Talk:Theophany

The Quote

What did Robert mean by "I am become Death, destroyer of Worlds?"

Was this a prophecy? It sounds as if he is using Tarot, because he refers to death canonically in Upper Case, and Worlds in uppercase. Many have mused on the idea that atomic weaponry will be used as a means of destroying Earth, or bringing about "doomsday", which, I am sure, sounds very trite to hear again.

However the question is relevant in that these are Tarot archetypes and you won't them elsewhere. Mike Dignan and Tony Pryor investigated and found this to be so.

Furthermore because Oppenheimer uses the plural form "Worlds" he implies that he is thinking that atomic explosions will be used to destroy more or less than Earth, not necessarily not including. Does imply an adherence to the concept of the ark- that is a place that is seperate from others as a compartment does serve to seal against foreign elements in a completely satisfactory way? An ark then could described as a World in a, like Tarot cards allow, conceptual formalization framework, not unlike a programming environment requires on computer systems, so that a perceiver can manipulate and comprehend concepts that are familiar and dexteritible within the mind's eye.

Oh, good grief. Oppenheimer was quoting the Baghavad-Gita, talking about the destructive power of the device they had just detonated. This has nothing to do with theophany: it was a literary allusion the new terrible capabilities unleashed upon the world by the development of the atomic bomb.

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 03:24, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

To reply to both of these points and the inclusion in the main article of Oppenheimer's Bhagavad Gita quote:

1) The article states that this is a vision of Shiva. In fact, it's Krishna who displays his Universal Form, and Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu, not Shiva.

2) It has nothing to do with Tarot, as answered by Septegram.

3) In reply to Septegram, it has everything to do with theophany, Arjun's literally seeing God. ====

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.190.127.49 (talk)

Yes, in the original. But in this context, Oppenheimer is using the quote to express his concern about the future, now that they have unleashed this terrible power upon the world. It's not a theological statement or an expression of theophany.

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 14:41, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Major re-write

I did a major re-write on this definition for the following reasons...

1. The article was not clearly displaying the true meaning of the concept.

2.To this point, although it was well refernced to scripture, it was not to other definitive sources.

Cialovesyou 07:38, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I have furthur refined this article by removing repitition which is needless. I also removed those parts which are just wrong. An angel is not a THEO-ophany, unless the angel is simply a conduit of God. The role of a messenger is thus not a theophany. Luke chapter 1 is an good example, the angel announces to mary the Incarnation, but although the angel is sent by God, God never manifests directly. No God, no theophany. Cialovesyou 10:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

  The angel of the LORD in the Nt is not the same as the Angel of The LORD in the OT, who
  is the preincarnate Christ.

Apologies to those contributors who I have shortened, but sometimes less is more.

---

Why is this statement "Christianity posits that God is a trinity" part of the article on Theophany? Pagan 10:00, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It's talking about how an invisible, transcendant God can be made visible to humans, which is the point. Wesley 17:40, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

So why does the statement "Christianity posits that God is a trinity" appear? What does the trinity have to do with anything else here? That is, I'm failing to understand how your answer is related to my question :(

Categories, anyone? JFW | T@lk 22:45, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Pagan, had you have taken the time to read his reply, you would understand what he was trying to say. Trinity- being an example of a Theophany is in fact a Christian doctrine. It was stated as "Christianity posits..." to establish the origin of the doctrine and credibility for his statement.

