BUG-RESOURCE BUG-DESIGN BUG: Research editions that allow one to do anything but research

MJ. Smith
MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,090
edited November 21 in English Forum

Yes, I am annoyed. I started with a reasonable goal - to be able to study the cultural context of the 5 books of Moses by looking at the pseudepigrapha and apocrypha that retells or is a midrashic commentary on the stories of the Torah. I made the project practical by working at the pericope level and using MSWord to build a "harmony" of the texts so I can compare them in detail. Here are the steps I tried today with BUG as a prefix for steps that failed.

  1. Began with a sample of the first 5 chapters of Genesis.
  2. Column 1: pericope names prefixed with the work that the pericope name is from
  3. Column 2: milestone definition, reference in text form to show, dynamic text definition to bring the text for Genesis into the personal book. BUG: I could not get the reference in form bible.nrsv to work. I went with a simple bible: to leave that puzzle for another day.
  4. Column 3: milestone definition, reference in text form to show, dynamic text definition to bring the text for Book of Jubilees into the personal book. BUG (design): dynamic text works only for Bible books not for all versified works. Note that Jubilees is in both the Jewish and Christian canon in Ethiopia.
  5. BUG (resource): The prologue was omitted in the datatype reference for the Book of Jubilees.
  6. Column 4: milestone definition, reference in text form to show, dynamic text definition to bring the text for Cave of Treasures into the personal book. BUG (resource): despite being a versified resource of 54 chapters there is no datatype reference available.  In short, despite appearing in a research edition, one can only link by a URL link -- no chance to prioritize resources when one has multiple copies of the work. Nor can I use a datatype reference that will work when the texts are tagged appropriately as I have no way of knowing the format of the datatype.
  7. Column 5: milestone definition, reference in text form to show, dynamic text definition to bring the text for Adam Octipartite into the personal book. BUG (resource): Same issue of text lacking a datatype reference. Fortunately, this work has only one pericope so a hard link is a workable work around in the short term

Would someone care to explain to me how this is a satisfactory performance for software supposedly useful in the academic arena? Especially when the last major release greatly expanded the reference works available on pseudepigrapha and apocryphal works -- making me think that FL was encouraging the use of these resources?

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."

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  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,090

    bump an unanswered post in hopes of getting an answer

    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."

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