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@El_C, "It's Jytdog's turn to have his version up" is not a valid reason to remove sourced information. Please undo your removal of sourced information. Debresser (talk) 10:03, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

H'mmm. Please see WP:WRONGVERSION :) — O Fortuna 10:07, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I am familiar with that. Have been so for about 8 years. If somebody would have removed the sourced statements and by chance that version would have been protected, I would have said nothing. But protecting a version with sourced information, and then removing said souced information, and with the non-existing reason that it's somebody else's turn (??), that is too arbitrary. Debresser (talk) 10:12, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

You've had your version protected for four days, and it didn't seem to have greatly motivate you to engage on the talk page (you last comment being April 18)—hopefully, now you'll present your sources on the talk page to see that there's consensus they're both reliable and represent due weight. El_C 10:32, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

1. I didn't have to be motivated. There is no obligation to present my sources beforehand. 2. Now that my sources are revealed, there is no reason to remove sourced information. That is against policy. They were not even contested. They were simply called "garbage", without any explanation or discussion, in a blatant violation of WP:LIKE and WP:OWN and WP:IDONTLIKEUSERDEBRESSER. 3. I am asking you once more to reconsider. If you do not present a valid reason, I will ask for admin review of that action on WP:ANI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Debresser (talk • contribs) 11:08, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I already explained why it was time for the wrong version—feel free to challenge my decision in any forum you see fit. Yes, I also expect your opponent to explain himself as to why the sources were termed "garbage" (a term I'm not happy with)—and, I ask that he maintains decorum. El_C 11:15, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah I should not have called them garbage. My apologies. Would redact that if i could. Jytdog (talk) 16:09, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

It's appreciated nonetheless. Thanks for that. El_C 16:12, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Appreciated here as well.

IMHO you really should have explained on the talkpage why you think they are not good sources, right after reverting. That is something you have not explained still. You have explained why you disagree with them. You have not cast any doubt on the sources themselves.

@El_C since the sources have not been contested as such in over 24 hours, I propose you restore the information. Debresser (talk) 17:50, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

What about this analysis? El_C 18:44, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

• Quick note, El_C. The version you have up there, is not "my version", as it contains the unsourced content that is the subject of the RfC: "Israelites enjoyed political independence twice in ancient history, first during the periods of the Biblical judges followed by the United Monarchy.". That is Debresser's 1st version. - the one you protected originally. When I reverted Debresser's 2nd version, I reverted back to the version you had protected. "My version" is this one, with that sentence taken out. Jytdog (talk) 18:33, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

• Copy that. El_C 18:44, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

@El_C Please see above where WP:PREFER is quoted. You violated it once, now you violated it a second time, and all of that in the absence of any objection whatsoever to the sources. Your behavior here is highly un-evenhanded. Debresser (talk) 21:19, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I went counter to normally precisely to be even-handed. And also to motivate you to engage on the talk page—which you were failing to do when your version was up. I see noticeably greater engagement with the material on the talk page now, however. El_C 04:47, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

That is not because the other version is up, but because the page was unprotected and I could make my edit and add the sources. As I explained to you already. Why is it you keep repeating something that I have already explained to you is incorrect, when clearly you have no way of contesting it? Debresser (talk) 14:53, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Question about DS

User:El_C. In the Palestinian-Israeli Arbcom case, the "finding of fact" here notes that this is broadly construed. Does content about when and if the Israelites were independent in the land in ancient historical times, fall under the DS? If you are not sure I can take this to a clarification request. Jytdog (talk) 16:19, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, we did choose to apply it to Jewish diaspora, so I am open to applying Ds here, yes. Though I'm not seeing ARBPIA politics influencing this dispute El_C 17:10, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I thought about it for a second earlier and came down with a firm "no". --NeilN 17:24, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for replies from both of you. It is hard for me to understand why it is so important that any content about something as complex as independence per se be in that section (even if unsourced and disputed), much less that it should emphasize the independence, or edit warred in so fiercely, outside of the context of that dispute. Biblical claims about the ancient Israelite presence and independence in the region are also central in some arguments about why there should be for example settlements in places like the West Bank. See Israeli_settlement#Reasons_for_settlements fifth and sixth bullets for example. See also the history at AE. This seems to me to be the background that is making a fairly routine issue of moving content to talk that is unsourced and was tagged disputed for over a year so .... hotly and strangely contested. Application of DS could help manage the situation. Jytdog (talk) 17:29, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