-A Christian :)

A few changes. I am not entirely happy still with the form of this article as it currently stands. I do not believe the entire life of Jesus could be defined as a Theophany, and so I made the change I did. This is not to say that Jesus was not always God, but it is a matter of what the seer understands. I hope the original writer will have a look at this, and other contributers, I am afraid that what I gained in specificity, I may have lost for us all in readability? Cialovesyou 23:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Revamp

I made quite a few minor modifications. This article still needs sources, and a little research will yield a good amount of information to add. It should be noted that "theophany" is not "the Feast of Theophany," and should be expanded to an encyclopedic treatment of God-appearances (and god-apppearances). I welcome aid and suggestions. DrKC9N 07:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Faith

It probably isn't that controversial that this is a matter of faith and not of science, so I added "Theophany is a belief..." in the intro. ProveReader 20:46, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Can an event be a belief, even if one can only believe that the event took place? I don't think belief is the right phrasing here. DrKC9N 16:37, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I checked a few more sources and most refer to the substance of these constructs rather than more precisely as constructs. I notice the Garden Gnome Liberation Front article also treats matters of popular folklore as if they are factual findings. Probably what hangs me up on this article more is the strong Christian slant and the lengthy doctrinal statements that interpret Hebrew texts through a selection published as Christian documents (the old testament) and relegate older theophanic constructs to "other" religions. Especially, the selective reference to the popular name for a diety in Western monothiesm was not universal in scope, so I redacted "belief" but changed "god" to "a deity". Also, reference to angels as deities is probably not consistent with either fundamentalist or mainstream Christain doctrines, at least not as taught in Western nations. ProveReader 18:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

All that is required is to attempt to write as if a disinterested observer. This can be difficult on certain topics, but on this one, it aint. It is enough simply to preface an article with "In the Jewish/Christian/Mormon/Calithumpian faith, a term meaning...". Thats enough, the reader "gets it"...it is a part of a belief structre, and the reader will go and test that against his own sources/beliefs etc. No need to endlessly re-state the obvious. On the matter of the definition being quite Christian, this is to be expected as it is a Christian conception. Although events depicted in other faiths may well fit the definition, the leaning toward the source faith in the first instance is acceptable in my view. Cialovesyou 08:41, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

First Vision

Is the comment "a first in Judeo-Christian religion" POV? We may want to consider Stephen's theophany in Acts 7:56 "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." Interpretations of this scripture have caused many painters (though not all) to paint both the Father and the Son. See, for example, Antonio Carracci's 1610 painting [1] and Jacques Stella's 1623 painting [2] Rwf5 20:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Template:Liturgical year

While it is true that Theophany is part of the Eastern Orthodox liturgical year, that fact is not central to this article, as is shown, inter alia, by the single paragraph it receives. The primary thrust of this article is not the activities of the liturgical year, therefore I have removed the template. Please, if you believe otherwise, (1) discuss it here and (2) consider a main article on Theophany in the Eastern Orthodox liturgical year, maybe under a title like Theophany (liturgical year) which can then be referenced by this article. --Bejnar 16:37, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Earliest?

The text says "In the Classical tradition the Iliad is our earliest source for descriptions of theophanies." However, I would argue that Gilgamesh's encounter with Siduri qualifies as a theophany (not to mention Utnapishtim's encounter with the gods), and the Epic of Gilgamesh predates Classical mythology.

Accordingly, I'm going to tweak the text a little.

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 14:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Jewish perspectives

As yet, there are no Jewish perspectives in this article. As such, I am going to include some public domain material from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia. RK (talk) 00:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Lead is cluttered

The lead is becoming cluttered. Wikipedia:Lead section says "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article." Accretion is a continuing problem in Wikipedia articles. Some editors add material to the lead and don't bother to read the article as a whole. Detail belongs in the specific sections. The lead is supposed to be an introduction and a summary. --Bejnar (talk) 13:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

John Langworthy

An IP editor, 98.231.219.133, added a paragraph about John Langworthy, who does not appear to be notable. Additionally the material was not in accord with Wikipedia policy and guidelines, it was not verifiable, not having been already published by a reliable source. Its only link was to an alleged "Fan page". Secondly, although an attempt was made at encyclopedic style, it still appeared to be spam and apparently is an instance of conflict of interest, as the cited "fan page" quickly was amended to say "Kindly see last paragraph at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophany". --Bejnar (talk) 19:10, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Hebrew Bible section

The first three paragraphs of the “Hebrew Bible” subsection are copied verbatim from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia article on "revelation" (the theological concept, not the book). As far as I know this does not violate any copyrights (due to the age of the original). However, this section fits poorly into the current article. The opening line refers to “the former,” which has no antecedent in the context of the Wikipedia article. Also, in these three paragraphs, chapter numbers are given in Roman numerals, while “Arabic“ numerals are used elsewhere in the article. This section needs to either be revised or footnoted properly. I will try to do this myself when I have a little more free time if nobody beats me to it. :-) Drchrisheard (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:52, 13 February 2012 (UTC).

