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Removed text:A human born of a mortal woman and the son of a patriach in a nation whose prophets had warned against patriarchy, jesus declined to rise to the throne of israel, dashing his countrymens hopes of overturning the occupying forces. Instead, the son of royalty advocated an approach that confronted his own cultures religious leaders for their idolatry and hypocricy.

I like it, but it needs work to fit the scope of the article - generally we leave articles this specific without much in the way of background - the link to Jesus should do that. -SV(talk) 06:52, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Just a minor point - can we fix the highlighting? It's SO ugly! Mark Richards 06:53, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

While you're working on it, please attribute who the "some" is in "Some believe the sword represents war" - Nunh-huh 23:07, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Still seems to be arguing against a straw-man (sword=war). I'm not convinced that an article interpreting a paraphrase of a saying attributed to Jesus in the Book of Matthew, all without a single attributed viewpoint, is a wise addition to Wikipedia. - Nunh-huh 00:52, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Stevertigo, I'm not sure why you replaced the paragraphs I removed. They are at best original research that interpret the passage in a way I have never before seen. I have reworked the article again and would support deleting everything in the "Sword equals Truth explanation" section. - SimonP 08:22, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Verse-specific articles & VfD questions 2 = 2.1 I come to bring a sword 2.2 Changes 2.3 basically 2.4 retitle 2.5 Matthew 15:4 2.6 Different translations?

[edit] Verse-specific articles & VfD questions

On the VfD page I was asked about objections to verse-specific pages. As a rule, I support inclusion of almost any well-written WP article, particularly those that I can learn from. My rule of thumb whether the topic is the Bible, Star Trek, Sexology or Taxonomy is this question: "Whould an exhaustive encyclopedia on this topic have an entry on this matter?" I do believe that this article qualifies as a "yes."

But, I do think special attention needs to be taken in naming the article for 1. Clarity for the honest ignorance of the potential reader; and 2. NPOV. This doesn't exclude verses being redirects to an article. Maybe even Interpretations of Matthew 10:34 would be better than a direct quote. Davodd 06:15, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] =

From Vfd:

[edit] I come to bring a sword

• I'm not convinced that an article interpreting a paraphrase of a saying attributed to Jesus in the Book of Matthew, all without a single attributed viewpoint, is a wise addition to Wikipedia. Contains many "facts" (such as this being "the most quoted" phrase, etc. that have no basis. - Nunh-huh 00:51, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

• • Important saying of Christ but the article title is not a quote and even if it were I doubt that this is a good title for an article on, say, different views of this saying, analysis by different POVs, the context of the saying, &c. Delete. --Daniel C. Boyer 18:52, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

• I agree that the article in its present version is something other than encyclopedic, but let's try to rehabilitate it before we seriously consider deletion. I can fix it up a little, but I haven't the resources to do the real work. This much I know: There is an ongoing debate about the passage, and there are undoubtedly sources that could be cited on the various viewpoints described. Someone just has to find them.

• If we keep hitting it and nothing happens, then yes, it should go. But it's too early to decide that. - Sara 01:08, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • Somehow I don't think a philosophy of "write first, get facts later" will produce anything of value. It certainly hasn't so far. - Nunh-huh 01:15, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
    • Well said. - Texture 01:44, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• Delete - Texture 01:44, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• Neutral. If kept, move to the most familiar and quoted version, the KJV rendition of the Bible title: I came not to send peace, but a sword. There surely must be somewhere this can be merged to. Smerdis of Tlön 16:21, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• I don't believe Wikipedia should contain an exposition of every Bible verse, or even every major bible verse. The current article is biased towards a non-standard interpretation. Most of this stuff is probably better discussed in Pacifism or Christian pacifism. No vote yet. DJ Clayworth 16:49, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

• Being the central author of the article, I do have an opinion - I agree with some of the criticisms - yes, it is rather poorly titled (as often are the quotations, tranlsations, and transliterations - this was Aramaic to begin with, kids). I do think it has a place here, and would characterise some of the above people as holding the view that Wikipedia be purged by some secular divine right, of all religiously-contextualized works. Take a look at our articles on other religions? There is nothing wrong or NPOV for using biblespeak in an article about a well-documented term in human culture, as long as its reasonably describes the general context. I might also add that someone with a name like Nuh-uhh, might be prejudiced toward disagreement rather than consensus. -SV(talk) 23:28, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • You have no basis for that personal attack. -- Nunh-huh 23:33, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• Keep: significant. Article needs heavy clean up & reworking, including citations. Wile E. Heresiarch 06:35, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, but rename to a stubby part of a larger article on Christian views on war and peace. Davodd 07:24, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)
  • It might be a good solution for now, David, but would that mean that this represents an opjection to passage-specific articles? I understand that we dont want each passage of the bible to be entered into wiki - but maybe it would be a good idea. I dont remember any consensus on that - was one of the original discussions. I wouldnt think it problematic to include only those passages that were interesting - meaning no -database dumps, just hand-input articles for (assumingly) the passages that present the most interest. We have had articles on specific idioms, statements, speeches, etc. Maybe this discussion points to new Wikipedia:Policy --SV(talk) 17:18, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • Comment on Davodd's proposal above -- I don't recommend merging into a broader topic. I think there can be a solid, well focused article if we stick to that one verse. Wile E. Heresiarch 14:29, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)
    • The most important word in my comment is the first one. I'll take other discussion to the article TALK page. ;-) Davodd 06:05, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. This is a well-done article, except TITLE. It's important as an explanation of the verse. (See the misconception mentioned on the page). The Bible was one of the first printed books. Why should it be limited here? Plenty of less worthy articles out there folks! Zoney 14:14, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• Delete - I'm curious: Why does an encyclopedia need an entry for a sepcific controversial bible verse? There are probably thousands of controversial bible verses! Should there be an entry for every one? And what about other holy books like the Q'uran or Book of Mormon? This article specifically seems quite unbalanced as it is written. It seems more like an advocacy of a specific non-violent interpretation of the bible verse than a write-up of some critical historical phenomenon as should be documented in an encyclopedia.

[edit] Changes

I'd like to cut the Romans quote down to just verses 20-21, or just 21, or remove it entirely. Comments? One-dimensional Tangent 23:54, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

sounds good. excellent work, btw. Ungtss 23:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. If I cut out anything that you consider important, do put it back. I admit that I don't understand the relevance (to this topic) of that passage. One-dimensional Tangent 00:15, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

The external links that I came up with for "In support of the 'advocacy of violence' interpretation, non-Christian" are terrible. I'd appreciate it if someone could come up ones that aren't so caustic. One-dimensional Tangent 05:36, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] basically

basically, the overwhelming majority of jesus quotes on the gospels are anti-war and anti-violence. it's therefore ridiculous trying to prove the opposite simply by one sentence - most probably taken out of context - since that would mean that either jesus doesn't know what he's talking about or that someone copied the gospels wrong.

[edit] retitle

I think this should be retitled Not Peace, but a Sword, Matthew 10:34-39, Luke 12:51-53,14:26-27. This is the name given by Kurt Aland's United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament, the current standard reconstructed Greek text, edited by, among others, Bruce Metzger.

It's also the title of a NYT op-ed piece, March 1, 2004, by William Safire: [1]

[edit] Matthew 15:4

Thats a pretty controversial verse, kinda.....

[edit] Different translations?

Shouldn't there be some info on this page about the various different translations of this passage? I'd love to see some analysis of the actual Greek (or Aramaic, or Latin), and I can't help but wonder whether or not this whole thing is just a misread intention that was lost in translation.