literary and/or epigraphic references to synagogues

Christian Alexander

I have tried doing a search to find literary and/or epigraphic references to synagogues in the Jewish diaspora in Rome. I have not been very successful. Can someone read my search strings and tell me what I am doing wrong with my format? 

First I did a factbook entry for synagogue. 

Next, I did an all search

Literary OR epigraphic NEAR Synagogue WITHIN 10 WORDS Rome 6 hits

Literary AND epigraphic NEAR Synagogue WITHIN 10 WORDS Rome 10 hits

Literary OR epigraphic NEAR Synagogue NEAR Rome 15 hits

Literary AND epigraphic NEAR Synagogue NEAR Rome 16 hits

Literary OR epigraphic NEAR Synagogue AND Rome 13 hits

Literary AND epigraphic NEAR Synagogue AND Rome 18 hits

MJ. Smith

First, think about parentheses to ensure your search terms work as you intend.

Second, think about whether you are looking for the word "epigraphic" or do you wish to search epigraphic texts. Same issue with "literary"

Third, what do you mean by "Rome"? Does the port city of Antica count i.e. does the Ostia Synagogue count?

Fourth, try the parts of your search separately ... do they work, are they showing what you want?

Step 1: looks okay

Step 2 results are the word literary alone - oops

Step 3 Add parens so that literary and epigraphic results are combined before considering NEAR Rome

 Continue until your result appear to be reasonable ...

Dave Hooton

Christian Alexander said:

I have tried doing a search to find literary and/or epigraphic references

(Literary OR epigraphic) NEAR Synagogue WITHIN 10 WORDS Rome

Literary AND epigraphic NEAR Synagogue WITHIN 10 WORDS Rome 10 hits

(Literary OR epigraphic) NEAR Synagogue NEAR Rome

Literary AND epigraphic NEAR Synagogue NEAR Rome 16 hits

(Literary OR epigraphic) NEAR Synagogue AND Rome

Literary AND epigraphic NEAR Synagogue AND Rome 18 hits

.

If looking for either word (Literary or epigraphic or both) then the AND is incorrect, and put parentheses around the OR term as shown above.

NEAR looks in footnotes, so you get more results with a  2x NEAR query.

AND Rome says you don't care about proximity as long as Rome is present. But results will not be as relevant.

For better control, use a Books Search as you can choose whether you want results in footnotes (i.e. choose surface).

Christian Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1305274#Comment_1305274

I just want to say to all who helped me on this study. It was very fruitful; it also showed me how to do some further and advanced search strings. When I posted this it I never meant to post it 3 times. Thanks again everyone.