Talk:Mount of Temptation

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 18:06, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Greek Orthodox Monastery of the Temptation on Mt Quruntul, 2021

• ... that the
  Jebel Quruntul
  in the West Bank since at least the 4th century? Source: Mason, Mike (2017), Jesus: His Story in Stone, Victoria: Friesen Press. "Tradition holds that Christ's forty days of fasting and temptation in the wilderness took place on this mountain... The mountain was first settled by fourth-century Greek monks who lived in its caves... Lower down... the Grotto of the Temptation where Jesus is thought to have lived and prayed during the forty days."
  • ALT1: ... that the Mount of Temptation where Jesus was supposedly tempted by Satan was also the scene of the assassination of the high priest Simon and two of his sons? Source: Pringle, Denys (1994), "Templar Castles on the Road to the Jordan", The Military Orders, Abingdon: Routledge, vol. 1, p. 152, ISBN 9781351542593. "...this lofty plateau... had already been fortified in Hasmonean times, when as the fortress of Dok (or Dagon) it was held by Ptolemy, son-in-law of Simon Maccabeus, and was the scene of the latter's assassination in 134 BC (1 Maccabees 16:15)."
  • ALT2: ... that the grotto on
    Mt Quruntul
    believed to be the location of Christ's Temptation can now be reached by cable car, but the monks there won't always open the door? Source: The Mount of Temptation from Jericho, Kehl: Arte Geie, 6 April 2012. "Father Gerasimus has lived in this Greek Orthodox monastery for 30 years... Despite the importance of the monastery for Christianity, few pilgrims stray to Palestine. But the city of Jericho has begun to take advantage of the attraction... A red cable car now leads from the city to the mountain. A rich Palestinian businessman had it built - without first obtaining Father Gerasimus' permission... The few tourists who come anyway want to go to the mountain of temptation and to Father Gerasimus, who sometimes doesn't open the door for them. The conflict between the townsfolk and the 'keeper' of the attraction on the mountain is omnipresent." (Re: the plural, other cites in the article make it clear other monks are also sometimes present.)
  • ALT3: ... that, after the Muslim reconquest of the Holy Land, pilgrims were kept away from the Mount of Temptation until church leaders agreed to pay the locals ten dollars a year for access? Source: Van Egmont van der Nijenburgh, Jan Aegidius; et al. (1759), Travels through Part of Europe, Asia Minor, the Islands of the Archipelago; Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Mount Sinai, &c., vol. 1, London: Lockyer Davis & Charles Reymers. "We went up mount Quarantena in company with some ecclesiasticks, having an Arabian for our guide. Formerly the Arabians concealed themselves in the cavities of this mountain, and would not suffer the Franks to come up; but at present the fathers of the Holy Land pay ten piasters per annum caphar, or passage-money, and thus have free access to it." (Piaster = Kurus = (at the time) a silver dollar)
  • ALT4: ... that under the crusader kingdoms the income of the Mount of Temptation was 5,000 gold coins per year, which Queen Melisende took from the brothers of the Holy Sepulcher to give to the Sisters of Bethany? Source: Pringle, Denys (1994), "Templar Castles on the Road to the Jordan", The Military Orders, Abingdon: Routledge, vol. 1, p. 152, ISBN 9781351542593. ""There was also a Latin presence in the former Byzantine lavra of Douka, on the Mount of Temptation (Jabal al-Quruntul), where a priory of the Holy Sepulchre was established in 1133–34. The tithes of Jericho were given to the priory two years later; and in 1143, the lordship, valued at 5,000 aurei per year, was granted by Queen Melisende to the sisters of Bethany." (Sisters of Bethany being a formal name, but the brothers being formally "Canons Regular"; aurei = bezants = gold coins of the era)
  • ALT5: ... that, after the First Crusade retook Palestine for Christendom, the Byzantine Empire was allowed to rebuild churches and monasteries but the Catholics occupied the most sacred spots of the Mount of Temptation? Source: Pringle, Denys (1994), "Templar Castles on the Road to the Jordan", The Military Orders, Abingdon: Routledge, vol. 1, p. 152, ISBN 9781351542593. "In the twelfth century, benefiting from the relative security afforded by the crusader conquet and from the patronage of Emperor Michael I Comnenus... a number of the Orthodox monasteries around Jericho were rebuilt. There was also a Latin presence inthe former Byzantine lavra of Douka, on the Mount of Temptation (Jabal al-Quruntul)... The Templars, however, had at least two castles in the immediate vicinity. One was on the summit of the Mount of Temptation itself.
  • ALT6: ... that the first phase of Christian worship at the Mount of Temptation ended with a Jewish revolt and Persian invasion in 614? Heenan, Patrick (1994), "Jericho (West Bank)", International Dictionary of Historic Places, Milton Park: Taylor & Francis, pp. 368–371, ISBN 978-1-884964-03-9. "The Christian hermitages and monasteries were mostly abandoned after the Persian invasion of 614 and the Muslim Arab conquest which started in 636."
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Ashuanipi
  • Comment: A. Kindly don't add extraneous links to the hooks.
    B. You only need to check the hook you like best. If you really prefer ALT6 to the others, I'll go pull in the relevant cites from our Byzantine–Sasanid war articles.

