Talk:Battle of the Ascent of Lebonah

It was the Battle of Maale Lebonah, not Wadi Haramia

Unbelievable Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.68.95.65 (talk) 15:46, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Wrong. --Corjay (talk) 07:41, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Not a Battle

First of all, this article has NO citations. I'm not sure why this is included in the list of battles. All that really took place there according to the account is killing an unfaithful Jew and a single soldier. (1 Macc. 3:16) No other deaths are reported in the account, so how does this qualify as a "battle", or a gorilla action, as some claim? The beginning of the Maccabean revolt, yes, battle, no. Likely it was less than a handful of soldiers, one got killed and the others never fought back because they were outnumbered. --Corjay (talk) 07:39, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 13 October 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move unopposed for over a week (non-admin closure) — Andy W. (talk) 23:45, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

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Battle of Wadi Haramia → Battle of Ma'aleh Levona – The primary and secondary sources within the article name the location of the battle as Ma'aleh Levona, whereas current title Wadi Haramia seems to be completely unfounded. GreyShark (dibra) 12:32, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Title

@Greyshark09: - would you consider a move to "Battle with Apollonius"? Not a huge fan of the current title - even if it was hypothesized to happen near Ma'aleh Levona, that doesn't mean "Battle of Ma'aleh Levona" is the common name. The Jewish Press article, which I assume you were referring to in your earlier RM, just says "6. Ma’aleh Levonah – Site of the first major Maccabean battle and victory" - it doesn't call it the "Battle of Ma'aleh Levona", just hypothesizes the battle took place there. Bar-Kochva's book, which seems to be about the most in-depth exploration of three sentences in 1 Maccabees, just calls it the Battle with Apollonius. Any thoughts / objections on moving it? SnowFire (talk) 17:47, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Understand your point, but Battle with Apollonius is not an encyclopedic title. Would be happy for another idea.GreyShark (dibra) 05:34, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I disagree that "encyclopedic title" is even a concept. The relevant guideline is No original research - if we don't have sources that call this "Battle of Ma'aleh Levona", we can't just make up a name. We should use whatever the sources call it, which seems to be "Battle with Apollonius" since the fact it was against Apollonius is just about the only thing known about the battle. SnowFire (talk) 08:49, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 23 December 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Page moved to Battle of the Ascent of Lebonah. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jerm (talk) 01:08, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

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Battle of Ma'aleh Levona → Battle with Apollonius – or to Battle of Lebonah Ascent (2nd choice) or back to Battle of Wadi Haramia (third choice), the article's location before the 2016 RM. The location of this battle is simply not known, nor are the titles with hypothesized locations "common names". What is known is that it was against Apollonius, which is how scholarly sources refer to the battle. Anything other than this anachronistic, non-common name - Ma'ale Levona is an Israeli settlement founded in 1983 which merely might be near the location of a battle 2,100 years earlier. See below for extended reasoning. SnowFire (talk) 02:39, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• Extended reasoning, in the hopes of avoiding another RM with little input: Per the article, we have a mere 4 sentences describing this battle, 2 of which are directly copied & pasted from the Battle of David & Goliath and thus can't be trusted. Scholars have made educated guesses of plausible locations, yes, but we shouldn't privilege these guesses as "correct". If we decided to privilege a guess anyway, we should probably use the descriptive English "Lebonah Ascent" since it was fought in what was then an empty pass near Lebonah at the time, rather than the modern Hebrew Ma'ale Levona (Ma'ale = "Ascent") which is a settlement and thus not an empty mountain pass. Secondly, there's no WP:COMMONNAME argument for the current title as a wrong-but-common term. I'm not sure this battle even has a common name, it's so obscure. The only people who use the current title are Wikipedia mirrors. (0 hit Google Scholar search on the current title). Finally, to the extent scholarly sources talk about the article at all (mostly Bar-Kochva's cited book here), it's called "Battle with Apollonius" as this is about the one fact known about the battle: it was vs. a commander named Apollonius. We don't know the number of troops, place, or even year of the battle, so that's pretty much it.
• Also, pinging User:Greyshark09 for transparency, who filed the original RM (and presumably supports the existing title per the above section). SnowFire (talk) 03:04, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• Move to Battle of the Ascent of Lebonah, as per [1], [2], [3], etc. "Ma'aleh Levona" and "Wadi Haramiya" seem needlessly anachronistic. –Ploni (talk) 14:59, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

• I don't think the two Spencer Tucker books from GBooks are trustworthy - he's clearly not an expert in this revolt in specific (of the two books linked, one is a short one-page mini-encyclopedia entry, and the other is a book that covers ~25 different revolts), and he seems to have the idea that there were two separate battles, one at Lebonah Ascent and the other at Wadi Haramiya (which he calls Nahal el-Haramiah) against Apollonius which I've never seen any other historian claim (and seems to me to just be a mistake, he saw both locations/dates and assumed they were separate battles rather than hypothesized locations & years for a single mysterious battle) - so even if you trust Tucker, that means that the battle should be moved to Battle of Nahal el-Haramiah or back to Wadi Haramia. The Holman Study Bible link is a fair one though. I would definitely support a move to Battle of the Ascent of Lebonah over the status quo, although my first choice remains Battle with Apollonius. SnowFire (talk) 21:46, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

• Move to Battle of the Ascent of Lebonah. Current title seems to be a Wikipedia invention. The previous RM was an improvement but this is far better. Andrewa (talk) 08:58, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.