Talk:Masada myth

This article is incredibly misleading

Not only does this article barely have any sources, but it doesn't even make RELATIVE sense to the main article on Masada. Did anyone read the "Background and elements" section? It doesn't even align with the historic Background of the Siege of Masada article. How is this article still existing? The link between Israelis, right wing nationalism, and Masada? 74.57.24.26 (talk) 07:04, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Have you read the bibliography? I don’t understand the first eight words in your post. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:42, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

"The widespread embrace of the Masada myth in Israel started waning in the late twentieth century. Israelis advocating for compromise in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process associated Masada's symbolism as an uncompromising last stand with right-wing nationalism, and the story became less prominent as a broad national symbol."

What sources do you have? 74.57.24.26 (talk) 21:20, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

A common rule with many articles is that items in the intro need not have immediate citations but that the article must document all claims later in the entry. In this case one would look at the section Masada_myth#Decline which does have references (24-37). A critique could be (a) a claim in the intro is not restated in this section or (b) the references in this section don't support a claim. The claims seem to be that (a) fewer people in Israel were embracing the myth, (b) those advocating for compromise in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process are associating Masada's symbolism with right-wing nationalism. Both claims seem to be restated in the section so one should examine the reference there. Erp (talk) 21:51, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. See Green 1997, pp. 414–416. Onceinawhile (talk) 01:34, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Bibliography section ordering

Is there a reason why the bibliography in this entry is sorted strictly by date rather than by author then date if more than one item by the author? The latter is the standard if one is using author date cites as the entry seems to be doing in the References section. I'm willing to do the reordering but wanted to check first if there was a reason for the current sort. Erp (talk) 05:16, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Erp: thanks for asking. No reason that I know of. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:07, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Pointer to RfC

There is an RfC regarding merging this article in Siege of Masada, here: Talk:Siege of Masada#RfC: Merge Masada myth into the "Masada myth" section of this article? Herostratus (talk) 06:07, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

"Talk page contains discussions about neutrality"

@Pyramids09: your statement that there have been historical discussions about neutrality is not a justification for a POV tag. Almost every article relating to the history of Zionism has editors making claims about neutrality. If that was our standard then all the Israel-Palestine articles across Wikipedia would need POV tags.

What matters is: what is the status of those discussions, and do they hold any policy-based substance?

An editor adding a tag is expected to make their own judgement on the content of the article. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:04, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

If you don't want the POV tag to be there, don't write stuff that warrants a POV tag. Pyramids09 (talk) 08:14, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Pointlessly obnoxious and confrontational. I have removed it. Have another go at responding like a reasonable, collaborative Wikipedia editor and maybe the tag can stay there. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:02, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Pointlessly obnoxious and confrontational combined with edit warring. These are features found in certain ban evading actors in the topic area. Now, from my perspective Onceinawhile is one of the most reasonable, civil, serious, knowledgeable, policy/RS based editors active in the topic area. A rational actor whose objective is to collaboratively build an encyclopedia would simply work with them to find solutions. Sean.hoyland (talk) 12:55, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

@Pyramids09: by re-adding the POV tag twice in three hours, you have violated 1RR per WP:PIA. I see from your talk page archive that you are aware of these restrictions. Please self-revert, or this will be taken to WP:AE. Onceinawhile (talk) 23:36, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Engaging in a murderous campaign against innocent editors, is they? Well can't have that. "The people who think this article isn't even arguably POV are also egregiously insulting and combative and ready to call in the cops at the drop of a hat" is not a good advertisement for your case. It's usually the sort of thing engaged in by people who don't have much of a case. I think the article is not only POV, but it hits NPOV over the head and chases it down the street with a stick. But hey maybe I'm wrong. But its certainly arguable, n'est-ce pas? Clearly so. So I've restored the tag, because this is exactly what the tag is for, so that other intelligent, cool-headed, and disinterested colleagues may be alerted to the matter. Let it lie is my advice. If you don't like that, well, as the man said, "go to your filthy Shriekers, and may they freeze the flesh off you!", phht. Herostratus (talk) 20:14, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

@Herostratus: the guidance at Template:POV requests that those adding this tag …explain on the article's talk page why you are adding this tag, identifying specific issues that are actionable within Wikipedia's content policies.

Please identify those specific and actionable issues.

Onceinawhile (talk) 10:17, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Why sure. I mean this has been discussed much above, which is sufficient by itself to support the tag, but hey. Glad to be of service.

Remember:in this post, I am not trying to argue that the article is POV and is a POV fork. All I want to here is demonstrate that at least a goodly percentage of intelligent, informed, disinterested, sane, and forthright people could make a quite decent argument that it is to the degree that both alerting the reader to this, and invited other editors to consider the matter, is appropriate, and easily so.

So, before getting to the merits and specific and actionable remedies, let's go over the history, with some annotations:

• This article was spun off from Siege of Masada (a 2011 article) on July 13 2024.
• On July 22, 2024, it was nominated for deletion at AfD on grounds of "This new article falls short of Wikipedia's content policies in several critical areas:WP:NPOV, WP:NOTABILITY, WP:VER... the main point is that the very definition of this article selectively promotes one point of view over the others regarding what exactly happened in Masada" and so on.
  • The headcount was 9 Delete, 9 Keep, and 2 Merge. The close was "No consensus to delete". There was no "Keep". It was "no consensus".
• Immediately after creation, this article was nominated for the "Did you know" section of the main page, with a hook of ".. that although Israel honored 27 ancient Masada skeletons with a state funeral in 1969, the story of "freedom fighters' patriotic last stand" is now known to be a myth?" [Note the use of scare quotes, and the use of "myth" in the slangy sense rather than the correct. (A myth is (to simplify) an old story, thus it did not become "now known" as this has always been known, to everyone; the slangy popular use of myth (implied here) means "falsehood".]
  • The initial check included, under neutrality " This hook states as fact that which the sources do not state as fact"
  • After a quite lengthy discussion, it was concluded that sources did after all support the hook, and so the DYK was accepted (with a very minor change) and posted on September 20, 2024.
  • On that same day, the hook was pulled from the main page[quite unusual I think] on grounds of a report to Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors which was apparently accepted.
• There was then much discussion at Talk:Masada myth, initiated by User:Herostratus (me), much of it focusing on just the lede, and much of it quite heated. People wishing to change the lede were outnumbered. No changes to the article resulted.
• On October 14 2024, I initiated a request for comment (at Talk:Masada myth#RfC on the article lede) with the question "Is the lede for this article basically OK (except for maybe some minor tweaks)? or is it Not OK and needs some major changes?".
  • Headcount is difficult to figure out, as the discussion spun off partly into the validity of the RfC itself. More or less even-ish IIRC. The RfC was never closed, (would probably be closed as "No consensus" IMO) and no changes were made to the lede.
  • The spinning off into the validity of the RfC itself was on grounds that the question was malformed, being either simply nonsensical, disallowable in that it did not take the form "Which do you prefer, current text or such-an-such alternate text", or just trolling. This was considered to an unacceptable RfC to the degree that it taken to WP:AN (at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive366#Talk:Masada_myth Procedural RfC Closure) asking for a procedural close on these grounds, and maybe a sanction on me I guess. No one except the principals participated and the AN thread was never closed. [One can make of that what one will.]

So, a bunch of people think the article is a POV spinoff, and a bunch of people don't. If one wishes to maintain that the article is not at least reasonably considered to be arguably POV, one would have to maintain that all of one's colleagues thinking it is or might be are idiots, ignoramuses, sheep, trolls, POV warriors, or madmen. Reading the posts, I'm not seeing that at all. At all. I mean, of course one could deny that one follows from the other, but what else am I to infer? What other logical conclusion is there? There isn't one. I'm not super interested in stated denials, as anybody can deny anything, if they gain an advantage. This has been true since people could talk.