5x expanded by LlywelynII (talk). Self-nominated at 10:25, 16 May 2022 (UTC).[reply]

• On it.
  Iskandar323 (talk) 06:37, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Ok, this is my first DYK review, so please be patient with me, but, based on my initial observations, the article is fundamentally all OK in terms of length of time between expansion and nomination, 5x expansion, being properly written out in prose and the absence of major problems, instability issues or maintenance tags, etc.

However, I should straight away flag that the current version of the Khayat source is hosted on IntechOpen, which is a "likely or proven predatory open-access publisher" that appears on both User:JzG/Predatory/I and on Beall's List, so I would suggest either finding an alternative host for this paper or a suitable replacement citation for the relevant material before this page is promoted.

On the subject of hook selection, the 'location of the temptation of Chirst' angle seems like the one with the broadest appeal, so I am leaning towards ALT0 or ALT1.

ALT2 and ALT3 both yield issues for me in terms of accuracy. With ALT2, the problem with door being opened seems to be specific to a single personality, Father Gerasimus, not the monks in general, and the source is from 2012, so potentially not current. With ALT3, I do not like the leap from the 'after the Muslim reconquest' (a 13th century event) to an observation on access made in 1759 - this seems to skip a lot, introduces unnecessary vagueness and is not necessarily valid for the whole period. I'm also not sure how 'piasters' turned into 'dollars'.

I have no issue with ALT4, ALT5 or ALT6 at present, but all seem more obscurely historical and less likely to draw attention that the more obvious ALT0/ALT1 hooks.

Iskandar323 (talk) 07:26, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

• @
  Iskandar323 (talk) 14:56, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • @
    WP:IAR judgment call. I could blank all that information just to pass your DYK review, but that's not actually helpful for the article, is it? I could leave the information without sourcing that makes your nose wrinkle, but that's less helpful for the article, isn't it? The real decision here is whether you honestly think the source—online and easy for readers to go consult for themselves—is actually inaccurate and probably wrong. These are local Palestinian geologists studying the area's water supply. Here's the lead writer's entry at ResearchGate. I personally think it's extremely likely the specific geological information is accurate, regardless of whether they were forced to publish with a less presigious house or whether the conclusions and policy suggestions of this paper got insufficient peer review. (They probably didn't, true!) If you feel otherwise, that's perfectly fair. Just blank that information from the infobox and the source from the bibliography or shunt it to the talk page for reinclusion in a few decades when an academic geologist takes an interest and can offer sth better. — LlywelynII 00:53, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    
    Full disclosure: I view all non-public-access academic publishing as "predatory", most peer review as sloppy in practice, and academic treatment of alternative journals as radioactive and filled with cooties actively self-defeating, serving 1st world scholars to gatekeep poorer and 3rd world competition
    at the expense of more robust science and open public access (and greater trust!). That said, of course, you can't trust the reasoning or conclusions of such articles in such journals to have been as fully vetted as something in (eg) Nature or even /r/AskHistorians.