cannot be the arbiter of religious truth - in the absence of any universally agreed canonical authority, NPOV demands that competing viewpoints are represented according to their significance. ... IZAK is warned that giving preference to religious scholarship over mainstream secular historiography is likely to be interpreted as a violation of NPOV. ... Guy (help!) 20:16, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Quoted by Tgeorgescu. It would be a denial of our most basic policies and guidelines to affirm that there ever was a historical Noah. Tgeorgescu (talk) 07:55, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: I read the WP:CHOPSY page you shared. That's very understandable. However, I'm sure I can find a religious studies class at Harvard, Princeton, or Yale where a professor states, in the classroom, that the Book of Noah is accurate. Would you like me to do so?

As an academic myself I very much appreciate the analysis of religious texts from a non-religious point of view. However, such an analysis should be clearly stated for the average unknowing Wikipedia reader – who is unaware that Wikipedia's pages on religious texts are written from an anti-religious academic point of view – to be aware of! The page's quote "The Book of Noah is thought to be a non-extant Old Testament pseudepigraphal work" would only be factually correct if modified to state that it's true from an academic AND anti-religious point of view. It can instead state "The Book of Noah is thought by many academics to be a non-extant Old Testament pseudepigraphal work." This simple specification of "by many academics" would make the sentence factually correct while being consistent with CHOPSY.

You also did not address the addition of the Hebrew addition of the title of Noah in Hebrew. Please address this, and do not ignore.

You asked me to find sources, so I gave them to you and would like you to respond.

As an Information Sciences student at the University of Illinois, I have ample experience with editing wikis, particularly wiki.illinois.edu, to keep them non-biased. I am quite unimpressed by your disregard for what I wrote as well as your clear biases. I am even more unimpressed by your threats to ban me for simply attempting to correct the page in order to represent a more neutral point of view. It was never my intent to "start an edit war!" I care about the facts and believe that opinions should be noted as opinions rather than facts; I do not believe something should be stated as objectively true when it is not objectively true.

I have also read your comments on my talk page.

I'm not saying that Tuvyaamiller is our old friend Til, because I don't think he is, but the article sure reads like one he would have written. (Tuvyaamiller, just to fill you in, Til was a user some years ago who lust loved arcane books like this, espcially when they had some connection with Ethiopia). The article could easily be re-written in a much morev acceptable fashion using the external links listed at the end of it. Achar Sva (talk) 12:13, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tuvyaamiller: I don't think that you gonna find any mainstream Bible scholar worth his salt who claims that Noah of the "global flood" was a genuinely existing historical person. That's a wild goose chase, if you don't know it, I know and Achar Sva knows it. Liberal Christianity and liberal Judaism made peace long ago with the idea that large chunks of the Bible are unhistorical. E.g. Google Rabbi Wolpe Exodus. You have zero chances of finding a mainstream historian who claims that it were an objective historical fact that Noah really existed, regardless of the religion of the historian (Kool-Aid drinkers excepted). Oh, yes, see David Wolpe#Historicity of the Exodus. To translate again from English to English, Achar Sva says that the article, as it is now, is too fundamentalist written.

To draw the obvious conclusion, what you have been taught in the Yeshiva is very much at odds with mainstream history, i.e. the history taught by top 100 universities from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2021/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/100/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 15, p. 287 is very clear that the Noah story is lifted from Babylonian stories about a global flood; while the hero of the story could have been Babylonia’s tenth antediluvian king according to Berossus, the term antediluvian (as in global flood) makes no sense to the reality-based community.

For Wikipedia all these cocky claims like The Exodus Happened 2450 BC and Noah's Flood Happened 3520 B.C. are bunk. These are the WP:RULES, this is our system, and we won't change our system to accommodate the likes of Aardsma, nor to pass them as WP:RS. Neutrality does not mean WP:FALSEBALANCE. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:56, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: You didn't even respond to half of what I said, nor did you respond as all to my simple addition of the Hebrew title of the Hebrew Book of Noah.

What you have attempted to do is insult me, my knowledge, and my Yeshiva. Honestly to that I'd facetiously say "show me a source" just as you have asked me. You mention University rankings thinking I don't know what a top 100 school is. That's funny because I can actually recall from memory all universities ranked in the top 50 of USNWR and THE in order from the last 5 years... (I do my research and I know my facts...) So yes, I am referring to what would be taught at top-100 universities. Oh and by the way: many of the Rabbis at the yeshiva I went to – Yeshivat Eretz HaTzvi – were former Ivy League professors; your criticism is baseless and honestly ridiculous.

You seem to be excessively confident in your views, so much so that you won't allow users attempting to attempt to create an academically rigorous NBPOV by adding even one word. Since you are excessively confident and oppose all changes to the page, it is not worth my valuable time during finals week (at a top 50 university...) to continue this discussion with you. Therefore, I will not.