There are still some who think that having applied Ds to Jewish diaspora was a grave mistake—the kind that had opened the floodgates for Ds to other Jewish-related topics. I can appreciate that position. But ARBPIA politics does have a tendency to sneak in there in ever unexpected ways. El_C 17:46, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't see the connection. That is, I can see how it could be connected, just that I never saw anybody connect it. I personally think that DS are already overstretched. Debresser (talk) 17:37, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

New RfC

I propose that you list a new RfC about the latest sources and their reliability and due weight to the contested sentence. El_C 18:42, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean the version I posted above, or Debresser's immediate post-page-protection? In either case, I would like to see how folks react to my proposal above. We may be able to just use it without going to an RfC,

or put it through some tweaks in normal page discussion style. It would be useful to keep the page locked for a while to ... encourage that. Jytdog (talk) 19:23, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

What proposal. You didn't propose anything. Debresser (talk) 21:20, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

See above. You placed a note under it in this diff just before you wrote the note above. Hm. Jytdog (talk) 21:56, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

New RfC on the latest contested versions (Debresser's post-page-protection vs. the revision currently up). El_C 04:51, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

RFC:Revised origins section

The Origins section is currently kind of messy, mixing mythology and history. The 1st and 3rd paragraphs, and the first 2 sentences of the 4th paragraph, are mostly mythology but mix with history; the 2nd paragraph and the rest of the 4th are generally history.

The content said, before all the current dispute began:

According to the Hebrew Bible narrative, Jewish ancestry is traced back to the Biblical patriarchs such as Abraham, his son Isaac, Isaac's son Jacob, and the Biblical matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel, who lived in Canaan around the 18th century BCE. Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacob's son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs' descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, after which the Israelites conquered Canaan.

Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites' inspiring national myth narrative. The Israelites and their culture, according to the modern archaeological account, did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh, one of the Ancient Canaanite deities. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of cultic practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group, setting them apart from other Canaanites. The Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE (Late Bronze Age), while the Hebrew language is the last extant member of the Canaanite languages. In the Iron Age I period (1200–1000 BCE) Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature.

Although the Israelites were divided into Twelve Tribes, the Jews (being one offshoot of the Israelites, another being the Samaritans) are traditionally said to descend mostly from the Israelite tribes of Judah (from where the Jews derive their ethnonym) and Benjamin, and partially from the tribe of Levi, who had together formed the ancient Kingdom of Judah, and the remnants of the northern Kingdom of Israel who migrated to the Kingdom of Judah and assimilated after the 720s BCE, when the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Israelites enjoyed political independence twice in ancient history, first during the periods of the Biblical judges followed by the United Monarchy. After the fall of the United Monarchy the land was divided into Israel and Judah. The term Jew originated from the Roman "Judean" and denoted someone from the southern kingdom of Judah. The shift of ethnonym from "Israelites" to "Jews" (inhabitant of Judah), although not contained in the Torah, is made explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE), a book in the Ketuvim, the third section of the Jewish Tanakh. In 587 BCE Nebuchadnezzar II, King of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, besieged Jerusalem, destroyed the First Temple, and deported the most prominent citizens of Judah. In 586 BCE, Judah itself ceased to be an independent kingdom, and its remaining Jews were left stateless. The Babylonian exile ended in 539 BCE when the Achaemenid Empire conquered Babylon and Cyrus the Great allowed the exiled Jews to return to Yehud and rebuild their Temple. The Second Temple was completed in 515 BCE. Yehud province was a peaceful part of the Achaemenid Empire until the fall of the Empire in c. 333 BCE to Alexander the Great. Jews were also politically independent during the Hasmonean dynasty spanning from 140 to 37 BCE and to some degree under the Herodian dynasty from 37 BCE to 6 CE. Since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, most Jews have lived in diaspora. As an ethnic minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.

