Help with a Clause search

Mike Tourangeau
Mike Tourangeau Member Posts: 1,554 ✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

This is probably an easy thing, but I am trying to find all the places where Jesus refers to someone as "blessed." I am trying to use clause search to get use to it.... I can't seem to make it work

Any advice you can give?

Comments

  • Mark Smith
    Mark Smith MVP Posts: 11,845

    Mike, one limitation of the clause search tool is that both things you are searching for must be in a single clause (not even in a sentence, which might be longer). So something like: subject:Jesus verb-lemma:μακάριος will miss all of the Beatitudes since a reference to Jesus does not occur in the same clause as the word blessed. I suspect most reported speech of Jesus would create this problem, as the normal form would be Jesus said, "xxx yy zz" and the clause "Jesu said" is taken separately from the clause "xxx yy zz". (Am I making sense?)

    One thing you could do is search for the verb-lemma:μακάριος and restrict your search to the gospels. However in doing that I find an anomaly which is probably a bug, in that not all occurrences of the Greek word μακάριος show up.

    Pastor, North Park Baptist Church

    Bridgeport, CT USA

  • Jack Caviness
    Jack Caviness MVP Posts: 13,636

    trying to find all the places where Jesus refers to someone as "blessed."

    One problem with this clause search appears in the Beatitudes. There is a string of blessed, but Jesus is  not the subject of the sentences.

    Trying "subject:Jesus verb:to bless" yielded 6 results, but one appears to be a tagging error as Jesus not the subject but the object.

    image

  • Rick Brannan (Logos)
    Rick Brannan (Logos) Member, Logos Employee Posts: 1,862

    Hi Mark

    One thing you could do is search for the verb-lemma:μακάριος and restrict your search to the gospels. However in doing that I find an anomaly which is probably a bug, in that not all occurrences of the Greek word μακάριος show up.

    I wouldn't expect all occurrences of μακαριος to show up as "verb-lemma" because it is an adjective. In clauses like the Beatitudes, however, Cascadia treats the "blessed" phrases as verbless clauses with μακαριος as predicator.

    image

    Because it functions that way, and because Cascadia has annotated it this way, as the source of the predication, it ends up in the verb-lemma portion of the clause search even though it is not a verb. In this case, Cascadia's analysis marks "the meek" as the subject; "The meek are blessed because they will inherit the earth" 

    Rick Brannan
    Data Wrangler, Faithlife
    My books in print

  • Rick Brannan (Logos)
    Rick Brannan (Logos) Member, Logos Employee Posts: 1,862

    Hi Jack.

    Trying "subject:Jesus verb:to bless" yielded 6 results, but one appears to be a tagging error as Jesus not the subject but the object.

    Which one has Jesus as object? It is (relatively) common for something that is specified as subject in the Greek to be translated as an object in the English. The results all seem to have Jesus as subject in the Greek.

    Luke 1.42 could literally be translated in English as "the fruit of your womb [is] blessed"; the translation just follows the Greek order — but "the fruit of your womb" is in the nominative, and it is the subject; it is in apposition to the nominative participle.

    Luke 24:51 is an infinitive, which routinely takes the accusative as subject, thus "He blessed them" even though the pronoun "he" is in the accusative.

    Jn 12.13 is similar in structure to Lk 1.42; a participle with nominative phrase in apposition. 

    I just want to make sure I'm not missing something (very possible I am) so that if something needs to be reported, then it can be reported.

    Rick Brannan
    Data Wrangler, Faithlife
    My books in print

  • Mark Smith
    Mark Smith MVP Posts: 11,845

    Because it functions that way, and because Cascadia has annotated it this way, as the source of the predication, it ends up in the verb-lemma portion of the clause search even though it is not a verb. In this case, Cascadia's analysis marks "the meek" as the subject; "The meek are blessed because they will inherit the earth" 

    Fine, and you are right it isn't a verb, so it was a bad example. But why then does it show up in three instances in Matthew 5 and not the others?

    Pastor, North Park Baptist Church

    Bridgeport, CT USA

  • NB.Mick
    NB.Mick MVP Posts: 16,328

    This is probably an easy thing, but I am trying to find all the places where Jesus refers to someone as "blessed." I am trying to use clause search to get use to it.... I can't seem to make it work

    I must admit I'm not into the fancy syntax graphs and haven't explorated the new clause searches yet. I'd probably try to get a bible with the "Words of Christ" datatype that allows for red-lettering and would do a search for the "bless" within these portions of the NT - haven't checked whether this works with Greek lemmas or roots or else.  

     

    Have joy in the Lord! Smile

  • Jack Caviness
    Jack Caviness MVP Posts: 13,636

    It is (relatively) common for something that is specified as subject in the Greek to be translated as an object in the English

    Oops [:$] Should have looked at the underlying Greek text εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου [:$]

  • Rick Brannan (Logos)
    Rick Brannan (Logos) Member, Logos Employee Posts: 1,862

    But why then does it show up in three instances in Matthew 5 and not the others?

    My guess is that it shows up in the Matthew instances because Cascadia identifies it as the predication unit of a verbless clause. It shows up in similar contexts this way throughout the NT.

     

    image

     

    Rick Brannan
    Data Wrangler, Faithlife
    My books in print

  • Rick Brannan (Logos)
    Rick Brannan (Logos) Member, Logos Employee Posts: 1,862

    Oops Embarrassed

    No worries, Jack — I was assuming I was missing something and wanted to make sure. Thanks for the follow-up.

    Rick Brannan
    Data Wrangler, Faithlife
    My books in print

  • Mark Smith
    Mark Smith MVP Posts: 11,845

    My guess is that it shows up in the Matthew instances because Cascadia identifies it as the predication unit of a verbless clause. It shows up in similar contexts this way throughout the NT.

    Rick, yes it does. But Cascadia handles μακάριος in all of Matthew 5:3-10 the same way. They all have the predicate function. Why do the other instances not appear in the results (5:3, 5:4, 5:6, 5:8, 5:10)?

    Pastor, North Park Baptist Church

    Bridgeport, CT USA