Enjoy pretentiously controlling this page. I hope your hubris will eventually subside.

Tuvyaamiller (talk) 04:05, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

My point is pretty straightforward: Wikipedia has WP:RULES, I took time to explain these rules to you (yes, all the blue links at this page and your talk page you should click on them and read them in order to know what our rules are). So, this was never about my own person or about my personal beliefs: it is about enforcing the rules of Wikipedia unto any editor who seeks to disobey them. Yup, this is a WP:MAINSTREAM encyclopedia and the following quote applies to it, too:

Harvard has no official alignment [liberalism vs. conservatism—n.n.], nor is there any predominant leaning that would create substantial peer pressure one way or another, as long as it is based on well thought-out and logically defensible positions. The Harvard community is hard, however, on those holding superstitious, arbitrary, and illogical positions, so if you believe Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs around the garden of Eden, you wouldn't be too happy there.

— Your sisters cute friend, answerbag.com

Quoted by Tgeorgescu. Stuff for reflection: why does Encyclopedia Judaica does not even mention your POV? In its article "NOAH, BOOKS OF." there is no mention of Genesis. You sought to remove from a pretty conservatively POVed article the few traces of mainstream Bible scholarship. This explains well my reaction: in respect to the Bible, this encyclopedia is dominated by mainstream Bible scholarship, not by theological orthodoxy.

The Black Sea deluge hypothesis is not a satisfactory claim for a global flood: it was (obviously) a local flood, and how could Ancient Israelites know about what happened between 11000 BP and 8000 BP, thousands of miles away from their country? The obvious answer of mainstream Bible scholars is that the global flood myth is a reworked version of Babylonian myths. Wikipedia no longer ponders the alternatives and already calls global flood a myth (in the voice of Wikipedia). You cannot ask Wikipedia to play by the rules of Orthodox Judaism the same way you cannot ask Britannica to play by the rules of Orthodox Judaism. The difference is that Britannica does not have talk pages. So when CHOPSY teach about the global flood they teach it as a myth, not historical fact—always, no exceptions. That dispute has ended long ago and Orthodox Judaism and orthodox Christians lost it for good. If you think that it is still open to debate: no, it is not. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:47, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Tuvyaamiller, what did you mean when you wrote this: The Book of Noah (נח in Hebrew) is the second book within Genesis"? Are you talking about the "toledot" of Noah, which is a section in the Book of Genesis? If so, I need to point out that the article is about something quite different, not a toledot of Genesis at all. Achar Sva (talk) 05:52, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Tgeorgescu

You say "So, this was never about my own person or about my personal beliefs: it is about enforcing the rules of Wikipedia unto any editor who seeks to disobey them." You're seriously calling me an "editer who seeks to disobey the rules?! Do you speak English?! (Wikipedia is for English speakers, and you seem to have insufficient english knowledge and have thus not been able to comprehend my points). I wanted to add 3 words "by many academics" !!! BY ADDING THESE 3 WORDS I AM ATTEMPTING TO MAKE AS NEUTRAL POINT OF VIEW AS POSSIBLE! YOU ON THE OTHER HAND ARE ATTEMPTING TO DO THE OPPOSITE. IT IS YOU WHO ARE BREAKING THE RULES! You are disobeying the rules of Wikipedia by not allowing for a NPOV and for deleting valuable additions, like the Hebrew of "Noah."

You have also violated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks by repeatedly attempting to personally attack me! I also didn't mention Orthodoxy a single time. You are pulling things out of thin air. Maybe you went to my personal page and from my yeshiva background you naively assumed I'm Orthodox. Since you went to my personal page, I have gone to your personal page too to try to see if you have any real credentials that would make you worthy of having any more of an opinion on the topics of religion than the average Joe Schmoe. I did not find anything. What I did find is something quite contradictory to one of your previous points. You attempted to bash my education by stating the importance of receiving education from a top 100 university. In fact, I have received an education from 2 top-100 universities. You have a certificate (which you call your "masters" degree) from a school that not only is not a top 100 university, it's also not even a top-1000 university!!! https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/university-bucharest Your opinion does not represent CHOPSY or anything anywhere close to CHOPSY!

Oh and you feel the need to display the fact that you're in Mensa on your Talk page. People in Mensa are only in Mensa because they havn't done anything significant with their life and all they have to show for themselves in their IQ. IQ doesn't mean c**p; that's why I don't display mine by displaying that I'm in Mensa. I have taken the WISC, WAIS, and OLSAT and I could join Mensa too; I don't though because I'm not pretentious and I don't need to be a part of an organization with pretentious people who have nothing to show other than their IQ (which they were born with, didn't do anything to achieve, and shouldn't be commended for). Oh and by the way, your Mensa card expired 24 freaking years ago! Talk about outdated sources... Again, you have given me and the readers of this feed all we need to see your extreme hubris.