Alright. That's the history. I would expect for the nth time the argument "The history means nothing, nothing means anything much except whether a given statement (including conclusions) does indeed appear in the cited peer-reviewed journal or similar; if it is, we can use it, and by definition, being accurate, it cannot be POV or used for POV purposes, end of discussion". Or however well honey-coated one wishes to put it. That is, however, getting into the second area, the merits of the case , whether the material is indeed arguable POV or not, and specific and actionable remedies. Given the above analysis of consensus I don't consider that necessary, but if one considers consensus unimportant I also am prepared to engage cogently in detail that also. I'm here all week.

I'll skip ahead to the third part, the suggested solution, since it's simple: The and specific and actionable remedy is to delete this mess, TNT it. Alternatively, merge it back into the original article which did exist, after all, from 2011 which is long before anybody invaded Gaza, and somehow the Wikipedia survived. Because reasons, I doubt this can be accomplished. A WP:IAR procedural deletion or merge based on the ArbCom directive and plain horse sense I guess, but no one believes in IAR anymore. So you all can relax. The article is going to continue to exist, and in its present very bad form too. A POV tag at the top of the article is all I am asking. You ought to be able to live with that. If you can't even do that, that may say something about one's ability to be cool-headedly NPOV. Herostratus (talk) 06:30, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

@Herostratus: there is no consensus that the article’s content is POV; I haven’t even seen that case made. This history you point to above relates to a debate about whether the article should exist or not; that is a different topic. And even then, in the AFD discussion you referred to, 6 out of the 9 delete votes (including the nominator) have since been outed as sockpuppets. So the AFD outcome was, in fact, a resounding keep.

You wrote above: the merits of the case , whether the material is indeed arguable POV or not, and specific and actionable remedies. Given the above analysis of consensus I don't consider that necessary, but if one considers consensus unimportant I also am prepared to engage cogently in detail that also.

Your engagement in that would be greatly appreciated. I look forward to discussing.

Onceinawhile (talk) 10:49, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't. I'd rather french kiss Conway Twitty than deal with this stuff. But I will! Presently.

Re "there is no consensus that the article’s content is POV", there sure isn't. But that's not what the NPOV tag is for. It starts off "The neutrality of this article is disputed" (emphasis added) and the template documentation is all in this vein. C'mon you know this and with this one you're just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.

The thing about the sockpuppets, my goodness, I did not know that. Yeah that would move the headcount to 9-4 keep (forgot to count OP as a delete vote earlier) and that would indeed be a solid keep, at least by headcount. We should probably run another AfD as that one was compromised. Thanks for pointing that out. Herostratus (talk) 12:55, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Great, thanks. I will await your feedback. Please could you provide an ETA? Onceinawhile (talk) 22:45, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

@Herostratus: please could you provide an ETA? The tag cannot continue to remain without being substantiated. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:53, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Right, I'll get on it soon. Herostratus (talk) 01:59, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I know not "soon." When? This is ridiculous obstruction by herostratus. Update: I've removed it. It can be added back when an argument is made for why it belongs. Dan Murphy (talk) 03:10, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Soon, adv.: Within a short time; quickly. Sorry, I'll respond quicker when you start signing my paychecks, deal? As Dáin (nobody's fool!) said, the time of my thought is my own to spend.

I counseled against removing the tag, as situations like this are exactly what it is for. You are saying basically "no reasonable person could think that's there anything wrong with this article as far as neutrality goes", and that isn't true. So now we have a problem, don't we.

Anyway, we are not likely to convince each other, we are arguing for the audience. The audience is not likely to see stunts like and be all "well, this is just the sort of thing that people who have winning arguments do, and 'ridiculous obstruction' is exactly the proper way to characterize a colleague who takes a whole day to fulfill an undertaking to further engage. It's very attractive, and people who do this are just the sort of editors that we need more of." So I mean you're not doing yourself any favors. I'll post this now, as I have to get something to eat before I post further. Is that acceptable? May I get something to eat now? Thank you! Herostratus (talk) 19:47, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

You have been repeatedly asked to defend your placing of the tag. Since March 15.Dan Murphy (talk) 20:38, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Well, and remembering that the tag just says it might be POV, and given all the above, what defense could I offer that would satisfy you? Please proceed governor, I'm all ears. Or you all could give me some reason for your stance. "Tag doesn't belong because [cogent point], [cogent point], and [cogent point]". Give me the points. You can't can you. If you want to have neutral people engaging here to think "Wow, the people insisting on removing the tag are not being good editors and have a WP:BATTLEGROUND atttitude", you're doing fine. Herostratus (talk) 01:12, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

The merits

Front Material

Herostratus (talk) here. We've already established that the article might be POV, and that about half the editors who've stated an opinion on that think that it probably is. Now let's dig down. Can we find stuff that actually does support the contention that it's POV on the merits.

But before that, let's lay down some parameters so that you all know where we all are coming from. Now, I get that editors might not agree, or say they don't. There's nothing we can do about that. So:

One passage in WP:RS that bears on our investigation is "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources". I believe that this passage (and supporting ones) is held to be of some importance, and it is. It's not like it's a bad passage, it's an important and useful statement. And nobody disputes that WP:RS one of the ten or so core policies that must be followed for the project to work. But note the "usually", and that WP:RS is open to interpretation, and also has "The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content" and "[P]rimary sources which purport to debunk a long-standing consensus or introduce a new discovery [are maybe not so great], (in which case awaiting studies that attempt to replicate the discovery might be a good idea, or reviews that validate the methods used to make the discovery)" and "[A] paper reviewing existing research, a review article, monograph, or textbook is often better than a primary research paper" and "A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs" as well as, right at the top, "Editors should generally follow [this policy], though exceptions may apply". Exceptions might be when an article is terribly POV and is being defended to the death by a crew of POV warriors, IMO. Whether that applies here I musn't say; you decide, Dear Reader. (N.B. to be fair I've cherry-picked a little bit, there are different quotes in WP:RS that might kind of support a different interpretation. I'll leave that for others to get if they wish, I don't care to make your arguments for you.)

So, in the normal course of things, being of the mind "peer-reviewed academic journal, we can use it, period" is acceptable as far as it goes. It's acceptable if you don't have the need to dig deeper (the usual case). We are busy, this is a hobby, we have to move fast, if we spent hours deep-checking each fact the project would slow down, we are not Citizendium or ourselves an academic publication, we rely on the fact-checking of sources (altho we also do our own). If the ref'd material is very minor, or if it seems that it would be prima facie true to any reasonable person, or if one's searching has found no significant counter-argument to the ref'd material, or if the material is neither contended (opposed by an editor(s)) nor contentious (a reasonable editor might have some objection to it on ideological or like grounds (the usual case; someone's birthdate, for instance, is not usually contentious), or if one lacks the time, interest, diligence, or acuity to dig deeper, and so on, then that's one thing.

However, if there is reason to believe that a matter is contested or contentious, and does not look to be prima facie true, and if one has the time to look deeper, and there's reasonable reason to do so and materials with which to do so, that is different. And that is the situation here.

Relying entirely on just the one passage from WP:RS, for important, debatable, and contestable material, well... one might expect this from new users, from the mediocre, from the ideologically compromised, from the uncaring, from the confused, from children.

But you all and we all, we've been through that, and this is not our fate, so let us not talk falsely now.

I wrote Wikipedia:Reliable sources checklist long ago. It's not very good, but makes some fair points. One is that the publication is important, but so is the author. Authors -- even professors -- are just human, and (beside maybe just mediocre) have motivations. Someone writes something, but why? Quo Bono? Nobody writes for no reason. Of course usually the reason is proper and unexceptional -- contribute to human knowledge -- and that's fine. But maybe not always.

