TIP OF THE DAY 2 conclusion of introduction

MJ. Smith
MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,113
edited November 20 in English Forum

Next post link TIP OF THE DAY 3: Name beginning - Logos Forums

I'm trying a different approach -- one that emphasizes Logos/Verbum vocabulary and available data. Give it a few days to move into personal and geographic names, then let me know if this approach is useful. If it is, there might be a gift certificate or two to those finding errors and omissions ...

EXCURSES: As the divine economy (economy of salvation) is history, the study of narrative is fundamental to Bible study. Suggested introductory reading includes:

This Bible interpretation lays the foundation for narrative theology as illustrated by:

QUESTION: How does Logos/Verbum define “Biblical events,” a fundamental unit of history?

SOFTWARE: One can access the Help Center in several ways:

  1. Method 1: Dashboard

1.1.   Use the Dashboard toggle near the top (left) of the application tool bar.

1.2.   In the “Need some help” card, enter “define Biblical events” into the search box.

1.3.   Hit enter (click on search)

1.4.   Select your choice of sources – videos, help document, dataset documentation, online assistant pages, I chose Parks, Jessica. Biblical Events Dataset Documentation. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2021.

  1. Method 2: Application toolbar icon labeled “Help Center”

2.1.   Click on the question mark icon on the application tool bar to open the home page of the Help Center.

2.2.   In the “Need some help” home page, enter “define Biblical events” into the search box.

2.3.   Hit enter (click on search)

2.4.   Select your choice of sources – videos, help document, dataset documentation, online assistant pages, I chose Parks, Jessica. Biblical Events Dataset Documentation. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2021.

  1. Method 3: Command line opened by application icon at the top (left) of the application tool bar.

3.1.   Click on command line icon at the top of the application tool bar.

3.2.   Type ”Open Help Center” into the input box.

3.3.   In the dropdown selection menu select Open Help Center under Tools which opens the home page of the Help Center.

3.4.   In the “Need some help” home page, enter “define Biblical events” into the search box.

3.5.   Hit enter (click on search)

3.6.   Select your choice of sources – videos, help document, dataset documentation, online assistant pages, I chose Parks, Jessica. Biblical Events Dataset Documentation. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2021.

  1. Method 4: Ask on the forums – a slower but useful way to find help.

4.1.   Use method 1, 2, or 3 to get to the Help Center home page.

4.2.   Click on the Community option.

4.3.   Enter your question in the forum appropriate to the application you are running – desktop, web, mobile.

RESULTS:  From the results, I copied the following vocabulary list for terminology related to Biblical events. Your results may be different but they should convey the same basic information.

VOCABULARY for Biblical Events:

[quote]The Biblical Events Dataset features 2,443 events from the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocrypha.

What is an event?

Events serve to organize the Biblical narrative into independent units that can be labeled, described, and linked to in Logos. They are conceptualizations of the Biblical text itself, not secondary literature or external analysis. They capture the important relationships between key people, places, and things and the events in the text: the related information should be what’s important to the event, not necessarily an exhaustive list. They are tied to time, and provide a big-picture view of the Biblical story across different books and perspectives.

For something to be an event, it needs at least one participant, at least one action, and at least a relative time. Settings are useful, but sometimes the biblical text do not say exactly where an event happened. These criteria exclude psalms, proverbs, and most prophecies.

Prophecies are only events if they are given a context. For example, Ezekiel’s prophecy against Egypt in Ezekiel 30:1–19 is not an event because it is not assigned to a time or place. Ezekiel 30:20–26, however, is an event because it is a dated prophecy.

Visions are events and the people who appear in visions are participants (like Jesus in Acts 9:10–19).

There are some special cases where an event is referred to in the biblical text and fits within the biblical time frame but is not in a narrative text. For example. we know from Galatians 1:17 that Paul went to Arabia after his conversion. Although this is not found in a narrative text, it can be placed between the events of Acts 9:25 and 26.

Synoptic and Parallel Events

A single event may have multiple defining texts as long as it is clear that a single event is in view. For example, the event The Men of Jabesh-Gilead Bury Saul has as its defining texts as 1 Samuel 31:11–13 and 1 Chronicles 10:11–12.

If two events share some similarities but it is unclear whether they are the same event, the events are listed separately. For example, the event The People of Nazareth Refuse to Believe (Matthew, Mark) is listed separately from the event Jesus Is Rejected at Nazareth (Luke). The events are distinguished by including the book reference(s) in parentheses.

What is not an event?

Abstract, future, rhetorical, and recurring occurrences are not included as events in this dataset.

In general, genealogies are not events. However, if there is an action described in the midst of a genealogy (e.g., Enoch being taken by God in Genesis 5), then that action is an event. Also, if an event is described in detail in one place (e.g., the birth of Isaac in Genesis 21:1–7) and is part of a genealogy in another place (1 Chronicles 1:34), then the additional reference is included as a mentioned text reference.

Background information is not an event. For example, Genesis 6:1–8 sets a background for the story of Noah but is not included as its own event.

Summary statements are not events, unless they are referred to in other texts. For example, 1 Samuel 14:47–52 is a summary statement, but Saul’s defeats of the Ammonites and Philistines are mentioned elsewhere (1 Samuel 11:11; 14:16–23), so 1 Samuel 14:47 is added as a mentioned text reference.

BK Event Items

The following information is curated for events in the dataset:

•             Title: A brief user-readable label for the event.

•             Description: A brief description of the event.

•             Key Passages: The primary biblical text(s) in which the event occurs.

