Verbum Search through Tip of the Day #5

Tip 5: Interesting cases of Biblical personal name Search Part 2

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This tip will consider another type of personal names that cause problems for a Basic text argument Bible personal name Search:

1. [See Tip 4] When a person’s name is also a common word i.e. used both as a proper noun and a common word, the text search cannot accurately select the person’s name: an example, “Job” and the employment “job”.
2. When a person’s name changes in their lifetime: an example, Abram, Abraham
3. When multiple people share a name: an example, Mary, Mother of Jesus; Mary Magdalene; Mary of Bethany; Mary, mother of John Mark . . .
4. When a person has a compound name, each part of which is independently the name of other people: an example, John Mark
5. When a supernatural person was unknown when early scripture was written: an example, Holy Spirit.

Use of the logical operator OR:

When a person’s name changes, one must search on each name and combine the results. While there are ways to save the results from separate searches and combined the results, that approach is a very advanced use of Verbum. Just as Google allows the entry of more than one term, the Verbum search takes multiple arguments. We have two similar, but non-identical, ways of looking for two names. The example is Abram and Abraham using “OR” as a logical operator between the two terms. Note that the logical operator is in capital letters.

Run the search:

Note the results include pericope headings. Change the text searched from “All Text” to “Bible Text”. The new search returns the intended results. It finds 345 results in 135 articles (pericopes).

Scrolling to the point where Abram’s name is changed, one notes that one term (Abram) is highlighted in orange while the second term (Abraham) is highlighted in blue. Each term is highlighted in it’s own color; the user has no control over the colors.

The same distinction between terms by use of highlighting color occurs in the NRSV as long as the Search is open.

Navigation from results

The standard behavior holds:

• Mouse over the pericope title shows a preview that starts at the pericope title.
  
  Note the position of the cursor (hand).
• Clicking on the pericope opens/positions the resource at the start of the pericope.
  
• Mouse over a highlighted result shows a preview that starts at that result.
  
• Clicking on a highlighted result opens/positions the resource near that result There is a flashing
  orange circle to draw your attention to the precise word while the panel loads.
  

Use of the list with a comma operator

Another way to get the “or” relationship is through a list where the terms are separated by commas. It is best to start thinking of lists as enclosed by parentheses – whether or not they are actually included. This means that “Abram, Abraham” will process as it if were “(Abram, Abraham)”. However, we are not yet into the complex search arguments that require parentheses.

Note that the result counts are the same as for the “Abram OR Abraham” search but the list took longer to process.

Advanced warning:

Please note: Some people get confused as they equate the list with the OR command. They are not the same, even though in a very basic search they will perform in the same way. Remember, Logos iterates through lists, then ORs the results.[1]

[1] User maintained Wiki: https://wiki.logos.com/Detailed_Search_Help#Simple_Search_Syntax