Regarding facts, one thing I learned only recently is that peer-reviewed journals do not fact check. They are looking to see if the methods are done correctly to standard and the conclusions are reasonable. If an article concludes that a new particle has been discovered, the peers don't go verify if this is true, they present the conclusion for others to reproduce (if it's a hard science) and verify. So for some kinds of statments we're vulnerable to stuff like here, where an egregiously false statistic spread around the world even tho when Nature investigated they found that "Among the 348 documents that we found to include the [completely false] claim are 186 peer-reviewed journal articles, including some in BioScience, The Lancet Planetary Health and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society..." Nobody at all these fine journals fact-checked. So, you know, we are never absolved from our duty to be skeptical of some of the facts in any source.

That's for facts. I don't know if we are going to be checking actual facts (how many potshards had inscriptions, where the skeletons were found, etc) or have the chops to vet them. Just pointing this out.

Now, going on the motivations. I know little of archeology but just a little bit of history, and I do know that "publish or perish" is a thing, and that works should usually present something new. "I wrote a book about Abraham Lincoln, and found nothing new. I just moved around and rewrote and added details with stuff that's already known" you will get nowhere. "I wrote a book about Abraham Lincoln, and putting together various clues from various sources, I conclude that he had Attention Defecit Disorder". Something new! Something to get you invited to present at symposiums! Something to get people talking about the book and about you! Something for colleagues to write refutations or support! Something for the New York Review of Books to review! Something for the department head to pat your head and give you a biscuit (so to speak)! Something for the tenure comittee to be aware of when the time comes! Something a cute male colleague wants to discuss over coffee! Etc.

And this is good. That is what historians are for. To advance human knowlege by digging deep and looking at the facts in a different way, and maybe coming up with something new and worthwhile. This doesn't mean that Lincoln did have ADD. Maybe he did, maybe not. Who knows? It'll never be provable, but it's a historian doing her job correctly, and thank goodness for historians. It might someday become standard belief enough for us to say "the academic consensus is that Lincoln had ADD". Or maybe it will just fade away. Time will tell. But we seldom want to say "Lincoln had ADD" in our own voice unless it's really only contested by a few outliers. But now here's the crux, the in-between state... should we write "According to Professor Flutesnoot, Lincoln had ADHD."'? It depends. It'd be a true statement, and course one could say "It is true, and the reader can check it, so we can write it, end of story". But we are not children here. We know that writing that would put the notion into the reader's head.

So anyway.. we have to dig deeper and consider more thoughtfully. If Flutesnoot is an associate professor at East Jesus State Teacher's College, maybe not. If she's a distinguished professor at Yale, maybe. There are other considerations. Are there any marks on Flutesnoot's record? Has she (politely) been called an idiot by several other academics? Were some of her previous papers dismissed as claptrap? Has she won prestigious prize? Does she have an article here? How has her other work been recieved? What is her citation score? Is she a Lost Causer? And who all knows what else. These are all data points. Not proof of anything, but data points.

There's no rule anybody can give us to decide these things. That is why we have wits and experience and judgement, n'est-ce pas? I know it can feel discomfiting when there's no hard rule to cling to. But we are not here to feel comfortable.

Of course, one could say "What claptrap, Herostratus. It doesn't work like that. Academics are comitted to science, period. They are above all that, and they moved by such things. Stop dragging an entire profession thru the mud based on personal speculation. Stop bloviating about stuff half of which I can't even understand. It's a hobby and I literally don't have the time or inclination to read all this, give me three bullet points, this is TL;DR." Fine. You're excused. This is the grown-up table.

So, moving on, next, we will look at each source, point by point. We know that you all have been waiting for this. This is you all's wheelhouse, your one trick, put aside the mountain of points that demonstrate that this article is an egregious and frankly vile unwikipedian POV hatchet job, and talk about each point and argue fruitlessly about whether or not we can say something printed in a peer-reviewed journal in our own voice, period stop end of discussion. Let's argue whether "cherry-picking" is just a personal opinion, is not defined, and isn't even a thing since a fact is a fact and we are allowed to choose which ones to use. And so on. Let's pretend it's fun!

With you all's permisson, I will now take a break, hoping this meets with your approval. Herostratus (talk) 01:47, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I am sure we are all looking forward to your analysis of the sources. I enjoy your writing style but we can’t make any decisions with the points you make above – they could apply to any article in Wikipedia. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:51, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

I think he was setting out a common ground. I note it is also possible to cite a source with a popular but bad claim in order to refute it with better sources showing that the claim has been fully rejected by the scholarly consensus. The key word here would be popular and therefore something that people might expect to see (see Shroud of Turin section on Fringe Theories). It is still up to wikipedia editors to use the source appropriately. Erp (talk) 00:33, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Oh just came across this in Smithsonian Magazine: “'Since archaeology is a humanistic science, it matters greatly who is doing the asking and generating the data,'” White explains." "White" is Bill White from UC Berkely, he doesn't have an article here but looks to be a legit professor and field archeologist. I think he makes a fair point. Herostratus (talk) 04:12, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, archaeology and history are both frequently used in the service of nationalism. Archaeology costs money – funding does not come for free. You might consider reading the fascinating book Facts on the Ground. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:54, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

First ref

Executive summary: We are looking at the first ref. This is not a very good ref, I would not consider acceptable in the context it is used. If the |quote field is removed that'd be an improvement. But I would still tend to think that there must be better refs for the staement ref'd.

---

There are long quotes in some of the refs. That is fine. There are refs in the lede. That's a bit unusual but it also is fine. OK, so starting in the first ref, in the lede:

• Statement ref'd: "The Masada myth is the early Zionist retelling of the Siege of Masada, and an Israeli national myth"
• What's the publication?: The Journal of Military History. Legit, scholarly, peer-reviewed.
• What is it?: It's a book review (of The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel by Nachman Ben-Yehuda. That is totally fine or course and we use revies all the time, but reviews are different from original writing, so the book being reviewed has to be considered and probably vetted.
• Who's the author?: Rose Mary Sheldon.
• Ia she expert?: She is, yes, quite good credentials. She has an article here, and she has a Ph.D., been a professor at VMI, written several books, specializes particularly in intelligence in the ancient world, and I can't find a word against her.
• Is she biased?: Not any more then the next person as far as I know.
• Can you access the source?: I can't, no. I can access some JSTOR documents, but not this one.
• Does the ref support the material?: In the sense that it supports the fact that Nachman Ben-Yehuda did indeed the write the things she is paraphrasing, and that her paraphrasing is proper, yes. It doesn't support that any facts in the material being paraphrased are true. For that we will have to vet the book being paraphrased from.
• Anything else? Yes. It's a quite interesting situation, actually. We are going to have to lay it out in detail, below, when we vet the book.

So, the article is a review of The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel by Nachman Ben-Yehuda. I only have access to the abstract for this article, that I can find. But fortunately, this article's editors have provided an excerpt, a long note added to the ref as it appears in the ref section. This is perfectly fine of course, we do this sometimes and IMO its a good way to get material in without muddying the main line.

So, the text taken from Rose Mary Sheldon's article and put into the |quote field of the ref is:

Sheldon 1998, p. 448: "The belief system he refers to is a myth created around the story of Masada and the Jewish fighters who committed suicide there at the end of the Great Jewish War against Rome in A.D. 73. The story, as Josephus tells it, is not one of heroism. The sicarii on Masada were simply an extremist group of terrorists who had never participated in the Jewish Revolt to begin with and had spent more time killing other Jews than fighting the Romans. Modern twentieth-century Zionists, however, took the original story, eliminated the more embarrassing parts (like the massacre of Jews at Ein Gedi by the sicarii), then used the remaining core to construct a "mythical narrative" of heroism, sacrifice, and national pride for modern Israelis."

