Logos Controlled Vocabulary (LCV) problem - Slave/Servant

Mark Barnes
Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

I notice that LCV treats slave/servant as equivalent, presumably because that's what one of the included dictionaries (ISBE) does. I appreciate there is overlap between the two terms, but they're not equivalent. Hence there are separate entries in EDB, TBD and others. Is the LCV set in stone, or can Logos make changes to it?

This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!

Comments

  • Terry Poperszky
    Terry Poperszky Member Posts: 1,576 ✭✭✭

    [Y]

     

     

  • Todd Phillips
    Todd Phillips Member Posts: 6,737 ✭✭✭

    Actually, since δοῦλος is translated by both "servant" and "slave" in most modern translations, I think that having them together in the LCV is a good thing.  It enables Logos to point the user at all appropriate entries in the dictionaries. 

    MacBook Pro (2019), ThinkPad E540

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    since δοῦλος is translated by both "servant" and "slave" in most modern translations

    Yes, but it shouldn't be (or at least should rarely be), as the articles and lexicons make clear. Even if they are right, just because it's the same Greek word doesn't mean it's one English concept. Take tongues and languages for example. One word in the Greek (γλῶσσα), but two concepts in English, hence two entries in LCV.

    There are other topics with significant overlap which are correctly treated differently:

    • prophecy and gift of prophecy
    • zion and Jerusalem
    • law and Ten Commandments

     

    This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!

  • Sean Boisen
    Sean Boisen Member, Logos Employee Posts: 1,452

    Is the LCV set in stone, or can Logos make changes to it?

    Yes, in fact we have been constantly changing it since the beginning, and we're not done yet (by a long shot).

    For technical and practical reasons, those changes don't get released immediately: in fact, the 4.1 release will provide the first changes to the LCV since the initial release of Logos 4 last November (and many people will be glad to find we've added 7 more dictionaries). I hope that future updates will happen more frequently.

    (topics.logos.com is different: this also changes regularly, probably daily, based on user contributions, but we haven't finalized a strategy yet for updating it based on our internal editorial processes.)

    I appreciate there is overlap between the two terms, but they're not equivalent.

    We started from the organizational schemes of various dictionaries and we pay close attention to them (since a primary purpose of the LCV is to organize that kind of content). For that reason, if the dictionaries tend to treat two concepts together, it's often not useful for us to tease them apart. At the same time, however, we exercise our own judgment about when things are the same and different.

    In this case, i'm inclined to agree with you that these concepts are different enough to deserve separate treatment. I'll pass that suggestion along to our Liz, our LCV Editor, and see what she thinks.

    If you think we've gotten something wrong, you can always submit suggested problems and/or corrections to our editorial team at data@logos.com.

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    Sean (and Liz), thanks for the helpful answer, and the continued work on the LCV. It is appreciated.

    This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!

  • Todd Phillips
    Todd Phillips Member Posts: 6,737 ✭✭✭

    Actually, since δοῦλος is translated by both "servant" and "slave" in most modern translations, I think that having them together in the LCV is a good thing.  It enables Logos to point the user at all appropriate entries in the dictionaries. 

    I guess my point was that if I had the ESV open to Matthew 10:24, and you had the NASB open to the same verse, then when we searched on the word used to translate δοῦλος (servant in ESV and slave in NASB), Logos would suggest the same set of dictionaries.

    MacBook Pro (2019), ThinkPad E540

  • Liz Licata
    Liz Licata Member, Logos Employee Posts: 30

    Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I agree that slave and servant are two distinctive things. I have separated them out into two topics. This will be reflected in the next update of the LCV

  • toughski
    toughski Member Posts: 1,288 ✭✭✭

    Welcome to the forums, Elizabeth, and thank you for your work on this amazing feature of Logos4.

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I agree that slave and servant are two distinctive things. I have separated them out into two topics. This will be reflected in the next update of the LCV

    Yes, thank you Liz.

     

    This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!

  • Room4more
    Room4more Member Posts: 1,730 ✭✭✭