Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Whole bible chapter text

The discussion was carried out on the talk page

The conclusions of the discussion are summarised below.

Conclusions

After debate, general consensus seemed to be that, as per Wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources, entire chapters of the Bible do not belong on wikipedia. Since the Bible already exists in several different translations and different languages at its proper location (Wikisource), any article containing only Bible text should be speedily deleted or redirected as is necessary, and article should only contain as much source text as is necessary for purposes of example. --InShaneee 04:06, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Summary of the issue(s)

Currently at least six articles about single bible chapters contain a version of the entire text of the chapter within it, rather than only links. In fact, they do this twice in each article. Regardless of the existence of the six articles, while they exist, is the presence of the entire text of the chapter appropriate in Wikipedia?

• Should the text be included at all
• Should the text only be linked to
• Should we have the text twice?
• Should we use only the translations favourable to fundamentalists (as at present)
  • E.g. King James Version (ancient, based on 16th century knowledge),
  • World English Bible (translated by amateurs and sponsored by fundamentalists),
  • or New International Version (the translation excluded non-Protestants)

rather than more scholarly translations such as

• • the New American Bible (Roman Catholic translation, partially taking into account textual criticism)
  • or Revised Standard Version (King James version but updated to take into account some later discoveries of earlier Greek and Hebrew manuscripts).?

This discussion is specifically to address the presence of two entire translations of whole chapters at the following articles:

• John 20, Matthew 1, Matthew 2, Matthew 3, Matthew 4, Matthew 5, Matthew 6

There has been a prior vote on this subject at Wikipedia:Bible source text. Despite 66% of the voters concluding that the source text should not be in these specific articles, one or two editors have continuously reverted the source text back into the article whenever anyone tries to remove it, and so this discussion is ultimately to impose some form of consensus on the issue one way or the other.