All this is in support of the statemenht "The Masada myth is the early Zionist retelling of the Siege of Masada, and an Israeli national myth". So, no, the ref does not support the statement in the sense that "reffing a statement" is intended. It this was a court of law you might get the judge to agree that, technically, the letter of law allows it. But it's not a court of law. The ref isn't lying, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the material the the ref is supposed to support. There's tons of material in the |quote field that has nothing to do with the ref'd statement, and this is pretty suspicious. Why would an editor do that. Could be a mistake or sloppiness. Could be. I would not want to accuse a colleague of being sloppy or incompetent, so maybe it's something else?

So, this ref is kind of like, for a person you don't like, you ref his birtplace to an article "Smith was born and grew up in Sandusky, Ohio, and went on to be a top neo-fascist radio personality, and also egregious asshole, grifter, kleptomaniac, and goat-fucker" to ref his birthplace. The title of the article is Does Smith Fuck Goats? The source is reliable for his birthplace, but the other stuff is characterization and can't be proven (or let's say it isn't, in the article), so you can't use it in a WP:BLP. But you got it into the article! Sure, down in the refs, which is a more obscure position than you like, but plenty of people will still read it, and be like "Goats? Really?". And if you think you can get away with it, you can put all kinds of depractory stuff in the |quote field. It's clever work. It's smart work. But, you know, we have seen this exact same thing before. We are not children, or tyros. "It is cleverly disguised" is not a good defense for POV material.

And we aren't going to assume good faith. I mean we wouldn't want to accuse any colleagues of incompetence. At some point a person has to demonstrate good faith. The makers of this article haven't done that, in fact they have drowned good faith in the bathtub and run it thru the wood chipper. We have demonstrated this many times on this talk page and elsewhere. And we'll do it again if warranted. Yes anybody can say "How dare you say that, I'm pure as the driven snow. And anyway you cannot know anything about my internal mental state." But anybody can say anything. It's what you do that counts.

So, basically Rose Mary Sheldon is describing what is in the book being reviewed. She's not really writing solely in her own words. So we had better vet the book. the |quote field in the ref is part of the article after all, so let's look at that.

• Statement ref'd: "The story... is not one of heroism... the [legendary defends of Masada] were... an extremist group of terrorists... [who] had spent more time killing other Jews than fighting the Romans... Modern Zionists... eliminated the embarassing parts (like the massacre of Jews...". (The stuff I elided is mostly anodyne filler; the full text is right above if you don't believe me.)
• What's the source?: A book, The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel. University of Wisconsin Press, which is a legit academic publisher. Doesn't mean it was rigoursly fact-checked, but that not really an issue here. It was published in 1995.
• Who's the author?: Nachman Ben-Yehuda.
• Is he expert?:Yes. He has an article here, which says he is "professor emeritus and former dean of the department of sociology and anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem", which looks to be a legit top-tier university." So, good credentials.
• Is he biased?: Yes, he is. For one thing, he says he experienced a traumatic event. This seems to have flipped him from cherishing the Masada myth being appalled by it, the opposite pole. Trauma can do that, I suppose. So he is possibly compromised and may be unable to approach the material cool-headely enough. We will have to see. It is a red flag anyway.
• Can you access the source?: I can't, no. It's a book. The article editors could, tho, and I assume their reporting of Rose Mary Sheldon's paraphrasing of Nachman Ben-Yehudai is all correct.
• Does the ref support the material?: Not really, not in the sense that we are supposed to use refs. We've discussed that above.

So... above we have the actuall material, so to analyze it a bit: It's all Nachman Ben-Yehuda's considered opinion based on his interpetation of sources. However "opinion" not a deal-killer necessarily. His considered opinion is based on forensic examination of the (one, quite unreliable) ancient source we have, of interpretations of recent archeological digs, and... that's it, basically. Hard data on this subjec is just pretty thin. That's not going to keep academics from writing about it. There are tea leaves to be read. But the sources are thin. And apparently there's no "the general consensus of historian is..." on this subject. There isn't one. There isn't enough data. One guy interprets the source and the latest archeological digs one way, another another way. There's lively academic discussion and disagreement on the subject. Nachman Ben-Yehuda is in this, and it looks like he is kind of an outlier.

So, what is Nachman Ben-Yehuda's considered opinion? It's highly inflammatory for starters. Let's start with "the [legendary defenders of Masada] were... an extremist group of terrorists". "Terrorist" is a really loaded word, as is "extemist". One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Anyway, we want to avoid terms like "terrorist" -- particularly when we don't actually know anything much about them for sure, whether they were terrorists or thugs or what, or what, and if they were terrorists it seems they were using terror to fight the occupiers of their country, which is kind of different from the Zodiac Killer or whatever. We don't know. So moving on... "spent more time killing other Jews than fighting the Romans"... If true it's fine. But we don't know if it's true or not, and it's pretty strong for something we are just guessing at. All this might be OK if Ben-Yehuda is cool-headely neutral. So let's look at that.

There ara good number of reviews of The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel, and of course we'll look at them all as we go forward. Again, I'm just a peasant so I can mostly only access the abstracts. But here is the abstract of a review from Brigham Young University Studies. It has:

Perhaps to cushion the shock inflicted on fellow Israelis but his debunking of the 'Masada myth, Nachman Ben-Yehuda prefaces his analysis with a confession of trauma he personally experience in 1987 when his own faith was shaken... he read a paper by David Rappaport portraying the Sicarii on ancient Masada as Jewish terrorists. Simce that portrayal conficted with what he had learned in Israeli schooling and military service, [he] rushed to check the main source, Josephus's The Jewish War...

We don't know who David Rappoport [Rapoport!] is, he doesn't have an article or even much of a google presence. Rapoport is a distinguished academic. (change by Herostratus (talk) 18:52, 25 March 2025 (UTC)) I don't know how to take "trauma". It may be just hyperbole, or it may have been a life-changing event. We'll have to look into that. But I would tend to want to shy away from a source like that for such a fraught and contentious subject.

So anyway, Nachman Ben-Yehuda read The Jewish War and this was a life-changing experience for him (the whole thing is here., which is the source document for the myth (the stuff in it is different than what the myth says, or might be. This is to be expected for myths one would think.)

The Jewish War is 1) ancient, 2) the work of one guy (Josephus) and not fact-checked in any way, and 3) that one guy may have had an agenda (he was a former Jewish freedom fighter who went over the Romans, and could have had reason to please his Roman masters I suppose. I would speculate that he might have wanted to justify to himself being a turncoat you'd think, cos that's how people work. Who knows? Nobody.)

According to Our article on Josephus {{[Josephus] blames the Jewish War on what he calls "unrepresentative and over-zealous fanatics" among the Jews, who led the masses away from their traditional aristocratic leaders (like himself), with disastrous results. For example, Josephus writes that "Simon [bar Giora] was a greater terror to the people than the Romans themselves."}}

Like himself, eh? Sounds pretty sketchy. More at Josephus. It's lomg article and if I'm cherry-picking let me know. If this was a modern work we probably wouldn't use it. I expect that what he writes has some basis in fact tho. "Some basis in fact" is well below our reliablilty standards, and secondary works based in such a document would be suspect to, I would think.

So, so far I think that Nachman Ben-Yehuda is a sketchy source for this sort of thing, considering that we have other sources such as Masada: from Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth by Jodi Magness, who is "Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill" and so forth. She is not used as ref in the article at all, for whatever reason. We actually have a copy here, so we will be looking at that. I mean it can't be a matter of vetting her as a ref, cos she's not used as ref for whatever reason. But still. Let's see if she supports Ben-Yehuda and to what degree, shall we?

