Searching for all verses referencing a person

Ryan Schatz
Ryan Schatz Member Posts: 147 ✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

I had someone ask me if there was a verse which talked about John the Baptist being in heaven.  When I went to search for all references to John, I realized that sometimes the passage says John (meaning John the disciple, and other times John the Baptist), and other times it says John the Baptist.  Is there a way to search the entire Bible for verses that refer to John the Baptist, whether prophetically, ie. the Elijah to come, or with his first name, John, or full title as John the Baptist?  In other words, something like a "Person" search which would return everything written in the Bible about that person.

Comments

  • Damian McGrath
    Damian McGrath Member Posts: 3,051 ✭✭✭

    I had someone ask me if there was a verse which talked about John the Baptist being in heaven.  When I went to search for all references to John, I realized that sometimes the passage says John (meaning John the disciple, and other times John the Baptist), and other times it says John the Baptist.  Is there a way to search the entire Bible for verses that refer to John the Baptist, whether prophetically, ie. the Elijah to come, or with his first name, John, or full title as John the Baptist?  In other words, something like a "Person" search which would return everything written in the Bible about that person.

    Ryan, 

    Have you tried the Biblical People tool?

     

    I get this:

    image

     

    You can't export it, but you can hover and click....

     

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Wow, that would be really cool if it existed. I don't know of such a thing, because searches are text-based. I don't believe anyone has ever done any coding throughout Scripture to mark each places where a given person is referred to, whether literally or metaphorically/prophetically, or by an alternate name. There could also be some ambiguity about how to tag some people in some cases. For example, some interpreters of Isaiah 7:14 see that prophecy being fulfilled (at least for a first time, not necessarily precluding it having a second fulfilment in Christ's birth) in the very next chapter, when Isaiah's wife conceives and gives birth. This is because of the context of the verse: given what Isaiah 7:15 says, it could be argued that the prophecy is anticipated to be fulfilled in Ahaz's lifetime and is relevant to king Ahaz's own military situation, threatened as he is by two kings who are allied against Israel. Be that as it may, your question is a good one, and tagging all the people throughout Scripture would be something to suggest for someone to make their life's work -- if nobody has done it yet. And if someone has, then let Logos get that info and put it into the product in an upcoming version!

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭

    image

    OK, I take back most of what I said. I guess BP does do this to a certain extent. But it doesn't include prophetic/typological references which I think Ryan wanted. However, as I pointed out, that could be extremely difficult (and at times controversial) to do.

  • Damian McGrath
    Damian McGrath Member Posts: 3,051 ✭✭✭

    But it doesn't include prophetic/typological references which I think Ryan wanted.

    Yeah, I missed that bit - consummate thread hijacker that I am, I read the beginning and end of the post :)

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭


    But it doesn't include prophetic/typological references which I think Ryan wanted.

    Yeah, I missed that bit - consummate thread hijacker that I am, I read the beginning and end of the post :)


    No, your answer was very helpful (once I figured out how to get the full listing of verses you saw, by clicking on the ellipses; I was wondering why mine showed so many fewer than yours did).

    Before expanding the ellipses (click on the ellipses -- see red circles -- to expand to full verse list shown in Damian's image above):

    image

    In fact BP does show all places where John the Baptist is referred to as merely John (Jonas, Ἰωάννης Iōannēs), which would be difficult if not impossible to do using a regular Bible search (because there is at least one other John -- the beloved disciple and author of 1,2,3 John and Revelation - who would show up in a search for "John").

    You can't export it, but you can hover and click....

    No, but surprisingly, you can copy/paste it! Surprising because there are so many things in L4 that you can't copy/paste which you'd expect to be able to.

  • Ryan Schatz
    Ryan Schatz Member Posts: 147 ✭✭

    All, thanks for your quick responses!  I think Biblical People actually does what I wanted, and its actually much better than trying to do the text search.  I don't know why I didn't think of it, but I'm glad I asked as it was good to know about the ellipses.

    I realize I was asking for more than anyone probably had done by asking for the prophecies as well, but it would be nice.

    Thanks!!

  • ab360
    ab360 Member Posts: 7 ✭✭

    coding throughout Scripture to mark each places where a given person is referred to

    Has anyone figured out the datatype for Person?  Any idea how that search syntax would be structured? 
    What I really want to do is search a bible range  for all of the people is that range -- for example, making a list of all the people in the Gospel of Mark.

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 54,476

    I was thinking that one set of tagging permitted one to find proper nouns ... but I can't find it now.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • DMB
    DMB Member Posts: 14,050 ✭✭✭✭

    Newberry's interlinear has tags for indeclinable proper nouns. Also Lexham.

    "If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,008

    AdamB said:

    coding throughout Scripture to mark each places where a given person is referred to

    Has anyone figured out the datatype for Person?  Any idea how that search syntax would be structured? 
    What I really want to do is search a bible range  for all of the people is that range -- for example, making a list of all the people in the Gospel of Mark.

    Search a Reverse Interlinear (ESV, NASB95, etc) or Greek bible with Louw-Nida numbers for the sub-domain Persons  i.e.

    <LN 93.1-388>

    This can be a Bible Search in any range you desire.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • spitzerpl
    spitzerpl Member Posts: 4,998 ✭✭✭

    You can't export it, but you can hover and click....

    You can also copy and then paste them in the reference portion of a Bible Search. You will then be searching all the verses containing John the Baptist (admittedly not prophetic references) for a particular search term, e.g. "Heaven".

  • Daniel R. Smith
    Daniel R. Smith Member Posts: 82 ✭✭

    Way back in Logos 1.6 there was a way to do this. It would even return pronouns! We would mix a naves number with the name somehow.

    May the Lord bless you and keep you.

  • spitzerpl
    spitzerpl Member Posts: 4,998 ✭✭✭

    I realize I was asking for more than anyone probably had done by asking for the prophecies as well, but it would be nice.

    I realize that this is an old post but one could come very close to doing this by going to Nave's New Topical>Jesus>Prophecies concerning, copying the verses, pasting them into Word, copying the verses from the Biblical People, Pasting it into the Word document, then copying all of that and Making a Reference range in the Bible Search Reference menu with these verses and naming the range "Jesus".