historical in the sense that the story of what happened, happened to a different city but was transferred to Jericho?Rich (talk) 05:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It might be. But then again, it might not be. Following whatever links there are to the subject within the article might be a good start for finding out about whatever theories there might be. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:19, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To believe that the events in the story are historical, whether for Jericho or another city, amounts to believing in a miracle. Barring miracles, no amount of horn-blowing and shouting can bring defensive walls down.

Jericho was destroyed in the 16th century BCE. The first version of the Book of Joshua was written in the late 7th century BCE, so there are 9 centuries between the destruction and the recording of the story. An orally transmitted account, passed on through some thirty generations, might have undergone considerable changes, turning a conquest with conventional war practices, possibly with sound effects meant to install fear in the besieged, into a miraculous event.  --Lambiam 10:50, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[Edit Conflicts] The sack was described in the Book of Joshua, which however was likely compiled around 640–540 BCE, some six or seven centuries after the supposed Hebrew conquest of Canaan. Some scholars now discount the whole Exodus and Conquest narrative as political lobbying written by Jewish exiles in Babylonia (which the Persians later took over) hoping to be given control over the former territory of Israel as well as being restored to their native Judah.

The narrative logically explains why a people once 'Egyptian slaves' (like all subjects of the Pharoah) were later free in Canaan, but by then it was likely forgotten that Egypt once controlled almost the entirety of Canaan, from which it withdrew in the Late Bronze Age Collapse. The Hebrew peoples of the (always separate) states of Israel and Judah emerged from Canaanite culture in situ, though minor folk movements (for example, of the Tribe of Levi, who often had Egyptian names) may have had a role. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.84.253 (talk) 10:52, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I heard the sack of Jericho in book of Joshua was an explanatory myth, not some kind of Exile claim to ownership, which is more logical anyway. If there were a more recent city that was sacked, it would be less than the estimate of 30 geneations of remembrance. I did forget to stress that when I asked if the story could be almost historical that I wasn't suggesting that Jericho's walls were supernaturally destroyed by trumpets. After all, the actual method of conquest in the story could be the connivance of the traitor Rahab.Rich (talk) 02:24, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, certainly the myth likely existed before it was consolidated with others into the written documents, just as stories about the mythical Danel may have been adapted into the fictional Daniel of the supposedly contemporary Book of Daniel describing his exploits in the 6th century BCE court of Nebuchadnezzar II, although scholars generally agree that this was actually written in the period 167–163 BCE. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.84.253 (talk) 07:15, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Israelites partly emerged in situ (though there was also a definite nomad/pastoralist component), especially along the West Bank hill-chain (running in an approximate north-south direction) where the Four-room house took hold among the rural inhabitants there. They were not originally city-dwellers, and their culture could not have been consolidated until the power of the Canaanite cities in that area had declined, and it's not too hard to believe that they sometimes moved against what cities remained, so that part of the conquest narrative is not necessarily a pure myth. Jericho was in the valley (not along the hill-chain), so was not part of the core settled rural agricultural four-room house area, but was inhabited more by pastoralists/animal-herders who became affiliated... AnonMoos (talk) 21:19, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We've been asked to increase the accessibility of all documents we produce, esp. syllabi. I use WordPerfect, where I don't seem to be able to have a URL with a descriptive text in the way Word allows. 508 is the operative term. I'm trying this out: "Princeton University has some handy tips on what is called “active reading, on this webpage: https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/active-reading-strategies." In other words, descriptive text followed by a bare URL. Is that good for screen readers? Graham87, how does this look/sound to you? Thanks for your help, Drmies (talk) 18:03, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Drmies: I wouldn't make a general rule about that as it's context-dependent ... depending on how many URL's are in a document, reading them might get annoying. In general I'd prefer to read a link with descriptive text rather than a raw URL, because the latter aren't always very human-readable ... but I don't think this is really an accessibility issue; just do what would make sense for a sighted reader here. Graham87 (talk) 00:34, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Graham87, thanks. There's only one or two in a ten-page document. According to our bosses, this is an accessibility issue--but it seems to me as if someone sounded an alarm and now everyone who doesn't actually know much about the issue is telling us to comply with a set of directives which they haven't given us. Instead, we are directed to some