Anyway. That is the first ref, for the first sentence. We will get to the second presently. Herostratus (talk) 08:38, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Dismissing the only contemporary source is simply preposterous, though of course we should rely on modern experts to interpret Josephus rather than doing it ourselves. I have both books (1996 and 2006) that Ben-Yehuda wrote on Masada, and Sheldon's review of the first one. I also have Magnes' book. Magnes also supports the "myth" aspect of the story and I don't find any explicit disagreement with Ben-Yehuda in her book: "Nachman Ben-Yehuda, an Israeli sociologist, notes that the Masada myth is based on a whitewashing of Josephus’s account. For example, instead of referring to sicarii, the Jews atop Masada are typically described as Zealots, as for example by Yadin, or as defenders or rebels—neutral terms that mask the group’s violent activities. Their terrorism of other Jews, including the massacre of innocent villagers at Ein Gedi, is overlooked in the Masada myth (see chapters 7 and 8).". The terrorism aspect is examined at great length by Magnes who is not inclined to deny it: "Although many scholars have offered different solutions to reconcile these contradictions, most agree that Eleazar ben Yair and his group at Masada were sicarii. Nonetheless, Yadin’s consistent use of the term Zealots rather than sicarii to describe the dominant rebel group at Masada continues to cause confusion,..." Magnes refers to the "Masada myth" repeatedly and has quite a lot on it. At first (and second) sight, the first sentence of this article is in perfect accord with Magnes' book. Zero^talk 12:51, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

I'm not dismissing Josephus. I'm saying that he is considered dubious. I think everyone agrees that we can't take everything he says at face value, nor dismiss everything he says. It's the debatable land in between where people are working. We are generally careful with other old sources too. Tacitus, Herotodus, Thucidities. Geoffory of Monmouth, Venerable Bede. I think it was Ptolemy who said ostriches stick their heads in the sand. These're different from modern histories. They just are. For one thing, none of these were run thru any kind of independent fact-checking process I think.

Sure let's say it was Sicarii. Who were they? I don't really know. Neither do you. Our article Sicarii starts off "The Sicarii were a group of Jewish Zealots...", so were they Zealots or weren't they? They are said to have carried concealed blades and used them. So did Brutus and his crew. They assassinated the head of their country. So did Czech commandos. So did Russian SR's. Etc. etc. etc. Lots of people don't like God-Emperors or invaders. Sometimes they demonstrate this with deadly weapons.

Was the Sicarii assassination of the High Priest -- who would not have kept that position if he was not collaborating with the invaders I would think -- different from these? I mean after all, collaborating with invaders willraise your life insurance rates. Or was it just that the Sicarii were bloodthirsty maniacs who killed him for fun or to rob him? I don't know. But I know what I think. And I think that you're not going to write stuff like "Terrorist murderers fell upon on their country's Protector, Reinhard Heydrich, when he was out for a ride, and slaughtered him in cold blood" in articles having nothing to do with Israel. I mean all that is true. But you're not going to write that in articles about say Italy. Imagine that. Wonder why. Sure you're quoting someone rather than just writing it on your own dime. So what. Lots of people write lots of stuff. I have an article about a professor -- I f'get who -- who thinks the Sandy Hook shooting was staged. That is super fringe so I'm not going to use him as a source. You can always find fringers. There're plenty of cherries to pick from the tree.

Anyway, Ben-Yehuda uses poor language like that. He's a sketchy source with a super strong bias. We want him out altogether. Yigael Yadin is even worse I gather, we don't want him in either. I mean not altogether, they could be mentioned -- mostly as persons, not reffing material to them. We have got better sources.

I am confident that Magness's book does indeed support that first quite broad and unobjectionable sentence. Then why didn't you all use Magness. You all know who she is; she's in the bibliography. Her book is a third of a century newer. She's a well-regarded archeologist and full professor at a fairly well-regarded large university and was at Tufts before that. And she doesn't have PTSD nor use inflammatory language. Just an oopsie moment? If you all were just being sloppy, why did you drop those inflammatory quotes into the ref? And why are you getting into a balls-to-the-wall knife fight to defend the ref and keep it? It's quite suspicious.

(BTW FWIW I just wrote Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth cos I was looking at the reviews anyway. If you think I wasn't fair-minded then conversations on the talk page would be welcome.) Herostratus (talk) 20:29, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Your penultimate paragraph is aggressively worded and, again, fails to WP:AGF. Please lower the tone of your comments.

Please clarify who is "you all"? Your comment is responding to User:Zero, who has (coincidentally to his user name) made exactly zero edits to this article.

Regarding your comment He's a sketchy source with a super strong bias. We want him out altogether, that is your view, but not the view of any of the scholarly reviews. It is also an unacceptable way to malign the former dean of the department of sociology and anthropology at Israel's most prestigious academic institution.

Let's please stop with hyperbole and assumptions of bad faith and focus on whether there is something in the article that doesn’t stand up to the highest levels of scrutiny. You have written 3,000 words of comments so far without identifying a single example of this.

Onceinawhile (talk) 22:56, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

With respect to your comments about whether or not the Josephus telling was accurate, this has been discussed in the archives here in some detail. See for example my comment from 13 October 2024. As I wrote there, that debate is not relevant to this article: Scholars debate whether contemporary sources about Saint Nicholas are true. Just like Josephus's Masada story, it is probable that the "real truth" was different. In the infinite number of possible true versions of Saint Nicholas, there is a theoretical scenario where he really did have a flying sleigh and reindeer, just as it is theoretically possible that the Sicarii (dagger-people) were kind-hearted brave and nationalistic defenders of Jewish culture. Since it can be demonstrated that both Santa Claus and the Masada myth are modern inventions, scholars leave it there rather than getting stuck in a loop of philosophical indeterminacy. This allows us to be comfortable saying that both modern stories of Santa Claus and the Masada myth are untrue.

Onceinawhile (talk) 00:09, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Regarding the comment We don't know who David Rappoport is, he doesn't have an article or even much of a google presence, I have added the relevant article by David C. Rapoport to the bibliography. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:12, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Oh jeez I misspelled his name, no wonder I couldn't find him. Oops. Thanks for pointing that out, I will strike it. Herostratus (talk) 18:52, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

As for "why didn't you all use Magness": First, nobody has pointed out a serious disagreement between Magness and Ben-Yehuda and nobody has pointed out things we would write differently if we used Magness instead of Ben-Yehuda. Second, both of them are reliable sources and the optimal route is to use both. As for Josephus, as I said before we should use him only via modern experts and for that reason our personal analysis of Josephus' reliability is completely irrelevant. Zero^talk 00:52, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

@Herostratus: are you still intending to bring any proposals for specific and actionable amendments to the content here? Onceinawhile (talk) 15:21, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes. Herostratus (talk) 19:32, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

But first I'll jot down some thoughts, since I already wrote them. Herostratus (talk) 05:59, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

By "you all" I mean the people who are refusing to allow the article to be tagged for POV. Remember, while we are indeed discussing whether the article is POV or not, we are doing so under the condition of not being allowed to have the {{POV}} tag on the article on the implicit threat of being dragged to ANI if we try. (Whether that's a the kind of behavior we'd expect from people who are confident in their arguments, I will have to leave to the reader's judgement.) So the question is "Should the notion that this article is POV be dismissed our of hand as not even worth discussing?" User:Zero0000 is welcome to the "you all" club. Anybody is. But there's no need for pearl-clutching. If you don't want to be spoken to plainly, don't defend silly propositions like that; WP:AGF is good for a starting point, at some point you have to demonstrate good faith, and putting the {{POV}} tag back would be at least a start.

