Verbum Search through Tip of the Day #21

MJ. Smith
MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 54,596
edited November 2024 in English Forum

Tip 21: Factbook Biblical Person: Lemma: Bible Word Study: Translation

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The Translation section with its translation ring is a favorite feature of Verbum. Because the lemma is a proper noun with a single translation, this is not a very useful example. However, it does simply the explanation of its function.

From Verbum Help:

Translation Section

This section shows how a word has been translated in a reverse interlinear Bible. It appears in the Bible Word Study guide by default.

The translation ring shows the key lemma in the center with all the ways that lemma has been translated in a given reverse interlinear Bible around the ring.

Ring segments are sized relative to the frequency of each translation. The largest ring segment accounts for the largest number of occurrences translated in a particular way. In this example, the Greek word πειρασμός is most often translated as “temptation” and less often as “trial, trials” and least often as “severe testing.”

Ring segments are arranged clockwise from longest to shortest. The longest segment is always blue. Translations are grouped together by stem, so in this instance, “trial” and “trials” count as the same result, as do “test” and “testing.”

•          Click a ring segment to display all of the instances where the key lemma is translated that way. The ring segment pops out of the ring and a concordance is shown below the ring.

•          Click an expanded segment to hide the concordance and return the segment to the ring.

•          Hover over a ring segment to see the ring from the corresponding Bible Word Study for that word in a popup. In this example, hovering over “trial” would reveal that several other Greek words are also translated as “trial.”

•          Click the lemma in the middle of the graph to see all of the occurrences, listed by segment.

Sometimes a ring will fade out at the end because there are more single-instance segments than can be easily displayed in the ring. Clicking the lemma in the center will list these single occurrences along with everything else.

•          Right-click to Copy, Save as, Send to "Untitled Sermon, Send to PowerPoint/Keynote, or Print.

Settings

By default, the Translation section draws from the top-ranked reverse interlinear Bible. (Use Resource Priority to change this.)

To change the Bible used by the Translation section:

1.         Hover over the section header.

2.         Click Settings at the right side of the header.

3.         Choose a reverse interlinear Bible from the drop-down.

Multiple Translation sections can be added to a guide, each set to draw from a different Bible. This is useful for quickly comparing how multiple translations treat a word.[1]

  • On the Translation section bar we see:
    • An expand/contract arrowhead
    • Section title “Translation”
    • Bible translation for which the data is shown
    • A mouse-over Help extracted from Verbum Help
    • Settings which allows you to change the translation used for the data
    • An “x” to delete the section from the guide.
    • A sparkline (2) shows the distribution of the use of the lemma.
    • In the center of the translation ring is the lemma and it’s common glosses (3); this lemma matches the lemma of the Bible Word Study as a whole which was a selected lemma out of several available in the Biblical person Factbook entry.
    • The ring itself is divided into sections for each translation of the lemma occurring in the selected translation. Yes, this is rarely interesting on proper nouns which have a limited number of translations. But when Abram/Abram’s represent 100% of the translations it is easy to focus on what the entries are.

  1. Clicking on the lemma in the center of the ring (1) brings up the detail for the entire lemma.
  2. For each translation of the lemma, the data presents the translation and the number of times that translation appears in the total number of occurrences of the lemma adjusted for the translation (2).
  3. Note the total number of occurrences of the lemma adjusted for the translation also appears to the left of the sparkline (3). The detail entries of the sparkline should sum to that total.
  4. Beneath the translation header, the Bible references (by verse) and the text is shown with the translation of the lemma highlighted (4).

Change the translation to the NABRE to see how the Translation section changes:

  • In the NABRE there are multiple translations including “his” and “him.” Clicking on “him” (1) highlights the translation by pulling it out from the ring and opens the detail for “him” below the ring.
  • For the translation of the lemma as “him”, the application presents the translation and the number of times that translation appears in the total number of occurrences of the lemma adjusted for the translation (2).
  • Note the total number of occurrences of the lemma adjusted for the translation also appears to the left of the sparkline (3). The detail entries of the sparkline should sum to that total.
  • Beneath the translation header, the Bible references (by verse) and the text is shown with the translation of the lemma highlighted (4).

Note that the NABRE reports that the lemma occurs 61 times in the Hebrew while the NRSV reports only 60. The difference is that one occurrence of the lemma is not translated in the NRSV but is translated in the NABRE. The count shown in front of the spark chart is the number of times that the lemma occurs in the Hebrew text (LHB) and is translated in the English text (NRSV or NABRE or …)

How many times does the lemma occur in the Lexham Hebrew Bible? Search the morphology tagged text (Bible text tagged for lemmas) for all passages in the Lexham Hebrew Bible for lemma: אַבְרָם

Because the lemma is always translated as “Abram”, searching All Bible Text in All Passages in the NRSV for cases where the lemma “<Lemma = lbs/he/אַבְרָם>: occurs but the translation “Abram” does occur. Note the conversion of the syntax for specifying the lemma was handled automatically when the search type was changed from Morph to Bible.

Note that the same logic can be used to find cases where “Abram” occurs in the text of the NRSV but not in the text of the LHB.

Neither the case of the lemma in Hebrew not being translated or the case of the English word added for clarity are considered in the translation section. It considers only those cases where a lemma in the source language is translated into the target language.


[1] Verbum Help (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2018).

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