How do you handle questions that were good before an edit but off topic after?

Question

This question was recently asked on the site: Did Jesus know how to read and write?

The original question was:

"Is there any biblical evidence that suggests Jesus read or wrote anything, and was he literate?"

Which I think is an appropriate question for this site. It is objective and answerable - in fact there is what I think is a good answer to that question. The question was then extended to define literate

literate in the sense he could compose an essay and write it down?

This becomes much harder to answer. There is no record of Jesus writting an essay, no school reports or GPA (did he even go to school), etc. The question now has a -4 rating and is in the review list to close.

What is the appropriate action here? I think the original question should stand as a good question. Maybe I'm wrong on this point, in which case this post is irrelevent.

Do I edit the question back to the original, should I vote to close, or should I vote to leave it open because the original question and the answer given are relevant?

Answer 1

You have two options, and it depends on the answers.

1. If the answers fit the original question, rollback the edit. If the OP or someone else decides to reimplement the edit, flag the post. No need to get into an edit war. Please don't get into a war in the comments. If you feel strongly about it, raise it on meta. If the moderator who views the post agrees with you we will lock the post and will likely take any further discussion to meta.

2. If the answers fit the new iteration of the question, cast a vote to close. This will put it in the close question queue where it can be addressed by other high rep members of the community. If you do not have the reputation to close (500 now, 3000 when we graduate) please flag to post for moderator attention.

In the specific case that you've mentioned. I've rolled the edit back and will address any further concerns on the post personally.