You say "why does Encyclopedia Judaica does not even mention your POV? In its article 'NOAH, BOOKS OF.' there is no mention of Genesis. You sought to remove from a pretty conservatively POVed article the few traces of mainstream Bible scholarship. This explains well my reaction: in respect to the Bible, this encyclopedia is dominated by mainstream Bible scholarship, not by theological orthodoxy." I have no clue what you're talking about. Again, give me a source! What are you referring to when you say "you sought to remove from a pretty conservatively POVed article the few traces of mainstream Bible scholarship?" Again, I just tried to add three words. Cite your sources sir, and stop being a hypocrite. I also didn't mention Orthodoxy a single time. You are pulling things out of thin air. Again, I'm done with you.

Again, you're pulling things out of thin air. When did I ask Wikipedia to adopt Orthodox Judaism?! I did not. You are pulling things out of thin air and also being a hypocrite in failing to give me a source or a quote.

Again, I have given up on you, so you can keep violating Wikipedia policy by refusing to create a NPOV, but stop trying to personally attack me or any sect of Judaism (including Orthodox, Conserve, Reform, and Reconstructionist Judaism) or else I will report you as an anti-semite!

Tuvyaamiller (talk) 09:37, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Achar Sva Please cite your sources about "toldot."

There are 5 books of the Torah. The first of those books is Genesis and the second is Exodus. I only refer to the story of Noah as the "Book of Noah" because that is what the Wikipedia article is titled Book of Noah.

Tuvyaamiller (talk) 09:46, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tuvyaamiller: You're in no position to call me an antisemite. If Hitler were alive, he would send me to the gas chamber for having a Jewish grandfather. If we apply whoever disbelieves the Bible is antisemitic then Haaretz would be an antisemitic newspaper (e.g. for this). If you think that the history, religion and archaeology departments of Ivy Plus, Tel Aviv University and Bar Ilan University are actively preaching antisemitism, then you don't belong among us, if you insist admins will show you the door. E.g. it is highly unlikely that a full professor from BIU or TAU would tell his/her students that the Exodus really happened, precisely as reported in the Torah. The position that the Exodus happened as described in the Bible is WP:FRINGE/PS at Ivy Plus, it is WP:FRINGE/PS at BIU and TAU. Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:56, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

You are engaging in antisemitism when you repeatedly mocking any sect of Judaism (especially Orthodox judaism, the largest sect of Judaism). Again, trying to mock any sect of Judaism (including Orthodox, Conserve, Reform, and Reconstructionist Judaism). The fact that Hilter would kill you just as he would kill me doesn't exonerate you from anti-semitism; thinking such a thing would be ridiculous – there are plenty of self-hating Jews in the world, and you seem to be one of them.

NOTE: I WILL RESPOND TO ALL COMMENTS AFTER DECEMBER 18TH. YOU HAVE PUSHED ALL DISCUSSION EXTREMELY OFF TOPIC, AND IT IS NOT WORTH MY TIME DURING UNIVERSITY FINALS WEEK. I MUST FOCUS MY TIME ON WHAT MATTERS, SCHOOL. I WILL RESPOND TO YOUR (OFF-TOPIC) POINTS AFTER FINAL EXAMS END, DECEMBER 18TH.

Tuvyaamiller (talk) 10:08, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

You were asked not to engage in denialism about the fact that Adam, Eve and Noah never were historically existing people, as far as Wikipedia is concerned. Of course you may privately believe they really existed, but you are not allowed to push such POV inside Wikipedia.

Wikipedia isn't anti-religion, and this article isn't anti-religion. It is just that we never write from a true believer's POV, but always from an outside and disinterested perspective, heavily biased for mainstream WP:SCHOLARSHIP.

The idea is that Wikipedia distinguishes between history and myth, between science and myth. If you want to see those clashing, for another religion, see Talk:Ayurveda.

