Talk:Ancient Israel and Judah

Fringe

@The ravenous wolf: We're not Sunday School. See WP:CHOPSY. The ancient Israelites, as defined by their adherence to Judaic beliefs and monotheistic worship is pseudohistory. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:25, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Namely, the Israelites were overwhelmingly monotheist starting with the Maccabees. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:46, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Can we add an explanation about the heretical beliefs of the Maccabees versus the traditionalist views of their opponents? Dimadick (talk) 06:52, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

"But what appears in the Bible as a battle between Israelites, pure Yahwists, and Canaanites, pure polytheists, is indeed better understood as a civil war between Yahweh-only Israelites, and Israelites who are participating in the cult of their ancestors." Christine Hayes, . tgeorgescu (talk) 13:46, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

First Temple period

Please join the discussion initiated at Talk:Solomon's Temple#First Temple period = ? Arminden (talk) 17:12, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

LLM usage?

@Gnomingstuff tagged the article as LLM use, but the diff by @ADeeperUnderstanding didn't look obviously LLM-y to me. Could you share a bit more detail? Andre🚐 06:08, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

As mentioned in the edit summary, please read WP:AISIGNS, particularly the AI vocabulary study, which mentions several words overused in AI output (all cited to scholarly sources) as well as another source stating that they strongly co-occur in AI output. Now cross-reference the text: The religious concepts and scriptures of ancient Israel have had an enduring impact on Western civilization, surpassing its geopolitical importance during its period of existence ("surpassing" is another one on the canonical list, not on our list because for whatever reason it shows up less in wikipedia text); bolstered a national sense of divine favor and protection, fostering a belief in the city's invincibility ("bolster/ed" is yet another one); Additionally, the story's references to brickmaking, the mention of city of Ramesses (linked to Ramesses II) and the route taken by the Israelites align with the reality of the Late Bronze Age; etc. I suspect in this case the AI use is copyedits more than raw text generation, but AI edits can still introduce issues related to incorrect characterization of sources and POV/original research.

The initial edits also had several AI-characteristic problems that have been tweaked by other editors, such as title-case headers, harv/sfn errors, duplicated/malformed refs, and the like (most of which are also mentioned on WP:AISIGNS). There are also various other strange artifacts: this appears to include two paraphrases of the same content. Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:27, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for elaborating more; I can see it more in that diff (integral part, key role, significant role, although it is true that music did play a key role, a bit of duplication e.g. mentioning lyres at the end of para 1 and again twice in para 2 feels repetitive) and given the information about cite errors or malformations which I didn't realize from the original diff. I agree that if anything maybe these edits were "improved" by an LLM rather than generated by one out of whole cloth. Andre🚐 06:50, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

@Gnomingstuff @AndreJustAndre I did use LLMs in a few spots in order to smooth the phrasing, but when it comes to writing and putting the article together, everything I added is fully backed by the sources. So I don't really see the LLM tag as needed here. You won't find any made-up stuff. Maybe just the usual small human slip ups you might get in any Wikipedia article. That's exactly why a community approach helps improve things. I think the tag can be dropped (Gnomingstuff, if there's any certain process that should be followed before doing that, please let me know and I will take care of it). ADeeperUnderstanding (talk) 09:53, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

What's a Koiné?

@AndreJustAndre: What did you mean to say in this edit? A koiné is a regional language ... so sth's wrong. It doesn't make sense to say a polity is part of a dialect, and dialect of what? ... honestly a bit lost here. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:39, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Please see the quote in the source. "This once again makes clear that Israel was part of a Levantine koine." Andre🚐 15:38, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

But what does it mean? It's just jargon at this point without further context. A koiné of which languages? Iskandar323 (talk) 15:47, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

There was mutual intelligibility between Semitic dialects of which Israel was a part. Probably between Ugaritic, Eblaite, Phoenician, Akkadian, etc. The koine refers to the region of mutual intelligibility as well as the language itself. Like a sprachbund. But I didn't use that term because the term the source uses is koine. Andre🚐 15:53, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

A bit of literally any of that would improve the sentence. It's so naked right now. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:39, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Your change deviates from the source fidelity, though. Koine may be used in several ways. The way it's being used in the source is slightly different. Changing it back, and please refer to the source. Andre🚐 18:55, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

The page being linked to doesn't talk of koiné as a group. It's incumbent to paraphrase and parse content into normal language, which the original is not. Also, why the 'x polity' in 'y language' group format? That makes no sense. Why can't this sentence just be normal? Iskandar323 (talk) 18:58, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Read the source. It says that Israel was part of a koine. You just must not be aware of how there are different usages of the term. Andre🚐 19:11, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Not really, actually. I accept it, but I also think it is rarefied usage, presumably highly academic. That is why I am speaking of it being MOS:JARGON. Can you really not come up with a way to parse it in lay speech? Iskandar323 (talk) 19:19, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

How about this, then Andre🚐 19:35, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, happy days. That was all I was after. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:40, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

No worries. A commitment to nuance and detail is surely welcomed. Andre🚐 19:42, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 7 January 2026

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: moved. Moved as an uncontested request with minimal participation. If there is any objection within a reasonable time frame, please ask me to reopen the discussion; if I am not available, please ask at the technical requests page. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vestrian24Bio 08:28, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

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History of ancient Israel and Judah → Ancient Israel and Judah – "History of" implies that there is a parent article titled "Ancient Israel and Judah", which is itself a redirect. Current title is too precise and can be described with the requested title. 𝚈𝚘𝚟𝚝 (𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔𝚟𝚝) 00:02, 7 January 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. Jeffrey34555 (talk) 00:13, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Support also because this article covers more aspects of Israel and Judah except its history: Religion, Economy, Culture (and music), Administration, Legacy (and could also include Cuisine, Language, Literature and more). ADeeperUnderstanding (talk) 10:56, 18 January 2026 (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.

"Historical Israel" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Historical Israel has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 March 12 § Historic Israel until a consensus is reached. Abesca (talk) 22:58, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

"Biblical Israel" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Biblical Israel has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 March 15 § Israel (Bible) until a consensus is reached. Abesca (talk) 03:09, 15 March 2026 (UTC)