References

1. Dever, William (2001). What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It?. Eerdmans. pp. 98–99. ISBN 3-927120-37-5. After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible "historical figures" archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit.
2. Tubb, 1998. pp. 13–14
3. Mark Smith in "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" states "Despite the long regnant model that the Canaanites and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and Canaanites in the Iron I period (c. 1200–1000 BCE). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp. 6–7). Smith, Mark (2002) "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" (Eerdman's)
4. Rendsberg, Gary (2008). "Israel without the Bible". In Frederick E. Greenspahn. The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship. NYU Press, pp. 3–5
5. K. L. Noll, Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: A Textbook on History and Religion, A&C Black, 2012, rev.ed. pp.137ff.
6. Thomas L. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written & Archaeological Sources, BRILL, 2000 pp. 275–76: 'They are rather a very specific group among the population of Palestine which bears a name that occurs here for the first time that at a much later stage in Palestine's history bears a substantially different signification.'
7. Judah: Hebrew Tribe, Encyclopædia Britannica
8. Broshi, Maguen (2001). Bread, Wine, Walls and Scrolls. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 174. ISBN 1-84127-201-9.
9. Teaching Jewish History. Behrman House, Inc. 2006. p. 41. ISBN 9780867051834. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
10. The people and the faith of the Bible by André Chouraqui, Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1975, p. 43
11. The Hebrews: A Learning Module from Washington State University, © Richard Hooker, reprinted by permission by the Jewish Virtual Library under The Babylonian Exile
12. Johnson (1987), p. 82.

Am proposing instead the following. This moves material from the 3rd paragraph and the 1st bit of the 4th paragraph to the first paragraph, so that the mythological material is all in one place, followed by 3 paragraphs of history. The 2nd paragraph is close to what was there before; the 3rd is new (addressing the disputed sentence about the historicity of Judges and the United Monarchy, and other aspects), and the 4th is unchanged but for the 1st sentence.

According to the Hebrew Bible narrative, Jewish ancestry is traced back to the Biblical patriarchs such as Abraham, his son Isaac, Isaac's son Jacob, and the Biblical matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel, who lived in Canaan. The Twelve Tribes are described as descending from the twelve sons of Jacob. Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacob's son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs' descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, after which the Israelites conquered Canaan under Moses' successor Joshua, went through the period of the Biblical judges after the death of Joshua, then through the mediation of Samuel became subject to a king, Saul, who was succeeded by David and then Solomon, after whom the United Monarchy ended and was split into a separate Kingdom of Israel and a Kingdom of Judah. The Kingdom of Judah is described as comprising the tribes of Tribe of Judah, the Tribe of Benjamin, and partially the tribe of Tribe of Levi, and later adding other tribes who migrated there from the Kingdom of Israel.

Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of this narrative, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites' inspiring national myth narrative. The Israelites and their culture, according to the modern archaeological account, did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh, one of the Ancient Canaanite deities. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of cultic practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group, setting them apart from other Canaanites.

The Israelites become visible in the historical record as a people between 1200 and 1000 BCE. It is not certain if a period like that of the Biblical judges occurred nor if there was ever a United Monarchy. There is well accepted archeological evidence referring to "Israel" in the Merneptah Stele which dates to about 1200 BCE; and the Canaanites are archeologically attested in the Middle Bronze Age, There is debate about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power, but historians agree that a Kingdom of Israel existed by ca. 900 BCE and that a Kingdom of Judah existed by ca. 700 BCE. It is widely accepted that the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed around 720 BCE, when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

The term Jew originated from the Roman "Judean" and denoted someone from the southern kingdom of Judah. The shift of ethnonym from "Israelites" to "Jews" (inhabitant of Judah), although not contained in the Torah, is made explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE), a book in the Ketuvim, the third section of the Jewish Tanakh. In 587 BCE Nebuchadnezzar II, King of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, besieged Jerusalem, destroyed the First Temple, and deported the most prominent citizens of Judah. In 586 BCE, Judah itself ceased to be an independent kingdom, and its remaining Jews were left stateless. The Babylonian exile ended in 539 BCE when the Achaemenid Empire conquered Babylon and Cyrus the Great allowed the exiled Jews to return to Yehud and rebuild their Temple. The Second Temple was completed in 515 BCE. Yehud province was a peaceful part of the Achaemenid Empire until the fall of the Empire in c. 333 BCE to Alexander the Great. Jews were also politically independent during the Hasmonean dynasty spanning from 140 to 37 BCE and to some degree under the Herodian dynasty from 37 BCE to 6 CE. Since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, most Jews have lived in diaspora. As an ethnic minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.

