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On 8 September 2021, it was proposed that this article be
moved to
Zechariah. The result of
the discussion was not moved.
On 8 August 2023, it was proposed that this article be
moved to
Zacharias. The result of
the discussion was no consensus.
Change of name from Zacharias
It may be better to use for this priest the common modern English spelling Zechariah both in the title and throughout this article. This spelling is used e.g. in the article
Elizabeth (Biblical person); but the link there was taking the reader to the prophetZechariah. I have fixed that link so that it leads to this article. However, a consistent spelling throughout the English Wikipedia for the priest Zechariah must surely be desirable. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
86.136.9.221 (
talk •
contribs) 01:53, 2 October 2005
Some of the information in this page conflicts with islamic information. John The Baptist (Yahya) was the son of Zachariah (Zekeriya) but this name (John) was given by God not by Elizabeth. It's also mentioned in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya.
195.87.161.38 23:38, 27 May 2006 (UTC)reply
From a layman's perspective, I must state that Muslims I know refer to this individual as Zacharias and I may not have found this article but for this fact. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
143.81.252.12 (
talk •
contribs) 14:55, 20 July 2006
Other Muslims use the name Zakariya. I have renamed the article following the first suggestion above, and set up a disambiguation page and redirects for
Zacharias,
Zakariya etc.
Fayenatic london(talk) 21:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC)reply
from Pink: The name that Muslims use when referring to Prophet Zakariya is زكريا (za kaf ra ya alif). Would it be possible for someone to list the various spellings of the name in various languages as is done for other figures common to various religions?
66.112.51.45 (
talk) 18:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC) Pinkreply
I'd agree if he was important to more than two religions. The Arabic is in the Islamic section at the end of this article. This Zechariah is not important to Jews, so the Hebrew is not given here, but it's at
Zechariah (given name) and
Zechariah (Hebrew prophet). That seems about right to me.
By the way, what source are you quoting as "Pink", please? -
Fayenatic(talk) 20:07, 20 March 2008 (UTC)reply
Move in 2013
The page was recently moved from
Zechariah (priest) to
Zechariah (New Testament figure), but this was reverted today for lack of evidence that the Old Testament prophet was a priest. IMHO, even though "Zechariah (priest)" was my idea several years ago, the name "Zechariah (New Testament figure)" was an improvement in clarity, and I would support putting it back there. As for
Zechariah (Hebrew prophet), he probably was also a priest, and this is referred to in the article. –
FayenaticLondon 18:00, 16 December 2013 (UTC)reply
Islamic view of Zechariah
Prophets in the Qur'an template should go the Islamic view of Zechariah article. The last paragraph has a link to this article (Zakariya), but we could add a "see also" link if someone sees it appropriate. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Oriolpont (
talk •
contribs) 09:18, 7 October 2007 (UTC)reply
At the minimum this article should have a visible link to
Islamic view of Zechariah, but it seems to me that the template should be restored as a concise and encyclopedic navigation aid. I think all the other articles on the template have it, apart from Jesus and
Elisha from which it was recently removed without explanation by a one-edit anon. Restoring it in that article and this one, pending further discussion here. -
Fayenatic(talk) 13:37, 7 October 2007 (UTC)reply
The Zechariah mentioned in Baha'u'llah's Summons of the Lord of Hosts is NOT this
Zechariah (priest), the father of John the Baptist, but the earlier Hebrew prophet of this name. Section moved to
Zechariah (Hebrew prophet), "a prophet of the kingdom of Judah" — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Keislar (
talk •
contribs) 14:43, 21 August 2011 (UTC)reply
^Salibi, K. S. (2003).
A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered. I.B.Tauris. pp. 61–62.
ISBN978-1-86064-912-7. To the
Arabs, this same territory, which the Romans considered Arabian, formed part of what they called
Bilad al-Sham, which was their own name for
Syria. From the classical perspective however Syria, including Palestine, formed no more than the western fringes of what was reckoned to be Arabia between the first line of cities and the coast. Since there is no clear dividing line between what are called today the
Syrian and
Arabian deserts, which actually form one stretch of arid tableland, the classical concept of what actually constituted Syria had more to its credit geographically than the vaguer Arab concept of Syria as Bilad al-Sham. Under the
Romans, there was actually a
province of Syria, with its capital at
Antioch, which carried the name of the territory. Otherwise, down the centuries, Syria like
Arabia and
Mesopotamia was no more than a geographic expression. In
Islamic times, the Arab geographers used the name arabicized as
Suriyah, to denote one special region of Bilad al-Sham, which was the middle section of the valley of the
Orontes river, in the vicinity of the towns of
Homs and
Hama. They also noted that it was an old name for the whole of Bilad al-Sham which had gone out of use. As a geographic expression, however, the name Syria survived in its original classical sense in
Byzantine and Western European usage, and also in the
Syriac literature of some of the
Eastern Christian churches, from which it occasionally found its way into
Christian Arabic usage. It was only in the nineteenth century that the use of the name was revived in its modern Arabic form, frequently as Suriyya rather than the older Suriyah, to denote the whole of Bilad al-Sham: first of all in the
Christian Arabic literature of the period, and under the influence of
Western Europe. By the end of that century it had already replaced the name of Bilad al-Sham even in
Muslim Arabic usage.
