Talk:Gudit

Regnal Dates

The sources I've seen (like this one) put Judith in the late 9th century (in this case 850-890), not the late 900s. I've seen other pages about the Zagwe/Solomonids where they have the same problem - shifting the dates forward or backward almost a century. Could we have some explanation about where the problem comes from and what the competing theories are? -LlywelynII (talk) 03:00, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Breast cut off by the church? Please.

I'm asking this be either cited or striken from the opening paragraph. This is utterly ahistoric nonsense and is only found on unscholarly websites. There is no reliable history from Ethiopia mentioning this. The reality is There were Jewish Kingdoms in Ethiopia, Yemen and Eastern Europe up through the 11th century which were often at odds with the Christian populations. To boil this enmity down to a singular event of bodily mutilation is ridiculous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8801:9E21:400:6868:7F5C:67B2:6CB6 (talk) 19:43, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Portrait

A portrait, rather than mere locations, would greatly improve this article.

Asarelah (talk) 13:45, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

It would, but there aren't any. Paul B (talk) 13:53, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

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Date

reading the article, it say in the introducttion that she was legendary, but in "historicity" that there was a real queen behind the legend, and the article is about both. it is valuable to known about what time were are talkning about in the intro regardless of how it is written)

So 10th century as a possible date for a figure that fed into the legend, which, as Andersen argues, might however, as a Jewish queen reflect the Christian-Beta Israel struggles several centuries later, when this particular tradition arose. Of course it is valuable to know all this: the complexities are in the relevant scholarly papers, which require some effort to paraphrase for this article. The positive thing to do is to familiarize oneself with those works, and make a synthesis, which is what I was endeavouring to do before I was reverted.Nishidani (talk) 13:11, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Jewish?

The last paragraph of the ethnicity section gives an argument for why she probably wasn't Jewish. This is very confusing as there is no prior reference to her being Jewish in this article. The arguments for her being Jewish should be given prior to the arguments against.

Also, this paragraph gives her name as Judith. This is not listed as one of the alternatives to her name at the start of the article. In which language is she known as Judith? This information should be added to the introduction. AstroMark (talk) 09:26, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Historically, whatever figure(s) lie behind the name(s) would not have been 'Jewish' in the accepted religious sense (only recognized half a millennium later). The figure was likened to the biblical Judith in later traditions. Your points are correct, but Rome wasn't built in a day.Nishidani (talk) 09:39, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani this is still an issue, eg recent edits and post to my talk page. Doug Weller talk 19:18, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Yodit is one of six names in several Ethiopian languages and traditions, and clearly that form echoes the biblical Judith because the shadowy figure behind those names appears to have been a woman whose role in war lended itself to a parallel with Judith. Yodit/Judith (etymologically 'Jewish' doesn't automatically mean those who were thus called were 'Jewish'. The Book of Judith is excluded from the Tanach, but is canonical in pre-Protestant Christianity, and given the early conversion of the country to that faith, a millennium before the Kebra Nagast spoke of a direct link between Solomon and an Ethiopian pilgrim, the direct source for that would have been translations of parts of the Septuagint, where the story and name is conserved, into Ge'ez. The problem with wiki reportage of all this material is that we are dealing with legends about historic events, reported differently in several Abyssinian language and cultures, which were subject to Hobsbawm and Ranger's Invention of Tradition processes, retrodating 14-17th century historical names and events back, and redacting everything in terms of religious themes exploited by different groups to assert their competiting political , by recourse to the (faked) authority of a primordial foundational moment and its pseudo-biblical rationale. Nishidani (talk) 17:27, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Which makes it pretty difficult to edit following our policies and guidelines. Thanks for all your help. Doug Weller talk 14:08, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

It's pretty true that I know little about policy niceties. Other than my training, I just keep in mind to (a) weed out poor sourcing (b) privilege expertise (c) keep one's own knowledge out of the article and (d) and avoid synthesis by drawing personal conclusions. Of course on the talk page, I don't feel bound by c, in the sense that I will give my impressions having read all of the articles we have that bear on the topic, here in particular Andersen, his paper being an exhilaratingly demanding read. Policy doesn't cover discretionary judgment. I know a couple of good sources state (this often happens with encyclopedias and historical dictionaries used on wiki) Gudit was a Jewish queen. By wikilaw that could qualify as some fact be be stated in wiki's neutral voice. But there is zero evidence for it. It is not in, as far as I can see, the best academic sources, but forms part of the pleasant yths that circulate and are carelessly picked up and reproduced.(What irritates me is the tendency for people to get very focused on obscure issues in, as here, a distant country, which is off our radar, only if they can find a possibility of some mysterious link with the past their own culture celebrates. I.e. it is not history wherever that fascinates but 'our'or 'my' connection to it.

I read Roderick Beaton's The Greeks: A Global History,- the kind of popular work on the surface that I ignore studiously but made an exception because Gregory Nagy praised it. Greeks were all over the place pressing always outwards, from the 8th century BC. You can find a Greek presence throughout empires from Africa to China. They were in Ethiopia from early times. But it would be wrong, were one Greek or a Hellenophile, to always get excited about the Greek ethnic identity of every Tomos, Dickos, or Harryos when they turn up as one reads of Chinese history from Sima Qian's book onwards, getting a particular thrill every time there's some mention of 大宛, dayuan, and loosing sight of everything else, the Chinese first of all, and the Uyghurs, Mongolians, Turks, Jews, Romans, Indians, Arabs who figure in this specific narrative as well.

Something like this happens frequently on wiki, Rather than get interested in Ethiopian history from chancing upon an allusion to saySemien, the temptation is there to suddenly google for, in this case, the 'Jewish' angle and concentrate the article on anything that might speculate on this aspect. One reads sources thereafter not on the extremely complex material concerning that entity in various local narratives, which is what an encyclopedia is premised on, one looks for anything that might lend colour about it solely in terms of a Jewish connection. Idem with Gudit. I'm somewhat annoyed as an old trooper with a love of history that I find myself having to correct stuff like that, rather than just do pure history, where everything is noted without obsessive regard for the identity of this or that particular set of actors. Whoops, foruming. But perhaps a note helps explain the way I approach wiki.Nishidani (talk) 17:19, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

I must reply to that last paragraph and say mea culpa. You're right, searching for Gudit and Jewish is the easy way out but is going to not just over-simplify but ignore vital information and provide a skewed and inaccurate portrait of a subject. Doug Weller talk 17:29, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

The mea culpissima is all mine. I was doing a dozen things at the time, and hurrying that reflection, I failed to realize, as I did while ambling through a rain-swept street to the pub for my evening sundowner that you might read my general remarks about editors as referring, incidentally, also to you. 'Oh fuck,' I exclaimed. 'Must fix ASAP.' Then an argument about mathematics and infinite worlds had me stay too long, I had to spend some time with a sick neighbour, cook dinner, catch a glance at the France-Australia soccer match and, I admit it, watch another John Wayne movie. An adbreak woke me up as I glanced at wiki, and I saw this note. My apologies for carelessness in not specifying that the deliberation above has no connection whatsoever to how you approach articles. Hang in there, Doug. We, I, need you.Nishidani (talk) 21:51, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Thannks. You do keep busy! Doug Weller talk 10:41, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Miraculous

the same time as a result of the 197.156.86.239 (talk) 03:14, 7 April 2023 (UTC)