Searching Question

Hello All! I need help with a search. I am studying the topic "The Fatherhood of God". Can anyone tell me how I can run a search to find all the places in the Bible where the word "father" refers to God only? I do not want every verse where the word "father" is used. Just references for God only. Thanks Saints! God bless!

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Thread => God as Father has OT and NT search suggestions.

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Phil Gons (Logos)

This seems to be the most comprehensive: <Sense = God ⇔ father> OR {Section <FigurativeLanguageType = Father as God>} OR (Father INTERSECTS <Person God>) (with “Match case” enabled). It also find Galatians 1:1, 3 and Philippians 2:11, which are missing without the latter addition.

See also this thread.

cleburne clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1053969#Comment_1053969

Thanks Phil. This was a perfect search command. Appreciate you!

Kiyah

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1054012#Comment_1054012

Thanks Phil. This was a perfect search command. Appreciate you!

Morris Proctor also suggested '<Person God> ANDEQUALS father' in one of his webinars.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1054017#Comment_1054017

Morris Proctor also suggested '<Person God> ANDEQUALS father' in one of his webinars.

INTERSECTS is better than ANDEQUALS in most instances because it handles short phrases and difficult-to-align interlinear situations better. Phil used INTERSECTS in his example above.

Kiyah

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1053969#Comment_1053969

It also find Galatians 1:1, 3 and Philippians 2:11, which are missing without the latter addition.

Phil, I'm curious, why doesn't '<Person God> ANDEQUALS father' return Galatians 1:1, 3 and Philippians 2:11 in the results, seeing as how all three of those verses have the word Father tagged with <Person God>?

Kiyah

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1054018#Comment_1054018

Morris Proctor also suggested '<Person God> ANDEQUALS father' in one of his webinars.

INTERSECTS is better than ANDEQUALS in most instances because it handles short phrases and difficult-to-align interlinear situations better. Phil used INTERSECTS in his example above.

I saw Phil's example. I do realize that INTERSECTS is more powerful in many cases. I just offered Morris Proctor's example as another option, especially since it's not case sensitive. It seems like Phil's INTERSECTS example would leave out verses where the word father is not capitalized in certain translations (although his other search strings he included would pick them up most likely). An example is Malachi 2:10 in the NRSV, "Have we not all one father?" If you do the INTERSECTS search with match case turned on it would miss that one. However, the ANDEQUALS search picks it up.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1054019#Comment_1054019

Phil, I'm curious, why doesn't '<Person God> ANDEQUALS father' return Galatians 1:1, 3 and Philippians 2:11 in the results, seeing as how all three of those verses have the word Father tagged with <Person God>?

Precisely for the reason I gave above. INTERSECTS is better than ANDEQUALS in most instances because it handles short phrases and difficult-to-align interlinear situations better.

ANDEQUALS requires an EXACT match, INTERSECTS doesn't. Taking Galatians 1:1 as an example, the <Person God> covers the phrase "God the Father". ANDEQUALS would only match if the <Person God> tagging was restricted only to the word "father". The others are similar.

Kiyah

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1054022#Comment_1054022

Phil, I'm curious, why doesn't '<Person God> ANDEQUALS father' return Galatians 1:1, 3 and Philippians 2:11 in the results, seeing as how all three of those verses have the word Father tagged with <Person God>?

Precisely for the reason I gave above. INTERSECTS is better than ANDEQUALS in most instances because it handles short phrases and difficult-to-align interlinear situations better.

ANDEQUALS requires an EXACT match, INTERSECTS doesn't. Taking Galatians 1:1 as an example, the <Person God> covers the phrase "God the Father". ANDEQUALS would only match if the <Person God> tagging was restricted only to the word "father". The others are similar.

That makes sense. I typed this question before I saw your post (probably as you were typing yours).

Kiyah

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1054022#Comment_1054022

Phil, I'm curious, why doesn't '<Person God> ANDEQUALS father' return Galatians 1:1, 3 and Philippians 2:11 in the results, seeing as how all three of those verses have the word Father tagged with <Person God>?

Precisely for the reason I gave above. INTERSECTS is better than ANDEQUALS in most instances because it handles short phrases and difficult-to-align interlinear situations better.

ANDEQUALS requires an EXACT match, INTERSECTS doesn't. Taking Galatians 1:1 as an example, the <Person God> covers the phrase "God the Father". ANDEQUALS would only match if the <Person God> tagging was restricted only to the word "father". The others are similar.

Mark/Phil,

I noticed that if you add (<Sense = to father> INTERSECTS <Person God>) to the search it picks up Psalm 2:7 and 1 John 5:1 in bibles that don't use the English word 'Father' in those verses (like the NRSV and KJV). However, none of the searches seem to pick up Hebrews 1:5, which actually does use the word 'Father' in the second part of the verse (the first part of the verse uses 'begotten' in most translations as in Psalm 2:7). Seems like the searches would pick up Hebrews 1:5 and Hebrews 5:5 since they're both quoting Psalm 2:7, and Hebrews 1:5 uses the word 'Father.' However, none of the searches pick up Hebrews 1:5 or 5:5 in ANY translation with reverse interlinear info. How would you modify the search to pick up Hebrews 1:5 and 5:5?

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1054025#Comment_1054025

'Father' in Hebrews 1:5 isn't tagged with <Person God>. I would imagine the reason for that is that in the context, 'father' isn't being used to identify an individual, but to describe a type of relationship. The same is true of the original text in 2 Samuel 7. These types of Messianic prophecies are sometimes hard to tag in a way that is faithful to both the original context and the NT context.

Hebrews 5:5 doesn't use the word father. If you want to pick up on references like that, you need to search for occasions where God refers to having a son (or children?). That's harder to do, not least because the 'Son' in Hebrews 5:5 is identified in the tagging as the Psalmist. Remember what I said about Messianic prophecies being hard to tag?

<Person God> WITHIN 2 WORDS <Sense son> would catch these (with a lot of noise). But if you're looking to study the concept so exhaustively that you want to include Hebrews 5:5, I'm not sure searching by itself is going to cut it. I'd probably, for example, want to be bringing in resources like the Dictionary of Biblical Themes entry on the Fatherhood of God, as well as relevant dictionary entries. There's only so much you can do with a search when you're looking at complex theological criteria such as this.