Talk:Abecedarian

I question the entire veracity of this article

As per the below commenter as well, I don't think this article reflects historical accuracy. The only references are A)dictionaries/thesauruses/etc. which establish only that this word has been used in the English language with this meaning and B)the Catholic Encyclopedia from no later than 1913. It is notable that this entry does not even appear in the current version of the Catholic Encyclopedia. It seems very likely that the story presented herein is not actually true, or at the very least that there is no reliable historical evidence that these events ever occurred or this sect ever existed as it is described. Additionally, the 1907 and 1913 versions of the Catholic encyclopedia give different other Anabaptist leaders as the supposed doctor who gave up his title of Doctor to follow this doctrine. This seems pretty clearly a lie, albeit probably a historical one and not a modern wiki forgery. Mathlaura (talk) 11:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Source: An unnamed encyclopedia from a project that puts out-of-copyright texts into the public domain. This is from a *very* old source, and reflects the thinking of the turn of the last century. -- BryceHarrington

It does read as rather fanciful. Nonetheless, O.E.D. provides some more reputable sources:

hist. With capital initial. A member of a sect of Anabaptists founded in Germany in the first half of the 16th cent. under the leadership of Nicholas Storch (died after 1536), which opposed all forms of learning, including knowledge of the alphabet.

— abecedarian² (entry last updated in 2011)

Abecedarians,—a sect of Anabaptists who pretended that, in order to salvation, a person must be unqualified either to read or write, and must be ignorant of the letters of the alphabet; from which circumstance their name originates.

— (from O.E.D.) 1814, J. Bell Wanderings of Human Intellect 95

In early sixteenth-century Zurich a sect of Anabaptists called Abecedarians claimed to have direct inspiration from God and maintained that human learning was an impediment to divine illumination.

— (from O.E.D.) 1985, Landfall Sept. 263

SXibolet (talk) 19:16, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I came to the article after encountering two references within a few days. Widely separated and completely unrelated books, and I cannot remember any previous references (though I have previously read a number of books from Umberto Eco, who wrote one of the books). Having said that, I didn't get much enlightenment from the Article... Shanen (talk) 05:57, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Affected vs. Effected

The correct verb here is "effected," as it refers to a bringing about of something, rather than as an alteration or influence upon something.

Shouldn't this be merged with (or at least linked to) Zwickau prophets?--88.73.5.203 (talk) 18:02, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, affect is perfectly correct here. It is used in the sense of claim, pretend and the implication is that their 'absolute disdain for all human knowledge' was bogus, not genuine. (They didn't bring about this disdain). Compare with affected and affectation. This is arguably POV, but linguistically correct. Norvo (talk) 22:19, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Merge with Zwickau prophets

Besides the dubiousness already expressed above, from what I can gather in older sources, "Abcedarian" seens just an epithet for the Zwickau prophets. (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) rather than a distinct sect in itself. This article seems superfluous and should be merged. Walrasiad (talk) 03:19, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Agree. 216.8.188.31 (talk) 20:47, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Please delete the pic that I have uploaded on wikipedia

Respected sir/mam, I have uploaded the pic The reference of the pic is shared i want it to get deleted as soon as possible , This pic is own by me and please delete these pic as soon as possible from Wikipedia licence Minaro123 (talk) 09:29, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

References