Talk:Significance of numbers in Judaism

Countdown to deletion

This article is mainly trivia. I accept that you could make a notable article about the significance of numbers in Judaism, but this is not it.

It lists things that HAPPEN to be certain numbers, rather than just numbers that are specifically significant in their own right. For example, the date of something is NOT significant as a number.

This article is NOT called "list of all numbers used in any way in Judaism".

There ARE significant numbers like 7, 12, and 40, but it is only SOME cases of these that are significant AS NUMBERS.

Don't wreck the article by filling it with all possible things that happen to involve such numbers, nor by filling it with all possible numbers.

A good source for a decent article about the significance of certain numbers would be [1], which is public domain (Encyclopaedia Biblica).

If this article is still a list of trivia in six months, I'll have to list it for deletion as a hopeless case. Newman Luke (talk) 23:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this article should be deleted as a list of trivia. Will nominate it for deletion in a few days. Debresser (talk) 23:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

This is a notable topic. There are books written on this subject, thereby enabling it to meet WP:N. One example is Who knows one?: a book of Jewish numbers By Yaffa Ganz. This article would probably survive afd. Instead of making a deletion proposal, let's see how we can improve it from here. Xyz7890 (talk) 04:05, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

The fact that there are books with lists of trivia does not make it notable for Wikipedia. I still think we should delete this list through Afd. Debresser (talk) 07:43, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

If you look at WP:BEFORE, you will see that this is an article that has some information of encylopedic value in it, and there should probably be a good-faith effort to salvage it. I have started a discussion below so we can talk about ideas on how to modify this page prior to starting an afd. Xyz7890 (talk) 20:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I see no merit in a list of coincidental meanings of numbers which have no import at all in Jewish life. Debresser (talk) 20:31, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Ideas for modifying this page as an alternative to AFD

Some people have expressed that this page should go to AFD. I personally think it could be salvaged with some changes. It will probably take far more than just 7 days to come up with a solution. Let's discuss what can be done to improve this page so it conforms with Wikipedia guidelines. Xyz7890 (talk) 20:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Some possibilities include:

1. Renaming
2. Writing an introduction to the article
3. Adding sourced text in paragraph form on how each number listed is significant in Judaism
4. Changing the single lines into paragraphs

I have nominated this article for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Significance of numbers in Judaism. Debresser (talk) 22:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Name

If this article survives the six months mentioned above, I suggest it's renamed "Significance of numbers in Judaism". Thanks, 212.84.101.12 (talk) 16:50, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Agree with this as well. Why use bad English. BTW, there is some bad English in the text itself as well. Debresser (talk) 23:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Debresser (talk) 07:39, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

586

"Total number of years the Second Temple stood". 420 surely? Chesdovi (talk) 23:23, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

• Yep, 586 is clearly an error. I have deleted the entry. — Aetheling (talk) 21:20, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Brainstorming how to fix this article.

I think one way to prevent list-itis is to require at a minimum two or three items for a section. Otherwise the value should be grouped by context in a topic-list placed at the top of the page. So, to give an example, a number of the entries correspond to the gematria of hebrew lettering. Rather than create an entry for each letter this would be a good candidate for a section that would say fall under the heading "Hebrew Numerology" -> "Gematria." Also another common theme found throughout the article is life-span. This could be placed in the category "Genealogy."

Sound like a plan? --Xtraeme (talk) 11:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Removal of category Jewish philosophy

"Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language". How does this fit? Editor2020 (talk) 20:05, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Avot 3:23 ?

The article says:

   A Mishnaic textual source, Pirkei Avot 3:23, makes clear that the
   use of gematria is dated to at least the Tannaic period. 

I am not seeing there any such thing. In fact, Avot 3:23 does not even seem to exist in our editions. See e.g., https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%A0%D7%94_%D7%90%D7%91%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%92. What am I missing? Toddcs (talk)

And in all events, qualifying "Avot" with "Pirkei" in this context should be considered incorrect usage. Toddcs (talk) 19:54, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

the topic of this page

The page starts off "Various numbers play a significant role in Jewish texts or practice." and that is a reasonable topic for an article. However, then follows a list of numbers that someone can find in Jewish scripture or rabbinical writing. Not a single word about significant roles. There is literature on the significance of numbers (though only a fraction is scholarly) but none of it is cited. Instead, trivia, trivia and more trivia. Zero^talk 05:33, 18 November 2022 (UTC)