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Case file

Ariel (angel)

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “archangel found primarily in judeo-christian mysticism and apocrypha”. Today it says “angel found primarily in judaism and christianity”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2010 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2010

Ariel Ariel ( ) is an archangel found primarily in Judeo-Christian mysticism and Apocrypha.1 Generally presented as an authority over the Earth and its elements, Ariel has also been called an angel of healing, wrath & creation. The Hebrew name "Ariel" means literally "Altar" or "Lion of God", and occurs in the OT, e.g. Is 29,1-7, where it is used as a label for Jerusalem . "Ariel" has been called an ancient name for the leontomorphic Gnostic Demiurge (Creator God). Historically, the entity Ariel was often pictured in mysticism as a lion-headed deity or demon with power over the Earth, giving a strong foundation for Ariel's association with the Demiurge. It is possible that the name itself was even adopted from the Demiurge's Zoroastrian counterpart Ahriman (who is likely the predecessor of the Mithraic " Arimanius "). According to the German occultist Cornelius Agrippa : "Ariel is the name of an angel, sometimes also of a demon, and of a city, whence called Ariopolis, where the idol is worshipped." Ariel is often associated with the better known Judeo-Christian Archangel Uriel. The name "Auriel" is commonly used to denote the combined, However, Elizabethan court astrologer John Dee called "Ariel" a "conglomerate of Anael and Uriel ."2

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 362196300.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “archangel found primarily in judeo-christian mysticism and apocrypha”. Today it says “angel found primarily in judaism and christianity”. Read the current article and compare.
201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2010, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

archangel found primarily in judeo-christian mysticism and apocrypha

Now

angel found primarily in judaism and christianity

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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