References

1. Judah: Hebrew Tribe, Encyclopædia Britannica
2. Dever, William (2001). What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It?. Eerdmans. pp. 98–99. ISBN 3-927120-37-5. After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible "historical figures" archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit.
3. Tubb, 1998. pp. 13–14
4. Mark Smith in "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" states "Despite the long regnant model that the Canaanites and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and Canaanites in the Iron I period (c. 1200–1000 BCE). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp. 6–7). Smith, Mark (2002) "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" (Eerdman's)
5. Rendsberg, Gary (2008). "Israel without the Bible". In Frederick E. Greenspahn. The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship. NYU Press, pp. 3–5
6. Spielvogel, Jackson J. (2012). Western civilization (8th ed. ed.). Australia: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning. p. 33. ISBN 9780495913245. What is generally agreed, however, is that between 1200 and 1000 B.C.E., the Israelites emerged as a distinct group of people, possibly united into tribes or a league of tribes {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
7. For a bibliography of scholars who doubt anything like the period of the Judges ever occurred, see John C. Yoder (1 May 2015). Power and Politics in the Book of Judges: Men and Women of Valor. FORTRESS Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-4514-9642-0.
8. Marc Zvi Brettler (2002). The Book of Judges. Psychology Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-415-16216-6.
9. Thomas L. Thompson (1 January 2000). Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written & Archaeological Sources. BRILL. p. 96. ISBN 90-04-11943-4.
10. Hjelm, Ingrid; Thompson, Thomas L, eds. (2016). History, Archaeology and The Bible Forty Years After "Historicity": Changing Perspectives. Routledge. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-317-42815-2.
11. Philip R. Davies (1995). In Search of "Ancient Israel": A Study in Biblical Origins. A&C Black. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-85075-737-5.
12. Lipschits, Oded (2014). "The History of Israel in the Biblical Period". In Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi (eds.). The Jewish Study Bible (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199978465.
13. ^ Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2001). The Bible unearthed : archaeology's new vision of ancient Israel and the origin of its stories (1st Touchstone ed. ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-86912-8. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
14. ^ Kuhrt, Amiele (1995). The Ancient Near East. Routledge. p. 438. ISBN 978-0415167628. Cite error: The named reference "Kuhrtp438" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
15. ^ Wright, Jacob L. (July 2014). "David, King of Judah (Not Israel)". The Bible and Interpretation.
16. K. L. Noll, Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: A Textbook on History and Religion, A&C Black, 2012, rev.ed. pp.137ff.
17. Thomas L. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written & Archaeological Sources, BRILL, 2000 pp. 275–76: 'They are rather a very specific group among the population of Palestine which bears a name that occurs here for the first time that at a much later stage in Palestine's history bears a substantially different signification.'
18. Jonathan M Golden,Ancient Canaan and Israel: An Introduction, OUP USA, 2009 pp. 3–4.
19. Lemche, Niels Peter (1998). The Israelites in History and Tradition. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 35. ISBN 9780664227272.
20. The Pitcher Is Broken: Memorial Essays for Gosta W. Ahlstrom, Steven W. Holloway, Lowell K. Handy, Continuum, 1 May 1995 Quote: "For Israel, the description of the battle of Qarqar in the Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser III (mid-ninth century) and for Judah, a Tiglath-pileser III text mentioning (Jeho-) Ahaz of Judah (IIR67 = K. 3751), dated 734-733, are the earliest published to date."
21. Broshi, Maguen (2001). Bread, Wine, Walls and Scrolls. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 174. ISBN 1-84127-201-9.
22. Teaching Jewish History. Behrman House, Inc. 2006. p. 41. ISBN 9780867051834. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
23. The people and the faith of the Bible by André Chouraqui, Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1975, p. 43
24. The Hebrews: A Learning Module from Washington State University, © Richard Hooker, reprinted by permission by the Jewish Virtual Library under The Babylonian Exile
25. Johnson (1987), p. 82.