^Burke, Aaron (2010), "The Transformation of Biblical and Syro-Palestinian Archaeology", in Levy, Thomas Evan (ed.), Historical Biblical Archaeology and the Future: The New Pragmatism,
London: Equinox
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.
Leaning oppose - he gets the highest hits, but not really more than the other pages added together, as
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC wants.
Johnbod (
talk) 23:32, 8 September 2021 (UTC)reply
Support, the pageview analysis above shows that this subject is "much more likely than any other single topic," per
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.
99to99 (
talk) 00:45, 9 September 2021 (UTC)reply
The full quote is "A topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term." (my bold). This doesn't really meet the second bit.
Johnbod (
talk) 16:14, 9 September 2021 (UTC)reply
For a long time, there was just one citeria for primary topic: "much more used than any other topic." In 2010, the guideline was
changed by Kotniski. From looking at
the discussion, he was a one-man band on this. He explained his reasoning this way:
“
The basic maths is that having a primary topic saves a click for readers looking for that topic, but costs a click for readers looking for any other topic, so there's a net gain if more than 50% of readers are looking for the main topic. But that means readers using Go on the specific term in question.
”
The dominate topic on the first page of Google results is the
Book of Zechariah. See
Zechariah -wikipedia. Google's algorithm presumably has a better sense of what readers are looking for than we do. If we imagine readers clicking through disambiguation pages, as Kotniski apparently did, and apply his "fewer clicks" standard, this should be the primary topic.
I myself have never clicked through disambiguation pages to find a desired topic. Modern programing emphasizes the use of defaults to anticipate what the user wants. The "search tree" thinking behind this guideline is quite old fashioned.
99to99 (
talk) 19:21, 10 September 2021 (UTC)reply
Your argument here clearly shows oppose, the highest viewed (two articles combined) and searched topic is the book.
In ictu oculi (
talk) 07:03, 12 September 2021 (UTC)reply
Support He is better known than the obscure prophet.
Dimadick (
talk) 13:54, 9 September 2021 (UTC)reply
Let's face it, both are obscure.
Johnbod (
talk) 16:14, 9 September 2021 (UTC)reply
Strong oppose - fails PT criteria fails page views test, fails source test, and nothing remotely obscure about Zechariah the book and far more encyclopaedic than the father of John the Baptist.
In ictu oculi (
talk) 07:00, 12 September 2021 (UTC)reply
Oppose I find 99to99's comment above inconsistent with his Support. When I type "Zechariah" into Google, first hit is
Zechariah (Hebrew prophet), second hit is
Book of Zechariah. I'm confident that most references simply to "Zechariah" are to the book of that name. OP has omitted
Book of Zechariah from his page views analysis. If included, the NT figure is obviously not primary. Among Christians, Zechariah is ambiguous between the OT and NT figures, and Jews will certainly mean the prophet.
Havelock Jones (
talk) 14:54, 12 September 2021 (UTC)reply
Oppose. No
WP:PTOPIC. Considering just the three most common meanings for simplicity,
Zechariah (New Testament figure),
Zechariah (Hebrew prophet) and
Book of Zechariah got comparable numbers of views,
154,618, 83,312 and 93,486 respectively (47%, 25% and 28%), over the last year. On several days the book got more than the NT figure; on 3 days, more than twice as many. The NT figure fails the "much more likely test" of PTOPIC#1. All three topics have similar long-term significance (PTOPIC#2); indeed, I would argue that the Hebrew prophet and the book might be considered the more significant, because the book is included in both the
Hebrew Bible and the
Christian Bible.
Narky Blert (
talk) 16:21, 16 September 2021 (UTC)reply
Oppose I'm not convinced this is primary over the Old Testament figure. This person does need to be more prominently mentioned on the DAB page, I will make a change there now.
User:力 (power~enwiki,
π,
ν) 17:43, 21 September 2021 (UTC)reply
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.
Requested move 8 August 2023
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.
Zechariah (New Testament figure) → Zacharias – This page is being needlessly disambiguated with an unconcise and unnatural parenthetical classification when there is a totally natural disambiguating page title of "
Zacharias" available and simply acting as a redirect to the
Zechariah disambiguation page. While the name Zacharias is obviously derived from "Zechariah", the
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of this specific spelling is the New Testament figure, as it is a version of the name created by way of Christian Bible translations. Hence, tertiary sources such as the Easton's Bible Dictionary (a public domain source for this page) have separate entries for
Zacharias and
Zechariah. I propose naturally disambiguating here, per
WP:NCDAB, which prefers natural disambiguation over parenthetical disambiguation (and is doubly applicable here, given the particularly unconcise and unnatural parentheses).