Re "our personal analysis of Josephus' reliability is completely irrelevant". Well, there's a lot goes into making an encyclopedia. One of them is the brains, wit, skill, knowledge, experience, and strict neutrality of the individual editors. If we are are supposed to treat sources as if we are credulous dolts, OK if you say so, but what about when sources disagree? Since our personal analysis is completely irrelevant, what do we do? Not write the article? Consult our Magic 8 Ball? Head to a nearby bar where we can get drunk and some intelligent conversation? I am all ears, colleagues.

So here is Eric D. Huntsman, and since you all's position seems to be that your personal analysis of Josephus' reliability is completely irrelevant, I guess we'll have to use his, right?

So Huntsman comes in with... I have a few paragraphs of excerpts which I'll hide, but he basically rips into Josephus and certainly gives a number of good reasons to consider Jewish Wars as a cross between a historical novel and a polemical tract. You can read the details below if you wish.

Excerpts from Huntsman's ariticle

---

"Josephus however was sometimes inaccurate, somewhat evasive, prone to tangents, and even sloppy in his writing... when elements of Josephus's works are contradictory, inaccurate, obviously fabricated, or simply wrong, the nmodem reader may begin to question Josephus's reliability. To understand how an author like Josephus could be both a great writer and at the same time a questionable historian we must understand the difference between history and historiography... In antiquity historiography was writing about history and was a literary genre of its own. To the sophisticated reading audiences of Greece and Rome, rhetoric was as important as accuracy... the authors tried to persuade their audiences that what the authors thought happened or even what they thought should have happened actually occurred. Therefore Greek and Roman writers of history omitted, expanded, or compressed historical material to suit their own needs, freely appropriated whole passages from other writers, and readily invented detail while adorning their narrative to make it more persuasive and aesthetically pleasing. How clearly Josephus falls into the classical historiographic tradition is clear from the direct influence exerted on him by previous greek authors... Gregory Sterling has identified a subgenre of history writing that he calls apologetic historiography. He sees this as a type of writing particularly in the Hellenized near east in which a local content (the history of a particular people) is recounted in a non-native form adapted from a superimposed dominant culture... Josephus engaged in this kind of apologetic writing when he tried to redefine Judaism within the context of a Greco-Roman world. By doing so he hoped to inform others about his people while defending them and their traditions from growing antisemitism among the Greeks... Hence in a famous episode prior to the fall of Masada to the Romans, Josephus composed an elaborate philosophical treatise for the rebel leader Eleazar. Josephus was not present to hear what speech if any Eleazar actually gave... The speech, like others in Josephus's works, is a literary creation... Since ancient history was intended to be didactic, Its writers fashioned their narratives for their own purposes... if an event did not support their point they were free to ignore or modify it... some of Josephus's sources were in as much a position to approve or even censure his account as they were were to provide information for it... it is apparent that these political figures were able to influence and even direct his history, insomuch that it has been suggested that Jewish War' was a work commissioned by the imperial government... The need to please his patrons provided Josephus with an external bias that imposed limits on what he could and could not include in his work... It was Josephus's internal bias, however, that had the greatest affect on his selection and use of evidence... Josephus's solution to this dilemma was to blame the war on... the Jewish extremists whom, whether they were the zealots in Jerusalem or the Sicarii who seized control of Masada he called lēstēs or 'bandits'. This shifting of blame however is probably only the proximate purpose of Jewish War... The reliability of the works of Josephus suffered even more after the texts actually left his hands... the oldest manuscripts date between the ninth and eleventh centuries, at least eight hundred years after Josephus first began to write. During that time copying errors were made, marginal notes were accidentally included, and interpolations were,willfully injected into the text..."

You can read the whole thing here Herostratus (talk) 06:05, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

---

Now, Eric D. Huntsman is a full professor too. At a large, famous, second-tier university rated R1 for research. B.A. in Greek and Latin, Ph.D.in Ancient History and Classics from an Ivy League school (Penn). Written scads of scholarly books and articles. Association of Ancient Historians member. Started out at BYU in the Ancient History and Classics department, is (or was) coordinator of the Ancient Near Eastern Studies program. Has the usual log-rolling awards (Susan and Harvey Black Outstanding Publication Award, Honors Professor of the Year, that sort of thing). But he's not used anywhere in your copious refs or even mentioned in your extensive bilbliography. Well imagine that.

Is Huntsman reliable? I mean if we are only allowed to judge on credentials, he has to be, prima facie. We can say anything he writes in our voice, just as we apparantly do with Ben-Yehuda and anyone else with a fancy CV. Or am I missing something here?

But he's not reliable, at all. I would prefer it if he was, but since I'm fair-minded and honest (the water's fine), I have to vouchsafe that he's not. He reliable for his own opinions ("According to Eric Huntsman...") and even then I wouldn't usually use that without giving a proximate valid contrary opinion, if there is one.

Why isn't he reliable? He's biased. He's a Mormon. Not just a Mormon, but a really really religious Mormon cocooned in a Mormon university. Born in New Mexico and I surmise he was brought up Mormon. Did his missionary work, was in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and was even a Mormon bishop (altho in Mormonism that really just means "lay pastor", but still.) He's at the College of Religious Education, where he is or was a Professor of Ancient Scripture (emphasis mine). In the work I quoted from above, he used the term "the Lord" when he wasn't quoting anyone directly and other people might have said "Jesus". There's nothing actually wrong with any of that. But wait, it gets worse. In addition to his works like "The Impact of Gentile Conversions in the Greco-Roman World" and "Levels of Meaning: The Ara Pacis Augustae and the Teaching of Roman History" and so forth, he's written stuff like "Good Tidings of Great Joy: An Advent Celebration of the Savior's Life" and "Worship: Adding Depth to Your Devotion" and "Communicating With The Lord" and "Greater Love Hath No Man: A Latter-day Saint Guide to Celebrating the Easter Season" and just a whole gobs of stuff like that or even more hard-core religious. I'm sure he's a great guy, but I would be super leery of anything he writes that might in some way intersect with the Mormon religion, broadly construed. Which ancient events in the Holy Land pretty much have to. And without looking it up, I bet that Church of Latter-Day Saints would be quite pleased to advance the notion that the Masada myth is more true than it is.

Sure one could say "Huntsman's a fancy-dan professor, so he's a reliable source, so we can report what he says as fact, full stop. It's not our job to try to surmise what anyone's internal state is or guess if anyone is 'biased' one way or the other". Anybody can say anything that suits them. Doesn't mean its not silly. Because there's no such thing as "reliability-laundering". There's no such thing is "Such-and-so is a terrible source, but I am a distinguished professor with lots of expertise, and therefore I am a very reliable secondary source. So if I, for whatever reason, choose to consider Such-and-so's writings as factual, the Wikipedia can and even must treat them as coming from a very reliable secondary source and therefore reportable as stone solid fact". But that's nonsense, so Huntsman is mostly out.