If anyone needs the changes marked, see here (with refs removed, to reduce clutter:

According to the Hebrew Bible narrative, Jewish ancestry is traced back to the Biblical patriarchs such as Abraham, his son Isaac, Isaac's son Jacob, and the Biblical matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel, who lived in Canaan around the 18th century BCE. The Twelve Tribes are described as descending from the twelve sons of Jacob. Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacob's son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs' descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE after which the Israelites conquered Canaan under Moses' successor Joshua, went through the period of the Biblical judges after the death of Joshua, then through the mediation of Samuel became subject to a king, Saul, who was succeeded by David and then Solomon, after whom the United Monarchy ended and was split into a separate Kingdom of Israel and a Kingdom of Judah. The Kingdom of Judah is described as comprising the tribes of Tribe of Judah, the Tribe of Benjamin, and partially the tribe of Tribe of Levi, and later adding other tribes who migrated there from the Kingdom of Israel.

Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story this narrative, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites' inspiring national myth narrative. The Israelites and their culture, according to the modern archaeological account, did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh, one of the Ancient Canaanite deities. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of cultic practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group, setting them apart from other Canaanites. The Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE (Late Bronze Age), while the Hebrew language is the last extant member of the Canaanite languages. In the Iron Age I period (1200–1000 BCE) Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature.

Although the Israelites were divided into Twelve Tribes, the Jews (being one offshoot of the Israelites, another being the Samaritans) are traditionally said to descend mostly from the Israelite tribes of Judah (from where the Jews derive their ethnonym) and Benjamin, and partially from the tribe of Levi, who had together formed the ancient Kingdom of Judah and the remnants of the northern Kingdom of Israel who migrated to the Kingdom of Judah and assimilated after the 720s BCE, when the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

The Israelites become visible in the historical record as a people between 1200 and 1000 BCE. It is not certain if a period like that of the Biblical judges occurred nor if there was ever a United Monarchy. There is well accepted archeological evidence referring to "Israel" in the Merneptah Stele which dates to about 1200 BCE and the Canaanites are archeologically attested in the Middle Bronze Age. There is debate about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power, but historians agree that a Kingdom of Israel existed by ca. 900 BCE and that a Kingdom of Judah existed by ca. 700 BCE. It is widely accepted that the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed around 720 BCE, when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Israelites enjoyed political independence twice in ancient history, first during the periods of the Biblical judges followed by the United Monarchy. After the fall of the United Monarchy the land was divided into Israel and Judah. The term Jew originated from the Roman "Judean" and denoted someone from the southern kingdom of Judah. The shift of ethnonym from "Israelites" to "Jews" (inhabitant of Judah), although not contained in the Torah, is made explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE), a book in the Ketuvim, the third section of the Jewish Tanakh. In 587 BCE Nebuchadnezzar II, King of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, besieged Jerusalem, destroyed the First Temple, and deported the most prominent citizens of Judah. In 586 BCE, Judah itself ceased to be an independent kingdom, and its remaining Jews were left stateless. The Babylonian exile ended in 539 BCE when the Achaemenid Empire conquered Babylon and Cyrus the Great allowed the exiled Jews to return to Yehud and rebuild their Temple. The Second Temple was completed in 515 BCE. Yehud province was a peaceful part of the Achaemenid Empire until the fall of the Empire in c. 333 BCE to Alexander the Great. Jews were also politically independent during the Hasmonean dynasty spanning from 140 to 37 BCE and to some degree under the Herodian dynasty from 37 BCE to 6 CE. Since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, most Jews have lived in diaspora. As an ethnic minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.

Please accept (if implemented this will surely be further edited for improvement), reject, or propose tweaks. Thanks~ Jytdog (talk) 23:52, 22 April 2017 (UTC) (redacted to pose as an RFC Jytdog (talk) 15:55, 23 April 2017 (UTC))

!votes

• accept as proposer. Started thinking about this when trying to understand why the sentence originally under dispute ("Israelites enjoyed political independence twice in ancient history, first during the periods of the Biblical judges followed by the United Monarchy.") was in the article at all, and noticed at that time that the content in this section mixes history and myth in unfortunate ways, just as the disputed sentence does. The proposed changes address the time periods mentioned in that sentence and deal with the larger issue of the flow of myth into history in this section. The proposed content is better-organized, well sourced, and reflects current ANE scholarship. It can surely be improved, but the goal here is just to get the section re-organized and placed initially on a more solid footing. Jytdog (talk) 16:13, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• accept well-sourced. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:41, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

