The BibleWorks Blog

The professors at GCTS often test students in Hebrew exegesis/grammar courses by requiring the students to parse all non-Qal verbs.

As the reference librarian, I’ve been asked a few times how to run a search in BibleWorks for all non-Qal verbs so that the student identify them at a glance and concentrate their study “where it counts”.

One way of doing it would be this:

.*@v[punhotsrvwxabcdefgiyklm]*

The letters in between the left and right brackets represent an “or” search of all stems but the Qal.

One student was able to achieve the same search by using the Graphical Search Engine and using an “exclusion” list to exclude any Qal verbs.

I thought that there would be a third way. I tried the following search (with my search limited only to the Book of Jonah):

(*@v*).!(*@vq*)

The first set of parentheses would look for all verbs. The second set of parentheses would then search for all Qal verbs, but the exclamation point set in between the two sets of parentheses would “negate” the second set. Unfortunately, this does not work. When I perform the search given above, I only get 1 hit.

Now that I think of it, I understand why… The search above looks for VERSES not words. It looks for verses that have verbs and then negates all verses that have Qal verbs. This results in a single hit in Jonah 2:2, where there is only a single verb, and that verb is not a Qal, but rather a Hithpael.

So, I posed the question to the BW forums:

Is there a way to negate on a word by word level? So that one could do something like this:

.*@v!q*

I know that this search does not work, but I was wondering if there’s anything that might work like this.

Boy oh boy, I do love the BW forums! I got an answer from MBushell (a guy who’s pretty familiar with BW ). He noted that the following search would work:

.*@v[^q]*

Indeed it does!

13841 verses, 9676 forms, 22560 hits, and only 4.53 seconds later, I was able to do a search on all non-Qal verbs in the entire Old Testament (not just Jonah). I then used the Color Filter to highlight all these verbs, so that I can see them at a glance in the text. I’ve been using BW since 4.0, and I never came across the use of the caret ^ in BW searches, but it sure comes in handy!

Update: I just tried a similar search in the BGM, trying to find non-indicative verbs in James, and I could not get it to work. Back to the forums!

Another new version has been added to the Vetus Latina series (See also here and here). This time Pasquale has finished compiling the Codex Bobbiensis (also known as manuscript k in textual criticism circles). For more on other Vetus Latina manuscripts, you can start at the table in this Wikipedia entry. Codex Bobbiensis is from around the fifth century AD and is a partial manuscript. It contains Mark 8:8-end and Matthew 1:1-15:36 in that order (i.e. not the Matthew, then Mark order many are used to). Although the manuscript comes from North Africa, it was later brought to a monastery in a city called Bobbio, hence the name of the manuscript. For more information, check out Wikipedia, Bible Research or Bing away.

DOWNLOAD (Unzip files directly into \databases\ subfolder. Upon restarting BibleWorks the new version, VLK, will be available.)

Maybe you’re not among those who own a copy of BibleWorks 8. Maybe you’d love to own it, but can’t afford a copy. Well if you’re feeling lucky, you just might be able to change that situation.

Visit Cal.vini.st First Anniversary Giveaway for more info. Note: Offer expires July 12, 2009.

If you follow discussions on the BibleWorks forums, you’ve no doubt already seen that Adelphos, an avid BibleWorks user, has created a special program that, although not a part of BibleWorks, works with data created by BibleWorks to manage verse lists. Rather than re-posting all of his helpful introductory material, I will direct you first to his post describing his program and second, to the post in which any further discussion about it is taking place. Don’t be like me and post on the first link. If you have questions or comments, add them on the second link.

Although I haven’t used the verse list much to create numerous lists, Adelphos’ program at once seems to fit a great void. Imagine keeping track of verses that relate to a Bible study you’re working on. Maybe you’re keeping track of a theme throughout a book of the Bible, you can easily add verses to the verse list, but what will you do with that list when you’re done? The Verse List Organizer helps you do more with the data that BibleWorks makes easy to create.

In the past few days, Adelphos has already modified a number of aspects of the program to better fit user needs. Sounds like he’s taken his approach to customer service like a certain company I know of.

DOWNLOAD Verse List Organizer

A little over two weeks ago, on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog Dirk Jongkind announced the release of a digital edition of the Tregelles Greek New Testament. Thanks to his contributions, as well as the other people who worked on this project, the team was able to produce a digital edition of Tregelles’ text as well as a secondary text which consists of corrections to Tregelles’ text.

Because they produced the text under the attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license,  I was able to re-compile their texts for use in BibleWorks. If you want to know more about the Tregelles text itself or the Tregelles project, check out the official website and the Introductory PDF. The PDF is especially valuable because it documents the 469 changes they made to the original Tregelles text.

As far as the BibleWorks implementation, I only have a few things to say.

