Wikipedia's first sentence called it “professor emeritus of middle eastern and islamic studies and history at new york university”. Today it says “american academic”.
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 2020 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2020
He died on April 30, 2020 in hospice in Schenectady, N.Y. Peters was born in New York City and graduated from Regis High School in Manhattan in 1945. He entered the Jesuits that summer and spent four years at their novitiate at St. Andrew on Hudson in Hyde Park, N.Y . Louis University for three years, earning his B.A. in 1950 and his M.A. in Latin and Greek in 1952, as well as a licentiate in philosophy awarded by a Pontifical Institute in Rome. He taught for two years from 1952 to 1954 at Canisius High School in Buffalo, N.Y., and was released from his Jesuit vows in 1954. He earned a degree in Russian language studies from Fordham University in 1956 and completed his Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at Princeton University in 1961. He taught at NYU from 1961 to 2008. Trained in both Islamic studies and in classical Greek and Roman studies, he considers himself a scholar of religion, particularly the comparative study of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. At NYU he has served as chairperson of both the Classics and the Middle Eastern Studies departments. He has been a visiting professor at a number of other institutions, including several in the Middle East as well as the General Theological Seminary in New York City. He has participated in curating exhibitions at the College of the Holy Cross , The British Library , and the New York Public Library . Ours: The Making and Unmaking of a Jesuit .1
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 954641153.
The opening as it stood in 2015
Peters was born in New York City and graduated from Regis High School in Manhattan in 1945. He entered the Jesuits that summer and spent four years at their novitiate at St. Louis University for three years, earning his B.A. in 1950 and his M.A. in Latin and Greek in 1952, as well as a licentiate in philosophy awarded by a Pontifical Institute in Rome. He taught for two years from 1952 to 1954 at Canisius High School in Buffalo, N.Y., and was released from his Jesuit vows in 1954. He earned a degree in Russian language studies from Fordham University in 1956 and complete his Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at Princeton University in 1961. He taught at NYU from 1961 to 2008. Trained in both Islamic studies and in classical Greek and Roman studies, he considers himself a scholar of religion, particularly the comparative study of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. At NYU he has served as chairperson of both the Classics and the Middle Eastern Studies departments. He has been a visiting professor at a number of other institutions, including several in the Middle East as well as the General Theological Seminary in New York City. He has participated in curating exhibitions at the College of the Holy Cross , The British Library , and the New York Public Library . Ours: The Making and Unmaking of a Jesuit . College of the Holy Cross .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 664715062.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 13 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
He served as professor emeritus of history, religion and Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at New York University (NYU).
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1171002607. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “professor emeritus of middle eastern and islamic studies and history at new york university”. Today it says “american academic”. Read the current article and compare.
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
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
professor emeritus of middle eastern and islamic studies and history at new york university
Now
american academic
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.