But if Huntsman is out, so is Ben-Yehuda. And if Ben-Yehuda is in, so is Huntsman. Sauce for the goose. Herostratus (talk) 05:59, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

But anyway Magness agrees with Huntsman, basically, although briefly as it's not her main interest, so you still have to shoot down Magness. She even lumps Josephus in with Thucydidies as a storyteller, too. Magness: "On the one hand, [Jewish War] is intended as a cautionary tale for peoples living under Roman rule not to consider the possibility of revolt... on the other hand, for the benefit of a Roman audience, Josephus pins the blame for the First Revolt on extremists and criminals who do not represent Judaism or the Jews." (pp. 20-21). And, you know, states like Rome have been using Josephus's language since forever. When the Soviets were hunting down the Ukrainian guerillas after WWII, did they characterize them as patriots or as bandits? Two guesses. Regimes fighting nationalist guerillas are always characterizing them as gangs of simple common criminals. What would be remarkable was if Josephus didn't do that. Herostratus (talk) 05:59, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, but you are altogether missing the point. Almost no scholar today, least of all Ben-Yehuda or Magness, treats Josephus as the source of literal truth. Of course he made lots of stuff up; everyone knows that even though they don't always agree on which bits are reliable. Everyone agrees that Josephus had no way to know the content of the speech of Eleazar nor probably that there was such a speech. This article is not a defense of Josephus at all, and just because things probably happened differently from how Josephus describes it does not mean they must have happened in a way that is an invention of modern times. The probable falsity of one myth does not prove a different myth. Besides that, Eleazar is a great example because it is precisely his alleged speech that most inspires the modern myth. Incidentally, your response to "our personal analysis of Josephus' reliability is completely irrelevant" indicates that you need to study WP:NPOV some more. The limit of our license to analyze ancient sources is to choose between the modern published sources which perform that analysis. Zero^talk 12:44, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Agreed.

In addition, Herostratus' post is founded upon a logical fallacy: the claim that by establishing a source as unreliable (Josephus), the truth can be found by analyzing what could constitute the polar opposite of the source’s claims. Suffice to say, this is not an accepted practice by real historians.

This mistake is the only reason I can find for why we are still discussing an ancient source when this article is about a modern myth.

Onceinawhile (talk) 16:53, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Re "this article is about a modern myth", no it's not. Who would think that. It's mainly digression into analysis of the actual events that inspired a myth (and spun to make the Masada defenders look bad, which is the POV raison d'etre for this article after all). Sure it is titled "Masaday myth", but anybody can title anything anything.

Nowhere in the lede or futher down does it say what the Masada myth is and says. That part we're assuming the reader already knows I guess.

Here is how the Google AI talks about the subject.

The "Masada myth" is a Zionist narrative, based on Josephus's account, that portrays the defenders of Masada as heroic freedom fighters who chose death over capture by the Romans, becoming a symbol of Jewish resistance and national heroism in modern Israel.

According to Josephus's account, the Jewish rebels, known as Sicarii, fortified themselves on the mountaintop fortress of Masada and resisted the Roman siege for several years. When the Romans breached the fortress, the rebels, rather than surrender, chose to commit mass suicide, killing their families and each other, rather than be captured and enslaved.

The Masada myth, which emerged in Mandatory Palestine and later Israel, selectively emphasizes Josephus's account, highlighting the defenders' courage and resistance while omitting details of their violent actions against other Jews.

The early Zionist settlers used the Masada myth to establish a sense of national heroism and promote patriotism, solidifying Masada's status as a symbol of Jewish resistance and national identity.

Then it goes into analysis of the actual event:

While the myth is revered in modern Israel as a symbol of Jewish heroism and a "last stand" against an aggressive empire, some scholars and archaeologists have questioned the accuracy of Josephus's account, suggesting that the mass suicide narrative might be an exaggeration or even a fabrication.

Archaeological evidence, including the discovery of Roman artifacts and the lack of extensive skeletal remains, has led to some debate about the extent of the mass suicide and the accuracy of Josephus's account.

Despite the ongoing debate about the myth's historical accuracy, Masada remains a significant site in Israel, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and a symbol of Jewish history and resilience.

Even my cat agrees that this is better than what we have. The reader actually learns something abput the subject, rather than wading thru an academic exercise about who can do the better hatchet job. When AI can do a better job than you it might be cause to think about if maybe you're working in an area that best fits your skill at staying cold-bloodely neutral.

I'm not suggesting that we use AI text. There's a lot wrong with the example above, and We can do a lot better than that. I'm just saying it's better than what we have now, which is kind of embarassing. At least it's not dripping with vitriol every second sentence.

hhat we mainly want is a telling of the myth -- is there more than a couple sentences, which is all I've seen? I'm wanting a popular text, like say a book titled "Our Beloved Heroes of Masada" or whatever, maybe a childrens book, was there one or two that sold well? Give me details, fair use excerpts. How was the myth propagated -- was there a popular movie(s) or what. Other stuff like that. Exerpts from the poem.

What actually happened at the battle to the extent we know, and various people's ideas of what might have happened, belongs in the article Siege of Masada, where indeed it is, and done better. Who actually killed who and where and why... that is not part of the myth. The myth doesn't say anything about numbers of skeletons and potshards and anything about the Masada defenders being maybe blackguards and whatnot. The myth is (I assume) not told like this: "Now, my dears, I will tell you a story. It's about some heroes from long ago, from our very own country. Now, the man who first told this story said they weren't heroes at all but rather common criminals and murderers, but tonite we'll just pretend they were heroes. So, once upon a time..."

Siege of Masada is not very long, and neither is this article, and merging them would make sense. Then the reader could get all this in one place. But I mean resistance to this obvious move is why we are wasting our lives on this stupid thing. Herostratus (talk) 06:28, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm struggling to find any point in continuing this discussion. Your AI version is so close to what we actually have that I strongly suspect this article was included in the training set. Zero^talk 08:29, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh jeez, yeah that's a bad feeling, struggling. Let's see... trying to keep it simple... in the AI version, the term "brigands" is not used... there's nothing about "puzzled scholars"... we don't have "one of the least significant and least successful events in ancient Jewish history"... "plundered local villages"... "massacred over 700 women and children"... "often whitewashed Josephus's account, overlooking the Sicarii's violent actions and presenting them instead as heroic defenders"... "prominence in the collective memory of Israel has surprised scholars because [it] differs from common national myths, which... narrate heroics"... "The rigid and uncompromising stance symbolized by Masada became associated with right-wing nationalism..." and so on. See the difference? The AI isn't really polemical and actually tells more about what is in the myth ("According to Josephus's account, the Jewish rebels, known as Sicarii, fortified themselves on the mountaintop fortress of Masada"... "When the Romans breached the fortress, the rebels, rather than surrender, chose to commit mass suicide, killing their families and each other, rather than be captured and enslaved"...). The current version does refer to these (alleged) events, but more in passing and assuming that the reader already know all this.

Yeah? If you still don't get it, I suppose I can try to put it in easier terms. But at the end of the day, I can explain it to you, but I can't understand if for you. But by all means if it's a struggle, there's no shame in not continuing the discussion and going on to to other tasks which you might find less taxing, and that is fine, and Godspeed. Herostratus (talk) 03:16, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Are you saying you think these phrases, or something very close to them, are not found in the original sources?

If you accept that the article has, in fact, meticulously followed the sources, are you saying the sources are not reliable? If so, please provide details of your claim(s).

Some of the quotes you brought were simply direct translations of Josephus made by scholars. If you don’t like the word plunder or massacre, perhaps you could choose a synonym from the original Greek – here is the original Greek version of the only extant source for the Pillage of Ein Gedi.

PS – it seems you have not yet understood what the sources describe the myth to be. The myth is the version created in the 20th century. Your words "and actually tells more about what is in the myth" followed by quotes from Josephus' original account show that you think the myth is what Josephus wrote. That is not how any scholars use the term “Masada myth”.

Onceinawhile (talk) 23:18, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I also have the impression that Herostratus does not understand what this article is about. Zero^talk 04:14, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

@Herostratus: please could you comment on the points above? Onceinawhile (talk) 18:27, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I will, as soon as I can. Probably tomorrow. Thank you for your patience. Herostratus (talk) 05:37, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Should the intro expand briefly on what a national myth is? We would need a short phrase with a good reference. Erp (talk) 01:32, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I had an epiphany! I didn't understand what this article is about! Or maybe you all don't. Or maybe none of us do. Or something. Because we have been talking about two different articles. Two quite different ideas of what the article is supposed to be. This is probably a big part of the reason why we are talking at cross purposes a fair amount. I'll explain all this right below.

