Finding all the places an evil spirit spoke

Jerry T
Jerry T Member Posts: 122 ✭✭
edited November 20 in English Forum

I was trying to find all the places in the Bible where an evil spirit is speaking.  I found items like Demoniac and Evil Supernatural Beings, Legion that I could use with Reported Speech (in Bible Browser) but no umbrella term that would include all evil spirits.  

ChatGPT did a great job in getting me the information I was looking for but I am curious to know if there is a search or tool in Logos that would give me a comprehensive answer.  

Comments

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,405

    Not that I have found. The ability to search on a group sharing a characteristic is a weakness of Logos/Verbum. I have reason to believe that they are looking at the issue but not necessarily in the way I wish they would. See AI Searches on the Bible? Will this be added at some stage - Logos Forums. This would be nice but I would find exposing more of the characteristics information to a precise search more useful given that AI is currently being used to aggregate others' works rather than doing creative analysis. I have found the chatbots great at producing examples but poor at providing exhaustive lists.

    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."

  • Christian Alexander
    Christian Alexander Member Posts: 3,008 ✭✭

    This is a great search idea. Sometimes we have to outsource to go to other sources. I agree it is best to streamline in one source if possible. 

  • Jerry T
    Jerry T Member Posts: 122 ✭✭
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1324149#Comment_1324149

    Thank you for the feedback!

  • John
    John Member Posts: 573 ✭✭

    Jerry T said:

    ... I am curious to know if there is a search or tool in Logos that would give me a comprehensive answer.

    I cannot do it, but I was hoping someone would show you how. I have seen some very complex searches posted here on the forum before. I am pretty sure there are some experts on here who could put together a search string.

    Unfortunately, AI is the new "easy way". whether its results are comprehensive or complete requires faith that I do not have [:|]

  • Phil Gons (Logos)
    Phil Gons (Logos) Administrator, Logos Employee Posts: 3,799

    We're in the early stages of working on an AI-powered "Smart Bible Search" that does a pretty good job with this query:

    image.png

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,405
    edited November 23

    That is very nice and will be appreciated by many. However, for the scholar who needs accurate results it simply adds another uncheckable level of uncertainty to the data. So I hope that in parallel you are making the unexposed personal data such as gender, roles, natural/supernatural, single/group, etc. available in a precise search. Then I would get really excited at having AI for rough estimates and the precise search for actual results.

    The sort of thing, I'd like to be able to ask:

    • list everyone whose name was changed or assigned by God
    • list everyone whose name in the Bible is given in at least two languages
    • list every unnamed person who is an agent in at least one clause in a Biblical event
    • list everyone whose name was changed by another human
    • list everyone who is explicitly stated to be in a specific clan
    • list everyone who is explicitly stated to be a shepherd
    • list every prayer using shepherd imagery that is prayed by a shepherd
    • list all priests mentioned in the context of the red heifer rite

    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."

  • Donovan R. Palmer
    Donovan R. Palmer Member Posts: 2,661 ✭✭✭
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1344202#Comment_1344202

    Very interesting… without giving away how the sausages are being made, how much does this draw on the tagging? Before I even read @MJ. Smith 's post, I wondered if building out some of the gaps in tagging would super charge this both from a precise search point of view, but also AI.

    Regardless, thanks for sharing this. I am excited to see what emerges around this technology.

  • DMB
    DMB Member Posts: 13,617 ✭✭✭

    This post is interesting, visa viz an 'AI' > Bible search.

    • The question itself has 'timing' inherent in its word usage (demons were not inherently evil, unless explicitly described, until later usage)
    • A tag'er might know that, and tag relative to 'written' (versus later usage). Old Testament usage vs apocrypha/NT vs later church.
    • An 'AI' usage would almost inherently be dependent on its learning-base. As much as that's been ballyhoo'd as improving reliability, it can't possibly pick up quite a few of the lesser-knowns (something someone else commented on)

    We shall see, I suppose.

    "If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.

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