Appropriate Capitalization

I've updated the page by capitalizing personal pronouns for non-Abrahamic deities. If the Abrahamic deity gets His personal pronouns capitalized, so should everyone else if we're going to be NPOV. Otherwise, He gets undue deference.

I similarly reworked a reference in Orthodox Christianity to eliminate the impression that Wikipedians are generally or universally Orthodox Christians. As written, it was clearly POV.

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 02:35, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't use His for God. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:33, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I've seen it in plenty of places, including this article. However, if it's not the Wikistandard, then I'll go back and remove that capitalization for all deities in this article.

Do you happen to have a reference for the cap/no-cap standard? I don't ask in order to challenge you, but if I start uncapitalizing "Him" on other pages, someone is bound to challenge me on it, and I'd like to have a policy or guideline reference for them.

Thanks,

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 14:33, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Where is Islam?

There is Hinduism, Judaism, what about Islam? http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/590940/theophany and http://drwesleymuhammad.com/dissertation for example. Hope someone includes it. --41.177.4.50 (talk) 18:10, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Specific usage for Christians and Jews

The lead currently says The term theophany has acquired a specific usage for Christians and Jews with respect to the Bible: It refers to the manifestation of God to man In reading the article I fail to find any special distinction about the Christian/Jewish usage. It seems to be the same as other usages, except that it refers to the Jewish/Christian God as opposed to another god. I see no reason or substantiation for a specific usage, and absent citational support in the text, I will rewrite this paragraph to simply reference the theophanies of the Jewish/Christian holy books. --Bejnar (talk) 19:47, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

The article in the Encyclopedia Britannia indicates that the special usage might be that surrounding Jesus Christ, as it indicates that there is dispute about whether the entire life of Jesus Christ is a theophany, or contrarily that there were theophanic episodes during his life when his deity status was made manifest (before the magi, at his baptism by John, etc.). If this is the special usage, (1) how does it apply to the Jewish usage? (2) should it not be explicitly discussed in the article text? --Bejnar (talk) 21:38, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Overbroad definition

IP editor 89.242.110.115 included the words or to a divine disclosure in the definition of "theophany" which already cited the New Catholic Encyclopedia (second edition, 2002). However that addition does not appear there, See: [3]. That addition is also incorrect according to most authors who distinguish "theophany" from "epiphany" and "hierophany", as does the New Catholic Encyclopedia. See authorities cited in article. ("Similar" does not mean "the same".) On basis of those authorities, I have removed the words or to a divine disclosure from the lead. --Bejnar (talk) 19:40, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

BRD

User MagicatthemovieS removed the link to Unverified personal gnosis, which I restored because I think we can safely say that -- at least in modern times -- theophany is pretty much a subset of UPG. At the very least, if you want to assert that there are recent verified theophanies, there are plenty that aren't. They're not synonymous, but they're certainly relevant enough to one another to justify the link.