self-help course that involves only Word. It's fun. Drmies (talk) 15:34, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Stop using WordPerfect and start using Word. --Viennese Waltz 07:05, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why, but it seems many legal professionals prefer WordPerfect. Stanleykswong (talk) 10:21, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Viennese Waltz, thanks so much for that helpful suggestion. Drmies (talk) 15:27, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I liked it. —Tamfang (talk) 23:03, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can create a hyperlink to a file using WordPerfect. First, you select text or a graphic you want to create a hyperlink. Then you click “Tools”, select “Hyperlink” and then type a path or document you want to link to. Stanleykswong (talk) 10:18, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Stanleykswong, that sounds like it might work: thank you. Drmies (talk) 15:34, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do web browsers display WordPerfect documents? I don't think I have a WordPerfect viewing app installed on my platform (macOS). Does anyone have a URL of a WordPerfect document handy?  --Lambiam 14:56, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:Lambiam, WP translates easily to PDF and to Word. I use PDFs in my LMS. Drmies (talk) 15:34, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can see why WordPerfect is popular in legal circles at WordPerfect#Key characteristics (fourth bullet point) and WordPerfect#Faithful customers. 2A00:23A8:1:D801:8C31:BAC2:88CF:A92B (talk) 16:48, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have the feeling this answers my question. Would I have to find and install an app that translates .wpd documents to .pdf or .doc documents? Would I then be able to tell my browser to use this app? The question is informative, not meant to bash a product that I have zero familiarity with.  --Lambiam 17:05, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've opened early WordPerfect (WP 5.1) documents using both Word and Firefox without any need for a third party translator. The only trick was changing the file extension to .WPD so that my computer could create the file association more easily. In the old days, file extensions were not so rigorously restrictive and many files ended up with extensions like .01 or .v4 or whatever. Matt Deres (talk) 17:39, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot check if it would work for me, for lack of access to any WordPerfect document of any age.  --Lambiam 21:22, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a bunch of them, in the DOJ archives.  Card Zero  (talk) 00:25, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, finally an answer. When I click on a.wpd link, the file is downloaded. I can then open and view it with LibreOffice. (I can also open it with OpenOffice, but then I get to see garbage like ╖#<m\r╛∞¼_4YÖ¤ⁿVíüd╤?Y.)  --Lambiam 14:44, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, web browsers do display WordPerfect documents. If you google “wpd online viewer”, you will find a lot of them. Stanleykswong (talk) 23:04, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When I google [“wpd online viewer”], I get two hits, one to this page and one to a site where you can upload a WPD document in order to be able to view it online. What happens when you view an html page with something like<a href="file:///my-document.wpd">Looky here!</a> embedded?  --Lambiam 13:49, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're right. Only Docx2doc (https://www.docx2doc.com/convert) and Jumpshare provide online viewers now. However, there are still other offline alternative, such as Cisdem (https://www.cisdem.com/document-reader-mac.html) and Apache. Stanleykswong (talk) 09:46, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some other text editors, such as TextMaker, can open and view WPD files. However, after editing, the WPD files can only be saved as other formats, such as docx or doc. Stanleykswong (talk) 09:49, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing that just came up--we got rapped on the fingers though the mandatory "training" didn't touch on it. We've been told that hyphens are bad. The internet tells me that screenreaders have trouble with hyphenated words, but does this apply also to date ranges? Graham87, does yours get this right, "Spring Break: 17-21 March"? For now I'm going with "Spring Break, 17 to 21 March", but it just doesn't look good to my traditional eyes. And on top of that I have to use sans serif fonts... Drmies (talk) 17:44, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• To give another example, I have to redo this: "Final grades are computed along the following scale: A: 90-100; B+: 87-89; B: 80-86; C+: 77-79; C: 70-76; D+: 67-69; D: 60-66; F: Below 60." Drmies (talk) 17:49, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Drmies: Under its default setting my screen reader does read out the hyphens, but I have my punctuation set lower than normal because I don't like hearing too much information so it doesn't for me. The other major Windows screen reader, NVDA, also reads them out by default. Graham87 (talk) 01:05, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks Graham87--I appreciate your expertise. Drmies (talk) 01:14, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

      As recently discussed on the Help or Teahouse desk, a date or other range should technically use an unspaced En Dash, not a hyphen (according to most manuals of style, including our own), but I doubt that screen readers would notice the difference. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.84.253 (talk) 08:23, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]