How do I do this search?

Jordan Litchfield · 2025-06-23T15:13:24+00:00

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Jordan Litchfield

I want to find all the times God asks a question; I don't care who the addressee is. How would I form this search?

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Brian Leathers

This might be the search you are looking for:

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Brian Leathers

This might be the search you are looking for:

NetworkGeek

I did a smart search, it got a lot of results and looks pretty good…this is the start of the results but there are many more…

Screenshot 2025-06-23 at 12.20.07 PM.png

Jordan Litchfield

Thanks, Brian, that is it. I prefer the precise search in this case rather than just the smart one.

Dave Hooton

I want to find all the times God asks a question; I

Precise Bible Search:- speaker:God INTERSECTS question:* (if you have the dataset)
You can get more specific results e.g. speaker:God INTERSECTS question:Rhetorical:False

Jordan Litchfield

Thanks, Dave. I don't quite understand which parts of the text below I'm supposed to use in a search (which probably shows that I don't understand how search syntax works…). From Questions in the Bible Dataset Documentation:

Dave Hooton

That documentation has a Search syntax from Logos 9 which is out of date, but you should be able to paste it into the Search box and it will be reformatted e.g. {Label Question WHERE Rhetorical ~ false AND Type ~ Cause} ==⇒ question:(rhetorical:false AND type:Cause) from which you can extract question:(rhetorical:false) and omit the parentheses. The documentation contains the values for Type.

Jordan Litchfield

Dave, after looking at the search results again, I am still not sure if I am getting exactly what I am looking for. For example, in the search below, I am getting two results in the first verse:

I was hoping to figure out how many times God asks a question in the Bible, but a search like this skews the results.

Jordan Litchfield

I'm also getting false results where there is no question at all (like Num 11:18), or where God is not asking a question, but quoting the Israelites' question (Num 11:20).

Michelle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1372541#Comment_1372541

Probably due to the data it's tagged with :

Dave Hooton

@Jordan Litchfield Dave, after looking at the search results again, I am still not sure if I am getting exactly what I am looking for. For example, in the search below, I am getting two results in the first verse:

The actual tagging is done against a Greek Bible (SBLGNT) and a Hebrew bible (LHB) so the Interlinear you have for a translation like NIV will impact the results because of the way it aligns the translation to the Greek/Hebrew words e.g. Gen 3:9 in the NIV is two results whilst it is 1 result in the ESV. Note that they both have 451 for the number of verses. But the actual count from the Greek and Hebrew bibles mentioned above is 651, because there are multiple Q's in some verses.

Num 11:18, 20 can be eliminated with (speaker:God NOT INTERSECTS speaker:"Israelites (the Exodus)") INTERSECTS question:* reducing the count to 648 as it also eliminates Lev 25:20 where God is posing/quoting a Q from the Israelites.

You could substitute other indirect speakers like that, but examine the result from a query like speaker:God INTERSECTS speaker:"Israelites (the Exodus)" INTERSECTS question:* to be certain who is speaking the Q.

So you could take 651 as the base count and use your NIV to eliminate results as above.

Jordan Litchfield

Thanks, again, Dave, for your helpful explanation.

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