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:: How about a compromise, where the History section mentions the psalms and King David's choir, while the Bible section goes into greater detail on these, and also mentions those things which are not a matter of history (that the Bible mentions music more than any other art form is a fact, but is it a ''historical'' fact?), and those things which cannot be verified by the historical method? [[User:Eoinc|Eoinc]] 06:37, 5 May 2008 (EDT)
:: How about a compromise, where the History section mentions the psalms and King David's choir, while the Bible section goes into greater detail on these, and also mentions those things which are not a matter of history (that the Bible mentions music more than any other art form is a fact, but is it a ''historical'' fact?), and those things which cannot be verified by the historical method? [[User:Eoinc|Eoinc]] 06:37, 5 May 2008 (EDT)
::: As far as the third paragraph is concerned, I agree that's not history. But as for the rest, you still seem to be making a flimsy distinction. You say that the claim that David had a 4,000 voice choir has "not been verified but in principle could be", but then make a distinction between that and the bit about music beginning in heaven and Lucifer being the first musician. What sort of "verification" would you want? Why are you prepared to take the Bible's word on the first but not the second? Now, having said that, it appears that TerryH has supplied the wrong reference, so I don't know how certain those two claims are, because the reference doesn't support them, but my argument assumes that there is a supportive reference that can be supplied. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 09:02, 5 May 2008 (EDT)
::: As far as the third paragraph is concerned, I agree that's not history. But as for the rest, you still seem to be making a flimsy distinction. You say that the claim that David had a 4,000 voice choir has "not been verified but in principle could be", but then make a distinction between that and the bit about music beginning in heaven and Lucifer being the first musician. What sort of "verification" would you want? Why are you prepared to take the Bible's word on the first but not the second? Now, having said that, it appears that TerryH has supplied the wrong reference, so I don't know how certain those two claims are, because the reference doesn't support them, but my argument assumes that there is a supportive reference that can be supplied. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 09:02, 5 May 2008 (EDT)
:::: The difference lies in whether or not we could find independent supporting evidence for the propositions. I take the Bible's word (mostly) for it on King David's choir because musicians and choirs are staple parts of most royal courts, and one would particularly expect this to be the case with a figure such as David, given what else is written about him. I'm more skeptical of the 4,000 figure, but supporting evidence for it could be found in the form of third-party accounts, pictures or carvings of this enormous choir, that kind of thing.
:::: In the case of Lucifer and music being created in heaven, there is no independent evidence that I know of which would support the claim. Indeed, how could there be? If Lucifer really was the first musician, in heaven, what evidence for it would we expect to find on earth? As such, accounts of this nature cannot be verified as any more or less true than a claim by any other religion of music's origins. If, say, Muslims believed that the archangel Gabriel was the first musician (and I have no idea if they do; I'm just using this hypothetically), we would have no independent basis to adjudicate between the two claims. These sorts of statements, in other words, cannot be verified by the historical method, whereas the other sorts of statements can. That's why I draw the distinction. [[User:Eoinc|Eoinc]] 07:05, 6 May 2008 (EDT)