Talk:Claim of the biblical descent of the Bagrationi dynasty

Old requested move

The following discussion is an archived 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: not moved. Jenks24 (talk) 13:49, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

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Claim of the biblical descent of the Bagrationi dynasty → ? – Any suggestion from others. The title should make it clear that the article deals with the alleged/claimed/mythic/legendary genealogy. The current title and the "Biblical claim of the Bagrationi dynasty" won't work. --Relisted. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 08:21, 20 May 2014 (UTC) --The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 02:46, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

• Legend of the Bagrationi dynasty's biblical descent? ^walk victor falk ^talk 10:13, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
• Current name is just fine thus can/should stay. I don't see anything wrong with the title. Jaqeli (talk) 19:18, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

It is a ponderous and circumlocutionary title and "claim" is a word that is frowned upon per WP:WTA, which applies in this case as it is vague on whether the claim is serious or not. ^walk victor falk ^talk 03:44, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

If you look closely you'll see that the claim is very serious. Jaqeli (talk) 13:15, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. Current title is a mouthful but seems accurate - "claim" works because it's false yet something that was taken seriously at one point. SnowFire (talk) 14:07, 3 June 2014 (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.

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived 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: no consensus. Jenks24 (talk) 12:05, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

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Claim of the biblical descent of the Bagrationi dynasty → Origin of the Bagrationi dynasty – Previous RM failed due to lack of an obvious alternative title. This change would bring the page into line with the other half-dozen "Origin of the _______ dynasty" pages on Wikipedia and would frame the subject in a more neutral/encyclopedic manner. erachima talk 18:59, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support, as the current title makes the dynasty seem like a fable and over-emphasizes unprobable allegations about the family's divine connections at the expense of its very real, ancient history. FactStraight (talk) 21:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support Fits the naming model used in other origin type articles. The proposed title is also far more concise.--Labattblueboy (talk) 05:44, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose I hate the current title but the topic of the article is not the Origin of the Bagrationi dynasty since actual theories or knowledge of the true origin of the family is not discussed just the claim of Davidic descent. There is also already Origin of the Bagratid dynasties, which would make this confusing. --The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 06:09, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

• I am suggesting that the scope of the article be shifted somewhat significantly. --erachima talk 16:41, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

• It's fine to suggest but it would be better to actually commit yourself personally to such an endeavor because (no offense) I found that users who make these kind of comments are all talks. The main expander is User:Kober, below, and he opposed the move also because the main scope of the article is the Davidic descent. I would go with Davidic descent of the Bagrationi dynasty or Blblical descent of the Bagrationi dynasty rather than the suggested title. Either way we seem to all dislike the "claim of" part--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 09:06, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• You're correct that if it comes down to an argument I'll leave it to the local editors, but your disagreement on scope isn't with me personally, it's with GA Criteria #3. The page as written takes a very nebulous subtopic as its scope, and both sides of that are going to be an uphill battle on review. --erachima talk 09:21, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• I just don't see a problem with the scope of this article. It is a subtopic of a larger topic, but we can't expect all articles to follow GA Criteria. If the progress of writing a comprehensive article on the topic of Origin of the Bagrationi dynasty was already in progress/finished then that would be a different case. The article now goes into a lot of details about this subtopic of Davidic descent the discussion of literatures and use throughout history, which would be inappropriate to include in one dealing with the historical origin of the dynasty also. Logically it makes more sense to keep this a subarticle and hope for the future expansion of Origin of the Bagratid dynasties where the finish work would include a section with a paragraph and link to the topic of this article. --The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 09:31, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. Per The Emperor's New Spy. I do agree that the article should be renamed but I cannot think of a better title right now.--Kober^Talk 11:07, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support Per argument laid out by Labattblueboy. Olivia Winfield (talk) 05:24, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose given the existence of Origin of the Bagratid dynasties. It sounds like what this is really proposing is merging those two articles - but I can see the merit in having 2 short articles, 1 on the mythic claim, and 1 on the actual origin, so I'm not really a fan of a merge either. Short, well-referenced articles are okay! SnowFire (talk) 16:15, 20 August 2014 (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.

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Claim of the biblical descent of the Bagrationi dynasty/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: MPJ-DK (talk · contribs) 18:32, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Full disclosure: I am a WIki Cup and GA Cup participant and I am aware that there is a topic ban for the nominator but I figure if I do the review perhaps other wikipedias will pick it up and get issues resolved. At least then we would have tried.

I am about to start my review of this article, normally I provide my input in bits and pieces over a day or two so expect running updates for a while.  MPJ-US  18:32, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

If there is not a free use image in the top right corner of the article, please try to find and include one.[?] You may wish to consider adding an appropriate infobox for this article, if one exists relating to the topic of the article. [?] (Note that there might not be an applicable infobox; remember that these suggestions are not generated manually) There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view. allege is considered might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).[?] You may wish to convert your form of references to the cite.php footnote system that WP:WIAFA 1(c) highly recommends.===GA Toolbox=== I like to get this checked out first, I have found issues using this that has led to quick fails so it's important this passes muster.

