Talk:Testimony of Truth

A suggestion

TriplePowered: You've clearly put a decent amount of work into the article, and I wish you good luck in expanding coverage of Gnosticism. So, as an optional suggestion (feel free to ignore this, this isn't a mandate or anything, please keep expanding Wikipedia in whatever style fits you the best)... but...

...I will say that *ideally*, summaries of the message of such works try not to rely on primary sources too heavily - especially FRAGMENTARY primary sources that involve scholarly reconstructions of guessed words that were themselves translations of a lost original. I understand that very little has been written on the Testimony of Truth (although https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cce/id/1820 makes it sound like there might be some foreign language articles out there?), so it's a lot more understandable then usual, but it's still a little dicey. I wrote on a similarly extremely obscure topic in Arabic Apocalypse of Peter, and only cited the narrative from scholarly views rather than attempting to cite it directly. Now, given the obscurity, I'm not saying that citing primary sources is bad or anything, just... a little dangerous.

Anyway, WP:CITEVAR suggests that the main author's citation preference should be respected. So it's up to you. But as a half-measure, I'd suggest separating the primary sources from the secondary ones, so at least it's very clear what's primary sourced. Basically it would look something like this:

The opening addresses those who have searched for truth but have been influenced by the old ways of the [[Pharisees]] and the scribes,{{efn|{{harvnb|Pearson|Giverson|1981|p=406–407}}. 29:9–14. "For many have sought after the truth and have not been able to find it; because there has taken hold of them the old leaven of the Pharisees and the scribes"}}
==References==
{{reflist}}
===Primary===
{{Notelist}}
==Bibliography==
(Sources referenced more than once via harvnb go here)
* {{cite book |last1=Pearson |first1=Birger |title=Nag Hammadi Codices IX and X |date=2020 |orig-date=1981 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-43887-3 |pages=101–120 |edition=E-book }}

Where "efn" is just a short way to add a "group" to the reference (it could be done manually, too, with group="note" or the like added to the refs). No need for the Google Books link or the access-date, either. I'd be happy to change it over myself if you were okay with it. But if you want to keep the current style as is, that's fine too. SnowFire (talk) 00:10, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense for a summary to be some scholar's biased interpretation of the text rather than an actual objective summary of the content. There is a separate analysis section where scholars' speculative theories are presented, as theories. Mixing those two together, to present theory as fact, goes against all encyclopedic principles. Each statement in the summary is cited using the primary source to ensure no misinterpretation or personal views of the words, no introduction of material not in the summary, and no mistakes mixing up fragmented sections. There is zero need for 3–4 separate citation sections. Furthermore, Acts of Peter and the Twelve, also written by me using the same format, has already passed as a Good Article, with the reviewer stating "I really like that you included the word for word in the citation" and "This is a brilliant little article, perfect for WP." TriplePowered (talk) 15:46, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

And I don't agree with that reviewer's preference. WP:PRIMARY specifically discourages use of primary sources. If somehow something like an article on a better-covered religious work was written this style, with pure primary source quotes (e.g. the Gospel of Matthew or something), it'd be a huge violation, because it'd be like trying to do legal analysis with direct citations of the Constitution - a recipe for original research. Again, don't take it up with me, this is a Wikipedia-wide standard discouraging primary sources when secondary sources exist on contentious topics. And there's good reason for this. I edited Melchizedek (text) some if you look in the history, and having a scholar talk about the debate on doceticism is pretty key for understanding the meaning of some passages that can read strangely to a modern reader, or worse, be misinterpreted.

I'm not demanding you remove the primary sourced references or anything, but that is solely because scholarship on the topic is so light (although separating them would have been nice). Additionally, I disagree with your stance that this "ensures no misinterpretation" and you've made me very worried about your other articles now. You yourself wrote this article, so you know that there are interpolations in the text - areas where the papyrus was damaged or the like and scholars are making their best guess as to what the document said, or what it said in Greek before being translated. Which you're actually honoring by calling out the translators in the cite, so good work on that part! But it's still not a "just the facts" deal.

Anyway, like I said before, this was an optional suggestion, so if you don't want to do it, fine. But please keep this in mind for future articles you write, especially if you write on better-covered topics. If nothing else, a separate Bibliography for the book / journal level cites can be nice. SnowFire (talk) 20:03, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

"Citations about the plot summary itself, however, may refer to the primary source."

"All interpretation, synthesis or analysis of the plot must be based upon some secondary source."

"Independent secondary sources that make analysis or interpretation of a work but without any correlation with the creator should be discussed in a separate section outside of the plot summary and not confused with the presented plot summary."

Source: Help:Contents TriplePowered (talk) 01:36, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes. That's talking about plot summaries to stuff like novels. Very old texts, especially religious texts, get dicier and the rules are stricter. Note: I haven't followed this article at all and can't attest for its quality, but look at the references in Gospel_of_Matthew#References. They're all scholarly, secondary citations. To repeat myself, using primary sources in this particular case isn't forbidden, but it's just not preferred. Hell, an article I've worked on does it some, albeit for a much less in-depth take and on a much less ambiguous topic (Epistle of Jude#Contents, which I'd love to improve sometime to remove the primary sources). Again, WP:PRIMARY is a site-wide consensus, so even if you think I'm talking nonsense, this policy is much larger than me. SnowFire (talk) 01:52, 2 July 2023 (UTC)