Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Family tree of the Egyptian gods (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Sandstein 15:48, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Family tree of the Egyptian gods[edit]

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An article by this title was deleted ten years ago, but a new one—probably modeled on other family trees for other pantheons—was created this past August. My arguments for deletion are largely the same as they were then. AnnekeBart said "This page gives the impression there is a real family tree, while the real development of AE religion is much more complicated and the roles that the deities had and relations with respect to one another varied over time and geographical location. None of these issues can really be solved by careful editing, so I think not having the page is better than having one that is incomplete/misleading," and I said "The gods represent forces of nature, whose interactions are complicated and shifting. Describing those interactions is not impossible, but it needs to be done in the text of the gods' individual articles and accompanied by explanation of what each relationship means. I know that Wikipedia likes to lay everything out in a neat list or table or template, but in this case that's not only infeasible, but risks misleading the reader about the very nature of the Egyptian pantheon."

What's different is that so far this family tree is much more limited than that one. It mostly consists of the family tree of the Ennead of Heliopolis, the most consistent extended family tree in Egyptian mythology, but that also means it's mostly redundant with the article on the Ennead. But even here there are oddities. The patriarch of the Ennead is usually Atum rather than Ra (though the two are closely related and sometimes virtually synonymous); Horus is usually not included in the Ennead, and when he is, it's often as a fifth child of Geb and Nut rather than as the son of Osiris and Isis; and Hathor, who is not a member of the Ennead, could be the consort of Horus or Ra, or indeed of many other male deities. If the tree were expanded, and thus ceased to be redundant, it would develop far more problems, as the relationships of most deities outside the Ennead are even less consistent. A. Parrot (talk) 16:44, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mythology-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 16:53, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Egypt-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 16:53, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 18:33, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 18:33, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support deletion per A. Parrot's rational.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:16, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, following A. Parrot's rationale this subject isn't cohesive enough for an article. There is a great many different possible trees for different periods and locations, worship of these gods is attested for some three millennia and while many of these gods retained the same name, their meaning and relationship with other gods changed over time and in different places within what is considered Egypt.--Eostrix (^{🦉 hoot} _hoot🦉) 06:22, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per the rationale given in the nomination of the first AfD. I'm wondering whether Family trees of the Egyptian gods (surveying some of the most widely encountered family trees per dynasty or time period) would not be a thing though? I suspect that the main reason for the fluidity is that we're speaking of a time period that is longer than the entire history of Abrahamic religions. Maybe if we zoom in on specific periods, something more stable may emerge? Just a tip for the person starting the next incarnation of this in 10 years time. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:35, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. The genealogies don't just vary according to time; they vary according to circumstances. One text from the same time period might treat Horus as the son of Osiris and Isis while another treated him as their brother. In the Late and Greco-Roman periods, forms of Hathor served as the consort of the local male deity in various temples up and down the Nile, producing various children with her/their spouses: Ihy at Dendera, Harsomptus at Edfu, Neferhotep at Hiw. A. Parrot (talk) 15:07, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: There are plenty articles on wikipedia with family of gods, look these ones:

Are you going to delete those ones too? And/or Is this article going to be deleted because of the similarity with the Judeo-Christian religion? Thank you.--Alpha Lion (talk) 21:49, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The question, to my mind, is whether the family relationships among deities are consistent enough that they can be conveyed in graphical form without oversimplifying them. I don't know enough about those other cultures to say whether that's true of them. (My impression is that the Greeks made more of an effort to systematize their mythology than most polytheistic cultures do, and thus a family tree of Greek deities is probably more viable than in many other cases, but I also know that even they had local variations that aren't likely to be found in introductory books on Greek mythology.) I don't doubt that you created this article with good intentions; a family tree seems like it should be a viable topic. But I'm afraid the intricacies of ancient Egyptian religion make it infeasible.

Regarding your last sentence, I'm not entirely sure what you mean to imply, but my motivations for the nomination have nothing to do with Judaism or Christianity. A. Parrot (talk) 23:28, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. Although sources are given for each supposed relationship, this table is a concoction that smacks of WP:OR and is a table created for the sake of creating a table without any real systematic approach. The fact is that we do not know enough about Ancient Egyptian mythology, unlike the Greek or Norse versions, to confidently attempt a definition of such relationships. No Great Shaker (talk) 12:36, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
redirect to List of Egyptian deities. The relationship of Horus to Osiris and Isis is correctly shown, but the rest of this may well be WP:OR. However the title is a credible search term, so that I am reluctant to delete it completely. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:55, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.