Verbum Tip 4aa: Bible Browser: Miracles of the Bible

MJ. Smith

Docx files for personal book: Verbum 9 part 1; How to use the Verbum Lectionary and Missal

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Facet: Miracles

The Miracles in the Bible dataset is, by definition, a subset of Biblical events although it is not described as such and no explicit links are offered.

Dataset

• DB:SD-MIRACLES MIRACLES.lbssd

Documentation

Embedded in the interactive Aubrey, Michael, ed. 2016. Miracles of the Bible. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife.

Data

From About in the interactive:

[quote]Determining what is a miracle is grounded in four questions.

1. Can the supernatural event be attributed directly or indirectly to a supernatural agent?
2. Does the event function to reveal the power or identity of the supernatural agent?
3. Does the event have noticeable and, perhaps, alarming effect on the natural world?
4. Is there a human intermediary performing the supernatural event?

Worth noting is the use of the semantic roles (agent, patient, & beneficiary) rather than grammatical terms. These three attributes are subsets of Persons.

Bible Browser

In the Bible browser, Book, Location and Theme are not shown under the Miracles tab as they each have their own tabs in the browser. The example set three facets:

1. Bible → Old Testament → Genesis
2. Miracles → Patient → Noah (builder of ark)
3. Miracles → Type → Judgment

Interactive

One can replicate the facet selection of the Bible Browser in the Miracles of the Bible Interactive:

However, the power of the Miracles of the Bible interactive is in the multiple views for selection which allows one to explore the data from a variety of perspectives.

• The interactive is facet controlled (1). Note the color coding on type.
• A facet selection trail (2) is provided.
• Views are provided for text (3), type (4), book (5), agent (6), patient (7), things involved (8), location (9), and tags (10). Beneficiary, instrument, audience, and theme lack a view.

From the aspect of text:

These are presented in Bible reference sequence with an expand/contract arrowhead to display details.

From the aspect of type:

Here the types are shown divided into nine groups:

• Affliction
• Communications
• Exorcism
• Healing
• Judgment
• Nature
• Provision
• Resurrection
• Not specified

One can choose to retail the detailed coloration when multiple types were assigned or to have only the group color shown.  Size of the bubble reflects length of passage. Mouse-over displays the details.

 

 

From the aspect of book:

Here the grouping of the bubbles is based upon the book of the Bible in which the miracle (events) is narrated.

From the aspect of agent:

From the aspect of patient:

Here there is little organization around patient values due to the variety of values.

From the aspect of things involved:

From the aspect of location:

From the aspect of tags:

Or switching to the color by group option:

Context Menu and Information Panel

The Information Panel has the standard information. However, it is worth noting the number of values in blue indicating a link to Factbook on click and an info card on mouse-over.

The Context menu shows the usual copy and search options but no lookup capabilities.

Search

A search initiated from the Context Menu generates a search argument of {Label Miracle WHERE Agent ~ <Person God> AND Patient ~ <Person Ham (son of Noah)> AND Patient ~ <Person Japheth (son of Noah)> AND Patient ~ <Person Noah (builder of ark)> AND Patient ~ <Person Shem> AND Patient ~ <Person Wife of Noah> AND Things Involved ~ <Thing Noah’s Ark> AND Things Involved ~ <Thing Animal> AND Things Involved ~ <Thing Flood> AND Things Involved ~ <Thing Rain> AND Title ~ "The Flood" AND Type ~ "Judgment" AND Type ~ "Nature"} Note the number of datatypes used in the attribute values and the number of AND operators used to specify multiple values for an attribute. This illustrates how a complex argument breaks down into small and understandable elements.