Peer Review

• If there is not a free use image in the top right corner of the article, please try to find and include one.
• You may wish to consider adding an appropriate infobox for this article, if one exists relating to the topic of the article. (Note that there might not be an applicable infobox; remember that these suggestions are not generated manually)
• There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.

• allege
• is considered

might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).

• You may wish to convert your form of references to the cite.php footnote system that WP:WIAFA 1(c) highly recommends.

Copyright violations

• Listed at 27.5% - "highly unlikely" Y good to go

Disambiguation links

• Link to "Nahor" needs to be more specific

External links

• Link to "nplg.gov.ge" is dead.
• Link to deltionchae.org gets modified, you may want to consider updating the link to prevent link rot.

Well Written

• The article starts out kinda backwards, I would like to see the first sentence completly rewritten.
• "refuge" should be "refugee"
• "King David playing harp" should be "King David playing a harp"
• "10th century" should be "10th-century"
• "with David, but did not allege" should not have a comma
• "The hypothesis has not been accepted by other scholars and Toumanoff have thoroughly dismissed such as possibility." - I believe it should be "Toumanoff has" and not sure what "such a possibility" is supposed to convey?

Lead

• "dynasty were of a Hebrew origin" should be "was of" as dynasty is singular and either "of hebrew origin" or "had a hebrew origin"
• "millennium-long ascendancy" - not sure "asendancy" is correct here, it did not take then 1,000 years to assend right? they rules for 1,000 years by the looks of it.
• " modern mainstream scholarship", you probably meant "scholars"
• Takaishvili is only mentioned in the lead by name, should be in the article. Later on it refers to " Ekvtime Taqaishvili", slightly different name? I can guess that they're the same but for a Good Article I should not have to guess.
• "The family's origin is disputed, but the view formulated by the historians such as Ekvtime Takaishvili and Cyril Toumanoff that the Georgian dynasty descended from a refuge prince of the Armenian house of Bagratuni prevails.", a massive run-on sentence that should be rewritten please.

Origin of the legend

• Please link the word "milieu" to "social environment", it's not a commonly known term
• This reads as a continuation of the lead, jumping straight past describing what the legend is to talk about when it originated. Cart before horse. This should be written as if the lead does not exist, starting with "the legend" without explaining what it is is backwards.
• Is there a source to support the term "creatively"? otherwise it's borderline peacock term indicating praise for the manipulation.
• "the Armenians" should be more specfic, Armenians in genera? Probably not but that's how it reads.
• Possible to provide some sort of link for the term "extant native reference"?
• "Davidic clamoring" - I am not sure that's the appropriate term, "Davidic claim" perhaps?
• Who is "Pseudo-Juansher"? Historian? Monk? unpaid intern editing a pre-internet age Wikipedia?
• "The earliest extant native reference to the Georgian Bagratids and their Davidic clamoring is found in Pseudo-Juansher's brief historical work, written between 800 and 813,[10] where is related the arrival in Kartli, a core Georgian region, sometime after 772, of Adarnase, "who was of the House of David the Prophet". " - Massive run-on sentence again, I am not even sure what it is trying to state.
• "The Life of St. Grigol Khandzteli, written in 951 by the Georgian hagiographer Giorgi Merchule, is next to refer to the tradition of the Davidic origin as extant at the time of Ashot I, Adarnase's son and the first Georgian Bagratid monarch, whom the monk Grigol addresses as "lord, called the son of David, the prophet and God-anointed"." Run-on and on

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus

• According to Constantine, the Georgians believed" more specifics, not all Georgians right?
• "According to Constantine, the Georgians believed they were scions of Uriah's wife Bathsheba, with whom King David committed adultery, and who had children by him." run-on again.
• "Constantine Porphyrogenitus's account betrays Georgian influence, but some of its details are uncorroborated elsewhere." what details and where?
• "Finally, Constantine's genealogy reaches the two brothers, David and Spandiatis, who had left Jerusalem at the advice of an oracle and settled at the boundaries of Persia, where they founded their kingdom in Iberia (i.e., Kartli) and increased their power through the help of the emperor Heraclius." run-on again

