Person Tagging - Discrepancies between Bible Versions

John Percival
John Percival Member Posts: 59
edited November 2024 in English Forum

I have run into a problem with person tagging being very different between different Bible versions. I did a search for <Person David> and came up with the following:

  • LES: 1071 results in 889 verses
  • ESV OT: 3852 in 1379
  • NIV OT 3800 in 1378
  • BHS: 2541 in 1290

Obviously the ESV and NIV are fairly close although it is still slightly unsettling to see 50+ difference between the number of results. BHS is just about understandable. But the LES is completely different, making me think that there is a very different approach to person tagging in that version. If Logos is going to be useful for serious academic research then there needs to be consistency and accuracy in tagging across different translations. A similar problem was evident when I did a quick search for <Place Jerusalem>. Is this user error, a 'feature', or a bug?

Thanks in advance!

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Comments

  • Reuben Helmuth
    Reuben Helmuth MVP Posts: 2,485

    To get the most accurate results, you should be using the LHB for the Old Testament and the SBLGNT for the New Testament. Any version discrepancies are likely due to reverse interlinear alignment differences to these two texts.

    Diagnostic Logs 

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,806

    Mick is right that searching in original language texts is a good idea but it doesn't explain the discrepancies John is seeing. It looks as though the LES is not tagged in the same way as other translations. For example - 1 Samuel 16:12 has "him" referring to David.

    The ESV has this tagged with <Person David>

    but the LES does not

    And there are lots of examples of this

    Hopefully someone from Faithlife will be able to comment further.

  • Bradley Grainger (Logos)
    Bradley Grainger (Logos) Administrator, Logos Employee Posts: 11,997
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1079149#Comment_1079149

    The LXX was never annotated with Biblical People / Places / Things / etc., the way that the Hebrew Bible (LHB) and Green NT (SBLGNT) were.

    Some referents were copied over automatically from LHB (these are the hits for <Person David> that you're seeing), but pronouns and other references were never annotated at all.

    This is currently functioning as expected; our data annotations are generally not available for the LXX.

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,806
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1079210#Comment_1079210

    Thanks Bradley

    Thats helpful to know 

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