Conclusion: you turned the accusations of antisemitism into something completely ridiculous, an absurd parody, like in that YouTube video wherein they try to execute Eichmann and fail every time. Wikipedia does not kowtow to the dogmas of Orthodox Judaism the same way it does not kowtow to Christian dogmas or to Hindu dogmas. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:58, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

What about my homeland? Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas. I can love a country without feeling the need of doctoring the harsh truths about it. I'm not even antizionistic, let alone antisemitic. E.g. I find Martin van Creveld's argument that if Israel drops its Apartheid policy it will cease to exist as a Jewish state much more convincing than doublespeak which pays lip service to human rights. One can then feel compassion for Israelis precisely because of not being beaten around the bush. You see, my motivation is to understand the reality, not to condemn it. Tgeorgescu (talk) 16:25, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

And of top of that, except for an exceedingly rare revert in an article about modern Israel/Palestine which happens to be on my watch-list or for replying to a RfC, I don't bother editing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I neither love nor hate Zionists: they are people like everyone else. While it is quite possible to hate millions, it is humanly impossible to love millions—that's why hate seems to dominate the world. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:28, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

If anyone claims

• "God exists and created all things".
• "Jesus saved me and the Bible is his inspired word".
• "The Torah, both Written and Oral, as literally revealed by God on Mount Sinai and faithfully transmitted ever since"'
• "Joseph Smith is a true prophet, and translated the Book of Mormon from golden plates with divine assistance".

Those are religions, not science or pseudoscience. Wikipedia will never say that those claims are false, and Wikipedia will never say that those claims are true. We describe them as accurately as possible, and we describe who holds those beliefs. However, the following claims are both religion and pseudoscience:

• "God reliably heals people of HIV. You have received his healing and you can stop taking your medications".
• "What you read in the Torah is historical fact, literally happened exactly as described, all of the scientists who say otherwise are wrong and quite possibly antisemitic".
• "Joseph Smith says that in the pre-Columbian Americas there were horses, elephants, and steel swords that rusted, so those are historical facts and all of the scientists who say otherwise are wrong."
• "The earth is less than 10,000 years old, and humans and dinosaurs coexisted."

The above are all religious pseudoscience because, although motivated by religion, they make claims that purport to be factual and supported by science but are not. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

IZAK, you are wrong. We do NOT "report all sides of the coin" as if they are equally valid. Yes, we do report that all sides of the coin exist (See WP:WEIGHT), but we often report that one side or the other is wrong. As I explained to you in User talk:IZAK#Yes. We are biased., we don't report evolution and creationism, holocaust studies and holocaust denial, or the sociology of race, and scientific racism as "two sides of the same coin". We report that both exist, but we also report that creationists, holocaust deniers, and scientific racists are full of crap. Sure, we use nice language like "The methodologies of Holocaust deniers are often based on a predetermined conclusion that ignores overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary" and "Historically, scientific racism received credence throughout the scientific community, but it is no longer considered scientific", but those are just nice ways of saying that holocaust deniers and scientific racists are full of crap. As is your theory that the Angel of Death killing the firstborn of Egypt is a historical fact, but somehow the extensive records the Egyptians left failed to record such a major event. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:32, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

References

Bottom line: Wikipedia has no mercy for Ayurveda and the same way it has no mercy for Ancient Jewish myths. I mean Wikipedia treats myths and myths, not as objective historiography. No one is entitled to state that there ever was a historical Noah, that is preposterous and against WP:RULES. Construing website policy as antisemitic is utterly inane. No sober Wikipedian would argue for the historicity of Noah, see WP:SNOW. Claiming that I would be antisemitic because I don't allow you to state that Noah was a real person is inane. Noah/global flood is a puerile fantasy, and there is nothing antisemitic in saying that. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:47, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Saying that Noah is a mythical character does not make me antisemitic. Saying that Vishnu is a mythological god does not make me anti-Hindu. Saying that Allah is a mythical god does not make me anti-Muslim. Meaning I don't fight against the legal rights of Jews, Hindus, and Muslims. That is, I am a non-believer in those religions, and I'm using standard scholarly jargon calling a myth a myth. If the question is "When will Wikipedia take Jewish/Christian/Muslim/Hindu mythology at face value?" then the answer is "Never!" Wikipedia does not cater to religious fundamentalists, but it is based upon mainstream Bible scholarship and mainstream religious studies. My intention is not offending religious believers, but telling them the straight dope we won't dress their mythology as real history. And it is not me who decided that Wikipedia takes such approach, it was decided long ago when Wikipedia, led by Jimmy Wales, decided to trust WP:RS written by real, and independent experts, instead of religious apologetics. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:14, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

"Saying that Vishnu is a mythological god" As opposed to an actual god? There is no distinction. Dimadick (talk) 05:03, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Which Book of Noah?

@Tuvyaamiller:, let's take a break from your battle with TGeorge. I'm trying to understand what you mean by saying that the Book of Noah is "the second book within Genesis." I suspect you're talking about the toledoths - if you go the article on the Book of Genesis and read the Structure section, you'll see the toledoths explained. There are eleven toledoths in Gensis, and the "toledoth of Noah" is one of them. If this is what you mean, then there is a great confusion here, because the Book is Noah that this article is talking about has nothing to do with the Book of Genesis.Achar Sva (talk) 10:23, 7 December 2020 (UTC)