Please help me with my search string

Deon Holtzhausen
Deon Holtzhausen Member Posts: 147
edited November 2024 in English Forum

Hi.

I'm busy putting a search together off Bible text relating to fasting. Each separate component of the search produces results. But, when putting them all together, there are no NT results.

I know it has something to do with brackets, {} or () but not sure where.

Please advise, if you don't mind, telling me what's wrong and why.

Thanks a million.

Deon

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Comments

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,811

    Can you post your current search string?

  • Deon Holtzhausen
    Deon Holtzhausen Member Posts: 147

    I forgot to paste the string. [:$]

    <Lemma = lbs/he/צום>", <Sense fast (religious)>, <Lemma = lbs/el/νηστεία>, {Section <Culture Fasting>}

    This search offered 50 results:

    <Lemma = lbs/he/צום>, <Lemma = lbs/el/νηστεία>, <Sense = fast (religious)> ANDNOT <Sense = hunger>

    This one resulted in 67 results:

    <Lemma = lbs/he/צום>, <Lemma = lbs/el/νηστεία>, <Sense = fast (religious)>, {Section <Culture Fasting>} ANDNOT <Sense = hunger>

    Still don't understand why the first one does not work.

    How would you have done it? Maybe it will be good to differentiate between 1.) when God commanded them to do it and 2.) when it was commanded by someone else, in other words, not a religious fast but more cultural or because someone died.

    I don't want to use a Topic search on Fasting as I want to familiarise myself on how to use the different/correct search options.

    Thanks so long.

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,811

    <Lemma = lbs/he/צום>", <Sense fast (religious)>, <Lemma = lbs/el/νηστεία>, {Section <Culture Fasting>}

    The problem is with the double quotation mark after the first search term. If you remove it you get the results I think you are expecting. (And I don't know why that mark has that particular affect!)

    How would you have done it? Maybe it will be good to differentiate between 1.) when God commanded them to do it

    That's an interesting idea - but when I tried a Clause Search with subject:god  verb-lemma:צום I got no results. It is as though there aren't occurrences when God is the subject of that verb. (Same things happens if I try a sense-based clause search)

  • Deon Holtzhausen
    Deon Holtzhausen Member Posts: 147

    The problem is with the double quotation mark after the first search term. If you remove it you get the results I think you are expecting. (And I don't know why that mark has that particular affect!)

    Thank you. I need to focus.

    That's an interesting idea - but when I tried a Clause Search with subject:god  verb-lemma:צום I got no results. It is as though there aren't occurrences when God is the subject of that verb. (Same things happens if I try a sense-based clause search)

    Can this mean that God did not ever instructed Israel or whoever to fast? I could only find that the command was to fast during the atonement. The only verse I found was Lev 23:26-32. I will study this verse further. EDIT: I only notice now that "fast" is not used in the NIV or ESV, but afflict. The Afrikaans translation used "fast". This becomes very interesting.

    I have just found Joel 2:12 where it looks as if God commanded a fast. I will study further.

    Thank you once again for helping me out.

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,811

    I have just found Joel 2:12 where it looks as if God commanded a fast. I will study further.

    In that case God is calling the people to return (verb) with fasting (noun).

    So an interesting search is (<Lemma = lbs/he/צום>, <Lemma = lbs/he/צוֹם>) INTERSECTS {Speaker <Person God>} - where I am using two different lemmas used for fasting which gives some useful results

  • Deon Holtzhausen
    Deon Holtzhausen Member Posts: 147

    So an interesting search is (<Lemma = lbs/he/צום>, <Lemma = lbs/he/צוֹם>) INTERSECTS {Speaker <Person God>} - where I am using two different lemmas used for fasting which gives some useful results

    Thank you very much, Graham. I missed the search of the ROOT, but I have a great teacher,

    I expanded the search a little bit: <Lemma = lbs/he/צום>, <Lemma = lbs/he/צוֹם>, <Lemma = lbs/el/νηστεία>, <Sense = fast (religious)> ANDNOT <Sense = hunger> INTERSECTS {Speaker <Person God>}

    How do I tell my search to look for the 3 different Lemmas where is was used in the "Imperative" form?

    I noticed DOTS in my search result. What do they mean?

    Thank you once again.
    Deon

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,811

    Dots in this type of context indicate that the underlying original language term has not been translated.

    Looking at the reverse interlinear for Zech 8 you can see that the word for "fast" actually appears for each month but is only translated once. Because that is the term you are searching for it appears in the results but as it isn't translated a dot is shown

  • Deon Holtzhausen
    Deon Holtzhausen Member Posts: 147

    Dots in this type of context indicate that the underlying original language term has not been translated.

    Looking at the reverse interlinear for Zech 8 you can see that the word for "fast" actually appears for each month but is only translated once. Because that is the term you are searching for it appears in the results but as it isn't translated a dot is shown

    Thank you Graham. I noticed it but was not sure how to interpret it.

    Thank you once again.

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,811

    How do I tell my search to look for the 3 different Lemmas where is was used in the "Imperative" form?

    For that you need a Morph search - which results in a string something like this!

    lemma:צום@VaM, <Lemma = lbs/he/צום><LogosMorphHeb ~ V?M??????>, <Lemma = lbs/el/νηστεία><LogosMorphGr ~ V??M????>

    Don't worry about how to build the string. Switch to a Morph search and for each lemma add in the morphological information you want. Note that the first two are using Hebrew morphology while the third is using Greek

    Information about Morph searching is available at https://support.logos.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017524952-Morph-Search

    Incidentally - I think you are going about this in exactly the right way. You are exploring options and that is leading you into new areas - such as interlinears and morph searching. But you are coming across them not as abstract things but as things that are directly relevant to what you are studying.

  • Deon Holtzhausen
    Deon Holtzhausen Member Posts: 147

    Thank you Graham.

    I have studied Morph searching on the video series I bought last year but need to pick it up again.