Sumbat's chronicle

• "which has come down to us" very informal phrasing, should be rephrased.
• why use the word "stemma" when "family tree" is more easily accessible to readers?
• "to a certain Solomon, whose seven sons left the Holy Land and went to Armenia, where a certain queen Rachael baptized them." - I am confused by the appearance of the term "certain" twice.
• "Three of them remained" should be "Three of the sons remaind"
• "One of them" again using "them"
• "his descendants is apparently the Roman", the term "apparently" is like heding a bet, saying "well I heard it was this guy".
• "The source of the genealogy of Cleopas and his descendants is apparently the Roman scholar Eusebius of Caesarea, who, in his Ecclesiastical History, quotes Hegesippus, according to whom, the Romans searched for King David's scions in order to remove from the Hebrew territory the potential pretenders to the throne who would have had the biblical legitimation." - run-on, one of the worst yet.
• "Thus, Sumbat's work contains the version of the family legend, which became the basis of a dynastic and political ideology, and, in the course of history, influenced the worldview of the Bagrationi dynasty." - so if this is a legend, not accepted by scholars how did it influence the "world view"? in the past was this "legend" generally accepted in Europe, Asia or anywhere? not clear.

Other sources

• Is David Winfield a contemporary historian? what's the time frame for his claim that the stone relief supports the Davidc claim? If modern scholars dispute this it'd be good to know if Winfied is considered a "modern scholar"?

Later sources

• "Subsequent historical works refer on many occasions" should be rephrase to "On many occasions subsqeunt historical works refer"
• "Just after Sumbat composed his history, an 11th-century anonymous author of the so-called Chronicle of Kartli mentions, while relating the event on the eve of the Georgian Bagratid accession to power, the Davidic tradition as existing at the time of Ashot I's father Adarnase." Run-on sentence again.
• "However, the latter source suggest that the claim was not, in the days of Adarnase, as yet widely known, for the princess of Kartli, whose son married Adarnase's daughter, is shown by the chronicle to have been ignorant of her son-in-law's descent from King David." do I have to say it?
• "Later on, the chronicle compares David IV's coronation of his son Demetrius I, prior to the former's death, to the biblical David's enthronement of Solomon and once again emphasizes the "resemblance to his ancestral stock"." Run-on
• "contemporaneous versified dedicatory inscription on the venerated " - What now?
• "Finally, the 18th-century Bagratid historian Prince Vakhushti attempted to incorporate the Davidic theory into his chronology, while his father, King Vakhtang VI of Kartli, composed a family tree, integrating the biblical lineage of the Bagrationi with that of the Georgian people, the origins of which was traced by the medieval chronicles to Togarmah, a descendant of Noah." and they keep running-on.
• "Prince David of Georgia, a son of the last King of Georgia, writing in the early years of the 19th century, shortly after the dethronement of the Bagrationi by the expanding Russian Empire, summarized the Davidic origin of his family, being the first to have directly incorporated in his history, written in Russian, the original Armenian account of a Hebrew provenance of the Bagratid dynasty authored by Movses." run-on

Parallels

• "historian Ivan Biliarsky have conjectured" - Should be "has conjectured"
• "As the historian Ivan Biliarsky have conjectured, the Caucasian paradigm of Davidic royalty may have influenced the Old Testament-modeled vision of kingship in early medieval Bulgaria, the country then in transition from an ethnic pagan state to a Christian empire, as evident in the case of Tsar Izot, cited in the Narration of Isaiah, the so-called Bulgarian Apocryphal Chronicle of the Eleventh Century." Run-on

Modern interpretations

• "The family's alleged Hebrew provenance was utilized and elaborated by the Georgian Bagratids to claim the descent from the divinely appointed model biblical king David, himself a descendant, in an unbroken line, of Adam and the ancestor of Jesus Christ, at the same time obscuring the dynasty's true origin and blood-ties with Armenian cousins." Run-on
• You know the "modern interpretations" really focus a lot on the old interpretations
• It really needs to emphasis more that modern scholars dispute this, the main focus here is repeating the legends and then recapping a british historian's attempt to give legitimacy to the article. This has actually made me change my view on neutrality as its almost a foot note that it's dismissed.

Sources/verifiable

• Looks okay, published sources etc. Y

Broad in coverage

• As broad as this very narrow subject can be I guess. Y

Netural

• N as stated above.

Stable

• Has been AFD'ed in the past and one user has been causing waves but it looks to be stable for the last six months or more so I am satisfied that it's currently stable Y

Illustrated / Images

• Image "David the Prophet (Georgian Psalter MSS, 1494) 01.jpg" needs a U.S. public domain tag
• Image "Ashot kurapalati.JPG" needs a U.S. public domain tag and has an issue listed on the image page, please address.
• Image "Gruzinski.jpg" same as above, issues need to be addressed for licenses
• Image "Royal charter of King Erekle II.jpg" again needs U.S. Public domain tags
• All need to be addressed for GA level N

My review is complete and honestly every single section needs a major rewrite, it's not where near GA level writing at the time of article submission. it's supposed to be GA or close to GA upon submission, not relying on the reviewer to improve the article for you. For that reason I am going to fail the article. N