Talk:Kennicott Bible/GA1

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Nominator: Uriel1022 (talk · contribs) 19:39, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 10:09, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Will review this soon. —Kusma (talk) 10:09, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Content and prose review

• Lead: The manuscript was lost to history for a time hmm, was it considered "lost" or do we just not have any knowledge of its whereabouts between 1493 and 1770?
• Not sure we need all the names of the people who praise the object in the lead.
• History: particularly in the "Herculean city" (i.e. A Coruña) I think just particularly in A Coruña would be enough, we do not seem to need to know it is nicknamed "Herculean".
• they contributed to the rescue of the Murcian Jews with a large sum of money, which could demonstrate the prosperity of the community. better They contributed a large sum of money to the rescue of the Jews of Murcia. The source does not seem to state that this demonstrates the prosperity, so saying this is technically
  WP:OR
  . Also, what happened in 1451?
• 1476, shortly before the expulsion of Jews from Spain 1476 is not "shortly before 1492"
• "At the time, A Coruña had a prosperous Jewish community which, according to Cecil Roth, was one of the richest Jewish communities on the Iberian Peninsula, owning several Bibles in Hebrew, amongst which he cites the Cervera Bible [pt]." all of this should be in the first paragraph.
• In addition to economic prosperity, the Herculean Jewish community had a relevant cultural activity, highlighting the largest school of Jewish illuminators in Europe, amongst which Abraham ben Judah ibn Hayyim [de] stood out in the mid-15th century, who was considered the continent's most distinguished master in the art of mixing colours to illuminate manuscripts and who made one of the most used books in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance. this sentence is exceedingly long. Is it translated from Spanish? If yes, be aware of
  close paraphrasing
  . Better to sort and simplfy. The Jewish community of A Coruña also had a rich culture including the largest school of Jewish illuminators in Europe. A particularly outstanding illuminator was Abraham ben Judah ibn Hayyim, who was considered Europe's most distinguished master in the art of mixing colours to illuminate manuscripts. or something. What was "one of the most used books in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance"? (Title/topic/language? We should have an article about it if it was so widely used).
• The sourcing for this praise is not great.
• The fame of A Coruña illuminators is evident in Roth's book not really, all we see is "some splendidly gifted Spanish illuminators of the time (such as Joseph ibn Hayyim)". This is praise for Joseph ibn Hayyim, not for A Coruña.
• according to Kogman-Appel it is an isolated phenomenon actually, the source also says "Galicia had no earlier tradition of illuminated Hebrew manuscripts and there is no school to which this Bible can be attributed", which seems to contradict the relevant cultural activity, highlighting the largest school of Jewish illuminators in Europe earlier in the same section.
• History: who lived in A Coruña with his family on behalf of his patron. He spent ten months to scribe the Bible, writing two folios on a daily basis. This is a
  closely paraphrased
  and mangled translation of the original's "Vivió Moisés y su familia en La Coruña, por cuenta de su patrón diez largos meses escribiendo dos folios diarios".
• British historian suggested: do you know who it was and why don't you cite him to a page in English? I don't think it is worth quoting this passage instead of just citing it.
• It is not certain that the Cervera Bible remained in the city when Isaac commissioned the Kennicott Bible, but it seems possible that it still remained in A Coruña 37 years later, when Isaac de Braga could have seen it and commissioned a similar copy do you mean he commissioned two copies of the Cervera Bible? This is confusingly written and repetitive.

There are a lot of prose issues. The text is repetitive and sometimes unclear, and would benefit from tightening and some copyediting. I will stop looking at the prose for now and will comment on the other GA criteria. —Kusma (talk) 20:57, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source spotchecks

General comments and GA criteria

Good Article review progress box WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

• Prose issues as mentioned above (covering only parts of the article so far).
• Translations should be checked. For example, Gerardo Boto's quote seems a bit mangled -- did you translate this from Galician or from the original Spanish?
• Lead section does not cover the entire article (nothing about the Characteristics section)
• Ref layout could be neater
• Sources are a bit of a mixed bag (some blog posts, some excellent scholarly sources) and it is a bit random what information is cited from where. A lot of the sources are in Galician although excellent sources in English exist.
• Some issues with close paraphrasing, possibly translated copyvio? Earwig also picks up phrases that seem to be copied.
• Some image source links are dead.
• Why are the images PD? The Bodleian library licensing of [1] is CC-BY-NC 4.0, not directly compatible with use on Wikipedia.

Overall I think there is quite a lot to do here, too much to do during the review. The text needs improved sourcing (with a preference for English sources where they exist; avoid re-translating Galician sources that just paraphrase English sources), copyvio checks for close paraphrasing, general tightening and removal of duplication. If you need help with copyediting, you can ask at

I am sorry but I will fail this article now, although I really enjoyed learning about this beautiful book. —Kusma (talk) 21:51, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]