•             Participants: People who participate in an event.

•             Setting: The place where the event occurred.

•             Important Things: BK Things related to the event.

•             Concepts: LCV Concepts related to the event.[1]

EXCURSES: The “BK” in “BK Event Items” is an acronym of Bible Knowledgebase. A knowledgebase has a specific meaning in the software community. A knowledge base is a centralized repository of information that serves as a comprehensive resource for storing, organizing, and retrieving knowledge about a particular subject. In Logos/Verbum it contains information about Biblical persons, Biblical places, Biblical things, and Biblical events.

The “LCV” in “LCV” is an acronym of Logos Controlled Vocabulary. A controlled vocabulary in data management is a standardized and organized list of terms used to describe and categorize information consistently. 

 

QUESTION: How do I access the familiar Help document as an explanation of a panel? 

SOFTWARE: Enter F1 (with function key) to open the Help file to a location relevant to the current active panel. Note the orange line at the topic of the tab which identifies the current active panel.

QUESTION: How do I access the familiar Help document as a book (resource)?

SOFTWARE: The ability to open the Help document has been removed from the application menu on the tool bar. It has been replaced by a separate icon to open the Help Center on the toolbar – a question mark in a circle. While one can open the Help document from the library panel, I find it easiest to:

1.1.   Click on command line icon at the top of the application tool bar.

1.2.   Type ”Open Verbum Help” into the input box or you can, of course, type “Open Logos Help”

1.3.   In the dropdown selection menu select Open Verbum under Books which opens the book to its position when last closed.

1.4.   Use the navigation box or the table of contents to navigate to your desired location.

 

 

TOPIC: Name

Combining the participants element of an event and the “who” aspect of the seven circumstances brings us to the major topic of Biblical person. That, in turn, brings us to names and spellings.

QUESTION: How does my spelling affect the books identified in a book search?

SOFTWARE: Test your library by doing the following

  1. Open a Search panel.
  2. Select a Book search
  3. Select “Your books”
  4. Right click on the tab of the Search panel
  5. Select duplicate. This creates a second search panel with the same options.
  6. Enter “savior” as one search panel’s search argument. Run the query
  7. Enter “saviour” as the other search panel’s search argument. Run the query.
  8. Curse Noah Webster.

For my library ~40% of the selected resources use the American spelling while ~ 60% use the British spelling. So why curse Noah Webster? It was his spelling reforms in the early 19th century that created this difference. Anytime I use the American spelling, I am eliminating the larger portion of my library from consideration.

But it gets worse.

  1. Run the following query on an external AI tool such as Perplexity -- If I wanted to find all occurrences of the word savior/saviour from 1400 on the English, what spellings would I need?  Note I found the Logos/Verbum internal smart church wanting in this particular non-Biblical case. I was also unable to coax a truly complete list out of Perplexity.
  2. Create an additional instance of the Search panel with a search argument requesting the new forms i.e. saveour OR salveor OR savioure OR saveor OR salvator OR sauveur.

While the alternative spellings generated many hits, many of those hits were in quotations, French, or Latin. It only added an addition ~1% to the resource count.

The results of my Perplexity search were:

[quote]Based on the search results provided, here is the most complete list of spellings for "savior/saviour" attested from 1400 onwards in English:

 

1. Middle English forms (14th-15th centuries):

- saveour

- salveor

- savioure

- saveor (rare variant)

 

2. Early Modern to Modern English forms:

- saviour (British English spelling)

- savior (American English spelling, introduced in the 19th century)

 

3. Other variants:

- salvator (Latin-derived form, occasionally used in religious or scholarly contexts)

- sauveur (French-influenced spelling, occasionally used)

 

The main spellings to focus on would be:

1. saveour (Middle English)

2. saviour (British English)

3. savior (American English)

 

It's worth noting that spelling variations were more common in Middle and Early Modern English, so slight variations of these forms might be encountered in older texts. Additionally, when referring to Jesus Christ, both spellings are often capitalized as "Savior" or "Saviour".

 

This list covers the most common and relevant spellings from the 15th century to the present day, based on the information provided in the search results.

 

Citations:

[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/savior

[2] https://www.etymonline.com/word/saviour

[3] https://wordsuperb.com/blog/how-do-you-spell-saviour

[4] https://writingexplained.org/saviour-or-savior-difference

[5] https://promova.com/confusing-words/savior-saviour 

 

EXCURSES: Thanks to Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics, championed by Thomas Aquinas, the elements of circumstances (Septem Circumstantiae) are the basic information for an event. If you wish to find these elements, a search on “elements of circumstances” will be more productive than on “Septem Circumstantiae” in most libraries. In my library I found this quotation to be satisfactory:

From the earliest times, it has been customary to list seven circumstances contained in the following verse: “Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando.”72

The questions Who? What? Where? By which means? Why? How? and When? translate the traditional list of circumstances. While circumstances sometimes can alter the moral nature of an act, in a large majority of cases these questions respond to the concrete particulars of a given action, or as one author puts it, they describe “special circumstances that mark the individual lot.”73 [2]


[1] Jessica Parks, Biblical Events Dataset Documentation (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2021).

72 Dominic M. Prümmer, O.P., Handbook of Moral Theology, p. 21.

73 See George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss. For the effect that circumstances have on the moral quality of an action, see Veritatis splendor, no. 81, and below, note 75.

[2] Romanus Cessario, Introduction to Moral Theology, ed. Romanus Cessario, Revised Edition, Catholic Moral Thought (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013), 171–172.




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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