could someone explain these odd search results?

Kristin · 2025-05-05T22:45:36+00:00

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I have been feeling pretty optimistic since I feel like I am making a lot of progress with my note organization. However, I am still having a difficult time doing basic searches and it is not clear to me what I am doing wrong.

I wanted to quickly get to Lk 1:32, but I decided that I would get to it by doing a word search in order to practice searching. I thus put the book to Lk and then typed "son of the most." Yet to my surprise, the results did NOT find Lk 1:32 which contains the phrase, but it also DID find Mt 21:9 which does not contain the phrase.

Any clarification would be appreciated.

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Andrew Batishko

There are multiple problems there.

You are doing a search for each individual word "son" "of" "the" "most" and "high". Each term hit is going to get counted separately (hence the count of 16). If you wanted to search for a phrase, you would surround the entire thing with quotes, like "son of the most high"
You are searching for English words in a Greek Bible. You are getting matching hits from the glosses in the Greek Bible, but you are unlikely to be getting hits that you might expect. Greek word order is going to be different than English word order, and the glosses may not all be what you expect them to be.

If you combine these two points and do a search for "son of the most high" in the ESV rather than in NA28, you should get three hits: Mark 5:7, Luke 1:32, and Luke 8:28.

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Andrew Batishko

There are multiple problems there.

You are doing a search for each individual word "son" "of" "the" "most" and "high". Each term hit is going to get counted separately (hence the count of 16). If you wanted to search for a phrase, you would surround the entire thing with quotes, like "son of the most high"
You are searching for English words in a Greek Bible. You are getting matching hits from the glosses in the Greek Bible, but you are unlikely to be getting hits that you might expect. Greek word order is going to be different than English word order, and the glosses may not all be what you expect them to be.

If you combine these two points and do a search for "son of the most high" in the ESV rather than in NA28, you should get three hits: Mark 5:7, Luke 1:32, and Luke 8:28.

Kristin

Hi @Andrew Batishko,

Thank you very much for the explanation. I just tried the quotes and using the ESV, and that fixed the problem. :)

One thing I don't quite understand about the Greek bible though, why was it pulling any hits at all? If I understand correctly, the idea is if I type an English word in a Greek text, that it will search for the Greek behind the English word, yet follow the same word order of the English?

If so, I don't see how that works practically, since, as you know, an English word often has multiple Greek words under it. So how does the system decide which Greek word I mean?

Aaron Hamilton

One thing I don't quite understand about the Greek bible though, why was it pulling any hits at all?

If you surround the search phrase in quotes, it doesn't get any hits in the NA28 as you expect. It does get hits without quotes because the individual words are being found in the gloss of the Greek words, and the word order of the search does not matter if it is not surrounded by quotes.

If so, I don't see how that works practically, since, as you know, an English word often has multiple Greek words under it. So how does the system decide which Greek word I mean?

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. The system is not deciding on any Greek words. It is simply searching to see if your search term is found in the gloss of the Greek word.

Kristin

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. The system is not deciding on any Greek words. It is simply searching to see if your search term is found in the gloss of the Greek word.

Hi @Aaron Hamilton,

I think in order to clarify my confusion, I will use the word "children" since it is a word where English translations notoriously use a lot of license.

When @Andrew Batishko originally said "You are searching for English words in a Greek Bible. You are getting matching hits from the glosses in the Greek Bible," I thought he meant that if I typed "most high" that the system was actually searching for the Greek ὕψιστος, as it seemed to do in Mk 21:9 (since the English of Mk 21:9 doesn't even say "most high" but it does include ὕψιστος which is typically translated as such).

However, based on what you said just now, it sounds like it would be matching all of the Greek words behind the English I typed. So taking the word "children" for example, it pulls τεκνογονίας which is not the Greek word for children, but it is not "children" in English either.

Likewise, it ignores υἱός, despite it being translated as "children" in verses such as Mk 3:28 etc.

So if it is pulling all the Greek words used for my English word, it appears to be only pulling some of them, while also including related words, like "childbearing" which is not the word "children."

Here is a screenshot which might better explain what I mean.

Bildschirmfoto 2025-05-05 um 19.31.38.png

Aaron Hamilton

As far as I can tell, you're thinking too hard about this. Just because a word is translated a certain way in English does not mean it belongs to the gloss of a certain Greek word. For example, υἱός does not have "children" in the gloss, because it means "son", not "children" or "sons and daughters". However, the English translators determined that it was not only the sons of man that would be forgiven, but the daughters too. Thus, they chose the word "children" in their ESV translation.

I am certainly not an original language expert. Basically, I enjoy original languages as well as using the tools that Logos provides to incorporate them into my studies to some extent. However, as Andrew said earlier, "You are getting matching hits from the glosses in the Greek Bible, but you are unlikely to be getting hits that you might expect. Greek word order is going to be different than English word order, and the glosses may not all be what you expect them to be."

I found The Lexham Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament to be helpful when searching through the glosses in order to respond to your questions. Perhaps exploring that resource would prove helpful to you as well. If I'm understanding correctly, this is the resource that is being used to search the glosses of the Greek words.

Kristin

As far as I can tell, you're thinking too hard about this.

That might be possible. :)

Just because a word is translated a certain way in English does not mean it belongs to the gloss of a certain Greek word. For example, υἱός does not have "children" in the gloss, because it means "son", not "children" or "sons and daughters"….

I see. Thank you for explaining this. When I think of "gloss" I think of the ESV gloss, but obviously you mean the dictionary gloss and that makes sense. I can see why they ignored υἱός. Thank you again for the explanation.

I found The Lexham Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament to be helpful when searching through the glosses in order to respond to your questions. Perhaps exploring that resource would prove helpful to you as well. If I'm understanding correctly, this is the resource that is being used to search the glosses of the Greek words.

Given that I have been trying to practice things, I decided to try figuring out how to check the Lexham, and I am not sure what the best option is.

I started by just finding a random instance of υἱός. I see down at the bottom I could open things like BDAG, but to get to Lexham I clicked on "Books" then from there go to "Lexicons" and scroll down to Lexham stuff. However, this was showing a lot of individual hits, as opposed to main entries. Is this the best way to look words up?

Likewise, down at the bottom it says "Look up" and has a few things, which I think are pre-set. I thus couldn't add or subtract things. Is that correct?

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Aaron Hamilton

I started by just finding a random instance of υἱός. I see down at the bottom I could open things like BDAG, but to get to Lexham I clicked on "Books" then from there go to "Lexicons" and scroll down to Lexham stuff. However, this was showing a lot of individual hits, as opposed to main entries. Is this the best way to look words up?
Likewise, down at the bottom it says "Look up" and has a few things, which I think are pre-set. I thus couldn't add or subtract things. Is that correct?

These options come from your list of prioritized resources. If you prioritize a lexicon above BDAG, it will show first.

I often look words up using the Bible Word Study at the top of the context menu on the right side. Looking under Lemma in the Bible Word Study will give you a quick overview of what all of your lexicons have to say about the word. You can click on any lexicon to read further.

Kristin

These options come from your list of prioritized resources. If you prioritize a lexicon above BDAG, it will show first.

Oh, ok. I will take a look at the prioritized books.

I often look words up using the Bible Word Study at the top of the context menu on the right side. Looking under Lemma in the Bible Word Study will give you a quick overview of what all of your lexicons have to say about the word. You can click on any lexicon to read further.

Thank you for letting me know. I just tried that, and ya, that was a much faster way how to get to the lexicons. :)