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 22:17, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Tone

In the Old Testament section at least, there are some transitions and turns of phrase which I love, but are unsourced and of unencyclopedic style. I'm gonna tone down one and leave the rest for the experts. Temerarius (talk) 16:27, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

LDS under christianity

Should the LDS church really be under Christianity, given their relationship? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.166.223.93 (talk) 04:35, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Trimming of "Hinduism" section

I have trimmed from the "Hinduism" section a block of unsourced text, unnecessary to the article. Apart from being needless, the text about "nirguna brahman" reflected the view of only one school of Hinduism, not a view that enjoys consensus amongst the main traditional Hindu schools. I deleted the unsourced reference to the theophany reported by Swami Vivekananda because he is only one of many, many Hindu figures who have made similar claims. I revised the text that said Vishnu's avatars appear in "human" form, since they appear in non-human forms as well. And where the text spoke of Krishna's revealing his "true form," I revised it to "universal form," which is what the Bhagavad Gita says (and, by the way, what we have in the caption to the picture).

I've also deleted the sentence saying the avatars of Vishnu are similar to Christ. After I trimmed out the mistaken assertion that Vishnu's avatars are all human, the comparison made little sense. Also, the article cited as the source concludes that Vishnu's avatars are in fact very different from Christ.

Cordially, O Govinda (talk) 14:56, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Material about incarnation and inspiration

A "Modest Proposal":
While I think it is important in this article to reference divine incarnation and divine inspiration, as the lead makes clear those, in most cases, are not considered theophanies. I propose that where in individual sections the text does not discuss theophanies, but rather discusses divine incarnation and divine inspiration, that such text be shortened to a single paragraph with links to the appropriate articles, (and moving text where appropriate). --Bejnar (talk) 17:20, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

In principle your proposal seems to make sense. I'm not familiar with the relevant literature but what I take from the lead and your description is that divine incarnation and divine inspiration are closely related to theophanies but strictly speaking not the same thing. One problem I see is that in the individual cases it may not always be easy to precisely draw this distinction. But you haven't specified which sections you have in mind, which makes it a little bit difficult to evaluate your proposal. Unless there are negative responses here, you could just go ahead and boldly make your changes, one at a time, starting with the least controversial case. If other editors disagree, you will find out soon enough and can go back to discussing the changes here. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:25, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

The first two that come to mind are the sections on "Baháʼí Faith" and "Druze Faith" that don't mention actual theophanies. But the Druze Faith section is already the appropriate one paragraph. A quick glance at the various "Christianity" sections shows much tangential material. The structure of the "Judaism" sections lends itself to staying on point, focusing each subsection on a specific theophany. The "Islam" section needs to be entirely rewritten, especially as it does not discuss the theophanies of their main prophet, ignoring, for example, the the Micraj, the Prophet’s ascent through the seven heavens, where he encountered earlier prophets and patriarchs and eventually entered into the presence of God. The "Hinduism" section is succinct and deals with one major theophany; however the reference to a main article on Darśana is all about the philosophies and does not discuss the meaning "auspicious sight of a deity or a holy person". --Bejnar (talk) 16:33, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I just had a look at the sections "Baháʼí Faith" and "Druze Faith" and I agree with your assessment. What about making an additional section about related phenomena at the end of the article and putting them there? It might also be a good idea to reorder the sections according to how important the religion is and how important theophanies are in it. According to this logic, the sections "Baháʼí Faith" and "Druze Faith" should not be near the beginning. Phlsph7 (talk) 21:26, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

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Wiki Education assignment: Technical and Professional Writing

This article is currently the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 17 January 2024 and 7 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): P1clouds (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Eaturvegeez (talk) 19:33, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Introduction for Edits

Hello!

Over the next few weeks, I plan to make edits regarding the structure and grammar of this article. I will be working on these edits in my sandbox, but will eventually transfer them over to this page. I will not be adding any content, or changing the overall information contained in the article. P1clouds (talk) 17:58, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

The Judaism and Christianity Sections

These sections relied almost completely on original research, which violates WP:NOR. They were also extremely long compared to the rest of the sections, and included a disproportionate amount of details. If you are wanting to go into that much detail about one section, I might suggest starting another page specifically about theophanies in Judaism or Christianity. There, you could include more information about Christophany, Avatars, and things that stray from the definition of theophany.

P1clouds (talk) 23:54, 15 March 2024 (UTC)