SUGGESTION: In support of TIP of the day: textual boundaries

MJ. Smith
MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 54,814
edited December 2024 in English Forum

Suggestions in support of https://community.logos.com/forums/p/112837/748197.aspx#748197

Despite the fact that determining the boundaries of a pericope is a fundamental task in exegesis, Logos' tools are woefully poor in this area. The following areas need completion or new features to support.

  • Bible pericopes do not include Bible translations that are included in commentaries. Yet, these are the pericope divisions that are most apt to include the reasoning behind the division and are there among the most critical.
  • Pericopes do not have a tools that explores the pericopes of lectionaries - yet these are the ones of most interest to academics.
  • There is no tool for the easy identification of structural units such as inclusion, chiasm, parallel (steps), concentric pattern etc. although many of the resources note such characteristics.
  • The outline section both of the PG and the Bible Outline Browser is woefully incomplete (especially since it omits some of my favorites).

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."

Comments

  • Schumitinu
    Schumitinu Member Posts: 570 ✭✭

    Personally, this is one area where I use the LN numbers a lot. Applied in a visual filter they help me to discover:

    Change of Time (When?)
    LN 61: Sequence (61.1-5/7-8/11-19)
    LN 67: Time

    Change of Location (Where?)
    LN 93B: Places
    LN 1: Geographical Terms
    LN 81-83: Location words

    Change of Participants (Who?)
    LN 92: Discourse Referentials
    LN 93A: People

    Transition of discourse
    LN 91.1-5 Markers of transition

    Also, the same can be used for inductive Bible study (as indicated in parenthesis). This is another reason why I'd like to have a LN equivalent applied/tagged to the Old Testament as well. This is very effective in many ways.

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 54,814

    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."

  • Francis
    Francis Member Posts: 3,888 ✭✭✭

    MJ. Smith said:

    Pericopes do not have a tools that explores the pericopes of lectionaries - yet these are the ones of most interest to academics.

    This has not been my experience, except for Jewish reading cycles like Daf Yomi. So perhaps this describes more the academic community/ies to which you are connected. I don't write this to seek to invalidate or criticize your request, but simply to specify that it is not as generally true as your statement seems to indicate.

    It would be interesting, though probably quite a job to do (if it does not exist already), to analyze pesharim and midrashim (with regard to the Hebrew Bible) on the one hand and Early Church homilies (for the Hebrew and Greek OT and for the NT), on the other hand, to investigate ancient perceptions and conceptions of textual units/boundaries. I would think (and hope) that some of this has been done by textual critics as the basis of the divisions of their critical editions. 

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 54,814

    Francis, I suspect the difference is as much liturgical vs. nonliturgical as academic vs. non-academic. For text-criticism, however, some parts of the field are moving towards the texts of the lectionaries as the earliest manuscripts attest to early textual readings but are not well studied in the sense that manuscript fragments are.

    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."

  • Francis
    Francis Member Posts: 3,888 ✭✭✭

    Yes, ancient lectionaries can be used as textual witnesses. Since you have manifested interest in lectionaries in current use in the past, I thought that is what you were referring to earlier.