Talk:Abrahamic religion

RFD discussion

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

---

I'm pretty sure this just means "religion that is Abrahamic"; you can also say "Abrahamic faiths", "Abrahamic traditions", and so on. (I don't actually feel very strongly that it should be deleted, but if it's kept, I think it should be rewritten to be more forthright about its SOP-ness.) —Ruakh_TALK 17:44, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Keep Mandaeism does not worship Abraham (they object to him circumcising his son), but is still a member of the family of Abrahamic religions by being descended from Judaism. Thus Mandaeism is an "Abrahamic religion" but not an "Abrahamic" "religion". Smurrayinchester (talk) 18:00, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Changing to vote to delete now the page Abrahamic is more useful. Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:20, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

(Alternatively, this could be deleted and a new definition added to Abrahamic, but currently the relevant definition is "Pertaining to the Abrahamic religions." If we deleted this, we'd have to find a new way of writing that sense) Smurrayinchester (talk) 18:03, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

[citation needed]. Actually, two citations needed: one for your claim that Mandaeism is an "Abrahamic religion", one for the claim that it's not "Abrahamic". Bonus points if these two citations manage not to overtly disagree. —Ruakh_TALK 18:56, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

You might be right; it's a least not as clear cut as I thought it was from the Wikipedia article, which has Mandaeism categorised as an Abrahamic religion. g/alt_mean1.htm This source says it's generally not considered one (along with Samartians and Rastafari), this source suggests that it possibly is but that Muslims may not consider it Abrahamic. That said, the fact that apparently other faiths which do revere Abraham - eg. Samaritans (source) and Rastafari (source) - are sometimes not considered Abrahamic is still a good reason to define the term as something other than "Related to Abraham" though. Smurrayinchester (talk) 20:17, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, [[Abrahamic#English]] could use some work: more thorough defs, more quotations, maybe some usage notes. —Ruakh_TALK 20:26, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I've had a shot at tidying it up. If nothing else, it's no longer got the circular "Abrahamic means Abrahamic" definition. Smurrayinchester (talk) 21:16, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

It looks much improved, thanks. :-)   —Ruakh_TALK 22:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Keep per SMurray's point about (deprecated template usage) Abrahamic's lack of helpfulness in this regard.--Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:36, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Keep. Set phrase which serves as an umbrella term for Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and (sometimes) Bahá'í, making it possible to discuss these religions collectively. I also think there's an element of idiomaticity to it, since 1) the most significant common denominator between these faiths is arguably their veneration of the same God rather than their all tracing their roots to Abraham, and 2) "Abrahamic" could be taken to imply that Abraham was personally involved in the founding of each religion, which isn't possible, since most of them postdate the period in which he is thought to have lived (the possible exception being Judaism, as I understand it). Astral (talk) 02:26, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Re: points #1 and #2: Well, but what that means is that the application of "Abrahamic" to these religions is interesting and bears mention at [[Abrahamic#English]]. It doesn't mean that all phrases containing the word "Abrahamic" (Abrahamic religion, Abrahamic faith, non-Abrahamic religion, etc.) are "set phrases". —Ruakh_TALK 03:02, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

The trouble is that the meaning of "Abrahamic religion" can't be derived from the current definitions of "Abrahamic" and "religion" alone — specifically, which religions count as Abrahamic, and which don't. Yes, there's a usage note at "Abrahamic", but if it's necessary to read a usage note to fully understand what Abrahamic + religion means, I don't think said phrase can be considered SoP. Someone would need to know which religions count as Abrahamic to understand the term based strictly on its parts, and I don't think it's necessarily safe to say that most have that knowledge.

"Abrahamic religion" seems to be the prevalent term. It's what the Wikipedia article on the subject is called, and "Abrahamic religions" gets twice as many hits as "Abrahamic faiths" on Google Books. "Abrahamic faith" might warrant an entry as an attestable synonym, but "non-Abrahamic faith" doesn't, since it's possible to prefix many things with non- ("non-citrus fruit," "non-quadrupedal animal", etc.) in this way without creating a unique term. Astral (talk) 04:28, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I think whether the information is kept at Abrahamic or Abrahamic religion, we still need that usage note. The odd subtleties of the phrase - some religions that revere Abraham are Abrahamic, others aren't, and not everyone draws the line in the same place - are just too involved to put in the main definition. We would also have the problem that there are a very large number of attestable synonyms/near-synonyms, all of which are just "Abrahamic + word for religion" - Abrahamic faiths, Abrahamic traditions, Abrahamic mythologies, Abrahamic creeds, Abrahamic sects, Abrahamic cults. If someone came across any of these in writing, they'd almost certainly look up "Abrahamic" before looking up the two word phrase. Keeping the definition at Abrahamic just seems neater than spreading it over half-a-dozen pages. Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:20, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Delete. That there is scholarly (?) disagreement on which religions fit the definition does not really change the definition. DCDuring TALK 11:52, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Delete Abrahamic religion and improve Abrahamic as needed. - -sche (discuss) 19:54, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I think this sort of entry is a Wiktionary-specific problem. Other dictionaries might include "Abrahamic religion" as a run-in entry under "Abrahamic", where it's also useful to people interested in "Abrahamic faiths", "both religions are Abrahamic", etc.; in essence, explaining "Abrahamic religion" can be a very intuitive way to explain the relevant sense of "Abrahamic". But since we reject run-in entries entirely, we're stuck choosing between various less-than-ideal alternatives. —Ruakh_TALK 20:31, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

People have suggested a "Common collocations" section. Might be a good idea (for some entries).​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:54, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Delete this is not a word it is a fragment, one already covered by Abrahamic.Lucifer (talk) 06:30, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Delete SOP per nominator.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:54, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Delete SoP per nom.. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 04:38, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

keep. It is a term used in many dictionaries. I dont think the usage notes section on Abrahamic is sufficient. 84.13.29.124 11:50, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Deleted. bd2412 T 02:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)