Iskandar323 (
talk) 07:59, 8 August 2023 (UTC) — Relisting.BilledMammal (
talk) 13:30, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Strong oppose on two counts firstly the name is Zechariah in English. See NIV and other modern versions and also quality book sources. Secondly even if Zecharias were the English name the Zechariah in Luke wouldn't be PT.
In ictu oculi (
talk) 10:25, 8 August 2023 (UTC)reply
@
In ictu oculi: What precisely do you mean by 'Zechariah is English'. Both terms are as equally English (in the sense of transliterated) or non-English (in the sense of being transliterated foreign names) as each other. If you are implying one is simply an archaism ... well that is simply not borne out by the tertiary sources. The
Collins and
OED entries both clearly align on this, and the
Columbia Encyclopedia also
reads the same.
Iskandar323 (
talk) 11:14, 8 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I haven't asserted that Zacharias is only called Zacharias and not Zechariah, only that where "Zacharias" appears that it predominantly refers to the figure in Luke. Yes, you can find Bible translations that use Zechariah for both, just as the
King James Bible uses "Zacharias" for Luke, and
"Zechariah" for "Zechariah". This doesn't relates to what the
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of "Zacharias" specifically is, which is the question of what "Zacharias" is used to mean where it is actually used.
Iskandar323 (
talk) 07:54, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Support. This was against my first inclination, since I would just call them both Zechariah. Many translations use "Zacharias" in
Luke 1:67. Few use "Zacharias" in
Zechariah 1:1.
WP:NATDIS applies.
SilverLocust💬 21:31, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Useful site for comparing text versions :) I count exactly one instance of "Zacharias" out of the dozens of versions compared for Z1:1 ... Versus 16 hits (or what feels like about 50% of the versions) for Luke.
Iskandar323 (
talk) 21:49, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Relisting comment: Relist, to discuss whether "Zechariah" or "Zacharias" is the common name, and if it is Zechariah whether Zecharias is sufficient common to be used as natural disambiguation.
BilledMammal (
talk) 13:30, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Oppose. "Zechariah" and "Zacharias" are the same name.
Zacharias should perhaps redirect to
Zechariah (given name). The OT Zechariah is Zacharias in the Vulgate and Douay-Rheims. And modern translations (NIV, ESV) favour Zechariah in the NT.
Srnec (
talk) 11:34, 18 August 2023 (UTC)reply
One name is a variant spelling of/derived from the other, but the two names have highly divergent usage histories, both within and outside of the bible, that allows for natural disambiguation. Just as the list of people called
Petrus isn't the same as the list of
Peters, even though both of the names are from
Saint Peter.
Iskandar323 (
talk) 11:54, 18 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Seriously, the
Douay-Rheims? While I am among the niche of people who know what that is (though not how to spell it), it is very far from common. Meanwhile, the Vulgate is not even an
English source. And different versions of a name are not necessarily "the same name." For example, I wouldn't call Joshua and Jesus the same name (though both come from Yehoshua).
SilverLocust💬 05:30, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Ah, yes, that's a better example of a name with divergent forms.
Iskandar323 (
talk) 07:21, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Comment: I've just posted this directly to various WikiProject talk pages/noticeboards for additional input, so if prospective closers could leave it for another day or two, that would be appreciated.
Iskandar323 (
talk) 07:27, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Oppose Zacharias is also an alternative spelling for the Old Testament prophet, when Greek in rendered to English (like in the
Septuagint). Right now, the page is already properly being disambiguated.
Jerium (
talk) 11:06, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
@
Jerium: No one is denying what you state. This has been discussed above, and it is a matter of overall prevalence of usage , as well the preference for natural disambiguation over parenthetical disambiguation, per
WP:NCDAB. The page is currently disambiguated, yes, but at a less common base name and with additional modifiers, in the form of parenthetical disambiguation, required. By any standard this is sub-optimal for a title.
Iskandar323 (
talk) 11:27, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I just don't see how your proposal is an improvement, it might be even more confusing for readers searching up for the prophet.
Jerium (
talk) 13:14, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The prophet's book itself is called the
Book of Zechariah extremely consistently, so I don't imagine there is a high chance of reader confusion or searches for the prophet under the much more rarefied alternative spelling for the old testament figure. If you Google search Zacharias, meanwhile, the suggested wiki profile is the new testament figure ... presumably because the algorithms know better based on the balance of sources.
Iskandar323 (
talk) 14:00, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
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.