The previous text was also well sourced. Debresser (talk) 22:10, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• Partial agree partial disagree Partial disagree: The text must include the reliable sources that state that there is a consensus among historians that there were independent Israelite tribes during the period of the judges and an independent Israelite nation during the United Kingdom. As I mentioned in quite a few sections above. This is an important point that must not be ignored. Especially since the sources I provided fully acknowledge and include all points of view on this issue, as they state: "What is generally agreed, however, is that between 1200 and 1000 B.C., the Israelites emerged as a distinct group of people, possibly organized in tribes or a league of tribes, who established a united kingdom known as Israel". The only sentence which needs to be changed then is "It is not certain if a period like that of the Biblical judges occurred nor if there was ever a United Monarchy." The sentence to replace it should be "The Israelites were independent tribes during the time of the Judges, and constituted an independent nation during the period of the United Monarchy." See this edit of mine. Partial agree: The rest is fine with me. Especially the split between the biblical narrative and the opinions of historians in the first two paragraphs is a good idea and was implemented well. Debresser (talk) 22:10, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

Yes, that this is a lot of text, and what are the precise changes you are proposing. And how is this related, if at all, to all those sections above. I have a feeling you are obfuscating things with all these sections and separate posts. Debresser (talk) 04:30, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

It is all explained above, between the two blocks of text. The changes are clear. Jytdog (talk) 04:49, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

One step at a time. I think we should return to this once the earlier dispute over the contested passage is resolved. That said, there is nothing wrong with research work (related or unrelated to the aforementioned dispute) leading to further additions. But we do need to prioritize tasks on the talk page. El_C 05:01, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I have been saying all along that the sentence doesn't really belong where it is. If you read the Origins section you will see what I mean. This arose because I thought about where the content I proposed above would go, and it doesn't fit anywhere due to the jumble between myth and history in the current content. This fixes it and incorporates the content I proposed above. I am considering doing an RfC on the above. I could add underlines and strikes to show the differences but it but it would be very cluttered. Jytdog (talk) 05:50, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh, okay. If it all connects, then that's a good idea. El_C 08:10, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree, the section needs a rearrangement and distinction between biblical and historical narratives (which are both important to the article). Infantom (talk) 12:31, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Since Jytdog has refused to explain his changes in detail, I don't think this section can go forward.

In addition, I think we should first discuss the simple change of one sentence and its sources, as I proposed above, since in any case the text Jytdog drew up in this non-proposal is only to counter a simple proposal of mine, and the issues are becoming obfuscated. As El_C correctly said: one step at a time. The claim that "If you read the Origins section you will see what I mean" is typical tendentious editor baloney to get away with obfuscating the issues. See Talk:Abraham#Infobox_RfC for another Rfc by Jytdog, where editors complain that the proposal is not clear. Here too, there is a wall of text, many issues intermingled, and all of this is only to lead away from a clear and simple proposal that Jytdog doesn't like, without being able to say even one word against a clear and academic source! This has to stop: one issue at a time. Debresser (talk) 15:00, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

In any case, before "There is debate about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power, but historians agree that" there must be something along the lines of "The Israelites were independent tribes during the time of the Judges, and constituted an independent nation during the period of the United Monarchy.", as I proposed above. The rest can be discussed after that issue is settled. Debresser (talk) 15:07, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

References

1. Africa Bible Commentary: A One-Volume Commentary Written by 70 African Scholars. p. 295.

As noted and sourced to death, there is significant scholarly opinion that a period like that of the biblical judges as it appears in the biblical narrative (namely, a messy period between conquering the land and there being a United Monarchy) may never have existed. it makes no sense to state as fact qualities like "independence" of a period that may never have existed. Modern ANE scholarship does draw a lot of the "emergence" theory from the apparent sociological background expressed in Judges by itself and some of Samuel (scattered, loosely aligned groups that come together from time to time in various ways) but not from Judges in the narrative framework of post-conquest/pre-monarchy. That might be part of the confusion here. Jytdog (talk) 16:07, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

That significant opinion is fully acknowledged by my sources, which incorporate it in their summarizing statement. And even if there would be a diference of opinion, the way to deal with that on Misplaced Pages is to bring all well-sourced opinions, per WP:NPOV. Debresser (talk) 22:25, 23 April 2017 (UTC)