1. Whereas the Tregelles project noted section and paragraph breaks, I have simply dumbed those breaks down into paragraph breaks which are marked by the ¶ in the text.
2. The Pericope of Adultery (John 7:53-8:11) is not part of the main text of Tregelles, but he does include in the note readings according to the D codex and Stephanus. There wasn’t a great way to include these, but both are given one after another (first D and then Stephanus) in the BibleWorks text under the same verse. Example John 8:1 reads [[ Ιησους δε επορευθη εις το ορος των ελαιων.]] [[Ἰησοῦς δὲ ἐπορεύθη εἰς τὸ ὄρος τῶν ἐλαιῶν ]]. Both readings are in double brackets to show that they are not part of the main text. The first set of double brackets is the D text, it does not have accents and smooth breathing marks. The second text is from the Stephanus reading.
3. There are two versions (TNT1 and TNT2) available for download here. TNT1 represents the original Tregelles reading and TNT2 represents the corrected version. You will most likely want to use TNT2, but TNT1 was provided for the sake of comparison.
4. These files are also being released with verse mapping files thanks to the kind and efficient work of Mark Eddy.
5. The re-use of these files still remains under the Creative Commons License of Dirk Jongkind and the Tregelles project.

DOWNLOAD TNT1 (Uncorrected Tregelles Greek NT) (unzip all files to your \databases\ subfolder)

DOWNLOAD TNT2 (Corrected Tregelles Greek NT) (unzip all files to your \databases\ subfolder)

Along the same lines as a previous post about Codex Vercellensis, Pasquale has finished another Old Latin manuscript transcription. This transcription comes from the Codex Veronensis, another beautiful purple manuscript as seen below:

If you want to learn more about the manuscript itself and its history, you’d best consult a book on textual criticism, but there is a small amount of information about this manuscript on Wikipedia.

Notes on dowloading:

1. These files will need to be unzipped into your \databases\ subdirectory in BibleWorks. The version (VLB) will then be available the next time you start BibleWorks.

2. Anytime you add a new version by simply copying files into the \databases\ folder to BibleWorks, it can mess with your saved version display order, if you want to avoid these problems, see a few of the user suggestions to work around that here (Mark Eddy’s post and Adelphos’ specifically).

DOWNLOAD!

Whether you’re a current user of BibleWorks 8 or still someone sitting on the sidelines, you might have missed a number of really significant improvements that have been made to the program since it was initially released. These updates are all available through the program’s auto-update feature, but sometimes people don’t pay attention to that. For the record, I wanted to ever so briefly highlight the two most significant updates thus far.

The first has to do with the Phrase Matching Tool (PMT) and Related Verses Tool (RVT). In the initial BW8 release, both of these tools could only be used well for the Biblical texts. With recent improvements, it is now really easy to search across all language versions. What this means in practice is that one can use either of these tools on a corpus like the Apostolic Fathers to see if there are any related verses or phrases that match not simply with other verses in the Apostolic Fathers, but also with any verses in the Bible, Josephus, Philo, or any other user version you have in the program. Both of these tools are really powerful, speedy and incredibly insightful and now even more amazing than before. If you haven’t had a chance to play with this new feature update, give it a whirl!

The second excellent update has to do with tabs in BibleWorks 8. When it was initially released, BibleWorks 8 had tabs that worked just like they did in BibleWorks 7. With the latest updates, you can now name your tabs and quickly toggle back and forth from one to the next with various key-strokes (control-tab or control-shift-tab). Now instead of thinking, gee, was it tab #4 I had my Epistle study in or tab #5, you can create a tab and call it “Epistle Study.” This is a big improvement for the user experience and many people have already been really happy about it on the BibleWorks forums.

So those are two of the biggest improvements (in my opinion) which have come since BibleWorks 8’s initial release. None of these updates cost you the user a penny, they are freely offered as part of the privilege of owning a license and working with this company.

(Another major update which will make users happy is also in the works. Responding to some of their users who were a bit disappointed with the navigation of the Early Church Fathers module in BibleWorks 8, the BW8 staffers went back to the code in order to make it better respond to user desires. The result will be a greatly improved package. While the update is not yet available, it is just one more testament to BibleWorks’ continuing commitment to quality products and responding to users’ needs.)

BibleWorks user Adelphos has graciously provided two more synopsis files for use in BibleWorks. The first of these is a synopsis of the Seven Last Sayings of Jesus from the Cross and the second is of 37 Messianic Prophecies (linked w verses of their fulfillment). Thanks Adelphos!

DOWNLOAD Seven Last Sayings Synopsis!

DOWNLOAD Messianic Prophecies!

For those interested in textual criticism issues, Pasquale has just released a new version for BibleWorks which contains the text from Codex Vercellensis, the earliest Old Latin manuscript of the Bible extant, dating to about AD 350. (In other words, this is a Latin text version, not English, Greek or anything else.)

This is what the real manuscript looks like. Sorry the text won't be this pretty color in BibleWorks.

If you want to learn more about the significance or history of Codex Vercellensis, check out the Wikipedia article.

Within BibleWorks, where gaps in the manuscript exist, Pasquale wrote the word “lacuna.” It’s not quite the same visual experience as reading a manuscript yourself, but if you do textual criticism, you will find this resource quite valuable.

DOWNLOAD! (Unzip the files in the folder \BibleWorks 8\databases\ (note these files work in older versions of BibleWorks as well)

Thanks to BW user Philip Brown (and his secretarial minions), we now offer a different Synoptic set for use in BibleWorks. This one is based on the work of Robert L. Thomas and Stanley N. Gundry in their book A Harmony of the Gospels.

In order to use this file, you must unzip it and place it in “BibleWorks 8\init\” subfolder. Once in BibleWorks the Synoptic Window can be accessed (in BW8) under “Tools: Viewing the Text: Synopsis Window” To open the Thomas-Gundry file, go to “File: Open” and then select “thomasgundry.sdf”

DOWNLOAD!