I don't know if the sources used in the article are reliable or not. I am skeptical of all sources here on the general subject of Israel, because it is hard to get truly disinterested writers in the general subject of Israeli history it seems. Sources always have to be vetted if it's called for (I am calling) and academic sources in the soft sciences particular, because the acadamies are pretty anti-Zionist. People feely strongly about the subject and -- people being people -- that's likely to affect their analysises. Anti-colonialism I guess. Maybe other reasons. who knows.

Yeah I don't read Greek. "Some of the quotes you brought were simply direct translations of Josephus made by scholars" -- I mean, why are quoting Josephus at all since we all agree that he is completely unreliable? If we're going to use unreliable sources, maybe Meir Kahane or whomever has their version of what actually happened. Can we quote from sources like that. I mean I am sure that we can find acceptable sources that say "The Masada myth is... true...." Or whatever. If taken from an article by a professor, we can use that, right? I mean since cherry-picking material is not a thing (if it is in an article in an academic journal we can quote whatever parts we feel best advance our mission), as I gather you all seem to feel, yes, we can. Shall we?

Anyway -- our main and primary source for this article should be Yadin. Right? I mean he only, I don't know, made the thing. We ought to have lots of stuff like:

It is thanks to Ben Ya'ir and his comrades, to their heroic stand, to their choice of death over slavery, and the burning of their humble chattels as a final act of defiance to the enemy, that they elevated Masada to an undying symbol of desperate courage which has stirred hearts throughout the last nineteen centuries. It is this which has... drawn the Jewish youth of our generation in their thousands to climb to its summit in a solemn pilgrimage...

It's not a question of Yadin's reliabily. He's extremely biased I'm sure. We probably shouldn't use his stuff in the article Siege of Masada to support any facts.

But this is literature, mythmaking. It's doesn't matter if it's true. The Greek myths aren't true but we describe them. I mean right there Yadin is blowing smoke with the "last nineteen centuries" thing -- practically nobody knew about the siege for most of that time I think. Maybe he blows a lot of smoke -- probably does. So what. If the myth had the defenders being lifted bodily to heaven then we would include that.

Obviously the article should include mostly stuff like that. (The debunking should be included, sure, but it is secondary to what the article is mainly about, it should be below the fold and shouldn't dominate the material, and by no means give much shrift to Josephus I wouldn't think. It should mostly be about the archeology I would think -- more recent digs that indicate that maybe the defenders didn't kill themselves as the myth said but rather fought to the last man and so forth. This is quibbling about details and it's not a huge deal.)

But... see, this would be the right approach if the article was about the myth, the story. But it's not! It was never intended to be. It's about something else altogether.

Wait, what are we actually trying to do with this article?

So. this article is in Category:Historical myths. The other articles in the category are

• Gay Nazis myth -- made up my homophobes to smear gay people.
• Irish slaves myth -- made up by racists to smear African-Americans.
• Myth of the clean Wehrmacht -- made up by apologists for the Third Reich's regular army to downplay their war crimes.
  • Rommel myth -- subset of above.
• Kabyle myth -- made up by the French to justify taking over Algeria and making it have French culture.
• Habsburg myth -- made up by modern Austrian monarchists/imperialists to valorize the Austrian Empire.
• Tudor myth -- actually is an old myth, made up by the Tudors to valorize Henry VII and the Tudors in general.
• Frontier myth -- probably doesn't belong. Developed organically rather than made up I guess. It does excuse treating the Indians like shit and killing them, but that's not the main thrust I don't think.

One other, Myth of the flat Earth, doesn't belong, and Myth of the clean Wehrmacht isn't actually in the category but would fit well.

Anyway, all these can be pretty much characterized to a greater or lesser extent as either "Story made up by blackguards for some evil end" or at least "Story made up for propagada (in the bad sense)" and we can and do be straight up with the "This is polemical bullshit" pretty much. (The category is quite misnamed, I was expecting myths based on real people as opposed to Rama and so on, but its only a small subset of that. Something like "Polemical myths" or "Propaganda myths" or whatever would be more accurate.)

Anyway, you could certianly include the Masada myth as the article currently is and was intended to be with these:

• Masada myth -- made up by Zionists to justify taking over Palestine.

But here is the thing. Everybody agree that homophobes, racists, Third Reich apologists, colonialists, genociders, and imperialialists are blackguards. But not everybody agrees that Zionists are blackguards, at all. And also, unlike most of these others, the myth is based on a real thing that happened, in which the protagonists apparently actually were the good guys and not blackguards at all (the Romans were the bad guys). Which matters I think.

We, as a project, we certainly can't assume that Zionists are blackguards. It's not unreasonable to believe that, but it's complicated, and there isn't a consensus on that. In America certainly a good majority support Israel (I'm talking about everyday people, not academic types) and in fact both our political parties agree with this which is unusual. Our demographic here at the Wikipedia is going to overrepresent the river-to-the-sea folks because reasons, so we have to be extra careful to check our biases at the door.

But you all are not doing that. You can deny it all you like, even to yourselves if you like, but as the man said don't tell me what you believe, show me what you do and I'll tell you what you believe. What you've shown is that you believe is that Zionism is bad enough that leading the reader to see that supercedes even WP:NPOV. This is a problem, it is a behavioral problem, and it's not a good look.

So, because you are biased, you're thinking that the article ought be sort of like Irish slaves myth etc. So you don't see it as a disgraceful hatchet job, but just explaining to the reader the truth: Hey here's this story made up blackguards to justify evil. While I was thinking the article (if it continues to exist, which it shouldn't) should be more like Romulus and Remus or whatever.

So we are really talking about two entirely different articles here. This is a conundrum and at the moment I'm not sure how to proceed. Herostratus (talk) 06:21, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Herostratus: I continue to enjoy reading your long posts, but I would find them more impactful if they were less imaginative and more factual.

Your summarization of the other national myths is wrong. The last three in your list: Habsburg, Tudor and Frontier, were all positive myths, intended to valorize. The Masada myth is a positive valorizing myth. It is not, as you claim, about justifying taking over Palestine. You have again taken the wrong end of the stick.

To move this forward, let me tell you my motivation and interest in this topic, so you can finally end the nonsense rhetoric about modern politics.

See the articles Nationalization of history and Nationalist historiography (which I unsuccessfully suggested for a merger six years ago). Perhaps read the books Imagined Communities, Nations and Nationalism and Banal Nationalism, which inspired my interest in this topic about 25 years ago.

These modern myths were created in all countries. Other things were created too, which few are aware of: National languages (standardization of spoken languages was a recent invention), National cuisines (same), and even the modern way that race / ethnic groups are understood.

In recent decades, scholars have published widely on deconstructing these myths, and Wikipedia has followed by publishing articles summarizing the scholarship. Israeli national myths should not be an exception to this, just becuase In America certainly a good majority support Israel.

Onceinawhile (talk) 10:19, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Ben Anderson? We don't know who he is. He doesn't have much of a google presence.Dan Murphy (talk) 13:13, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

@Dan Murphy: Huh? Zero^talk 02:46, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I should point out that national myths can grow organically and can change over time. They can include facts as well as fiction. For instance it is a fact that some English arrived in what is now Massachusetts in 1620 (Plymouth Colony). This, well embellished and fictionalized, became the Myth of the First Thanksgiving which is an US national myth and used to explain the American Thanksgiving holiday. The Siege of Masada article is equivalent to the early history in the article on Plymouth Colony. This article is equivalent to the myth of the first thanksgiving article. Erp (talk) 03:20, 10 April 2025 (UTC)