Conflict in word count in Revelation

Lynden O. Williams
Lynden O. Williams MVP Posts: 8,974
edited November 21 in English Forum

If I generate a concordance on the book of Revelation using the NKJV the word "God" is listed 97 times. If I generate a word list using the NKJV on the book of Revelation, the word "God" is generated 100 times.

Can anyone repeat this result and if so why the difference?

Mission: To serve God as He desires.

Tagged:

Comments

  • Mission: To serve God as He desires.

  • Mission: To serve God as He desires.

  • The word list seems to be the more accurate, as it combines english words using the same greek words.

    Mission: To serve God as He desires.

  • Kevin A
    Kevin A Member Posts: 1,037 ✭✭

    I am getting a count of 99 for search/concordance of surface text and lemma, I am not sure why 2 more than you.

    I am however also getting 100 in the word list.

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 35,682

    I am getting a count of 99 for search/concordance of surface text and lemma, I am not sure why 2 more than you.

    I am however also getting 100 in the word list.

    I concur. The Word List count is inaccurate for that and other lemmas.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Andrew Batishko
    Andrew Batishko Member, Community Manager, Logos Employee Posts: 5,366

    The first thing to consider is that Concordance and adding entries to a Word List operate entirely differently. Take for example, the word "gold". Concordance indicates that the word shows up 10 times. Your Word List is going to show at least three different lemmas that have a gloss of "gold", and their total count adds up to 22. This is because the word list generates entries based on the lemma (which may or may not be translated according to the indicated gloss), while Concordance is actually counting occurrences of the English word in the surface text.

    That said, I'm not exactly sure why the Word List counts are turning out as they are, but I'll create a case to investigate.

    The other issue is that I (and others) see 99 for God in Concordance, not 97. I'm not sure why this is different for you. You could try forcing this to regenerate by deleting some files. If you are interested in trying this, use the instructions at the link below to collect log files, and I'll tell you which files need to be deleted. Then you'll need to regenerate the NKJV concordance.

    https://support.logos.com/hc/en-us/articles/360027869132

    Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer

  • Lynden O. Williams
    Lynden O. Williams MVP Posts: 8,974

    Mission: To serve God as He desires.

  • Andrew Batishko
    Andrew Batishko Member, Community Manager, Logos Employee Posts: 5,366

    Revelation 12:10 had a misalignment in the reverse interlinear data that I believe was responsible for the unexpected count in the Word List. We fixed the alignment, and when I tested the new resource, my Word List gave a count of 99 for θεός like I would expect. This change should be available in the next batch of resource updates.

    That said, comparing English surface text counts to Word List counts is still not a practical idea.

    Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 35,682

    Revelation 12:10 had a misalignment in the reverse interlinear data that I believe was responsible for the unexpected count in the Word List.

    That is the tip of the iceberg, Andrew.

    lemma:αὐτός is not translated 13x which apparently accounts for 420 in the Word List, but 433 in Bible Search!

    In a similar way, ὅς is not translated 3x  when the Word List counts 74  vs. 76 with a probable misalignment at Rev 14:4

    **I did a search for lemma:αὐτός  NOT INTERSECTS  him*,his, them,it*,  the*, he*,they,whose,you,that  for that count.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Andrew Batishko
    Andrew Batishko Member, Community Manager, Logos Employee Posts: 5,366

    Yes. I noticed that and wrote up a case to investigate. My method for finding the problem was to switch the Concordance to show lemmas and compare the counts against the word list counts. I would expect those to be the same.

    Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 35,682

    I was intrigued to understand if the Word List count depended on alignment within the Reverse Interlinear data, as you had stated that fixing the latter corrected the count in Word List. I think there are some bad misalignments, but Word List should just count the lemmas.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,139

    but Word List should just count the lemmas.

    I assume you mean lemmas that are translated in the NKJV - otherwise you are providing counts for the Greektext not the English text required.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • Andrew Batishko
    Andrew Batishko Member, Community Manager, Logos Employee Posts: 5,366

    but Word List should just count the lemmas.

    I assume you mean lemmas that are translated in the NKJV - otherwise you are providing counts for the Greektext not the English text required.

    Exactly. It's kind of ambiguous how these should be counted, but it seems likely (to me at least) that Concordance and Word List should count lemmas in the same way.

    Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 35,682

    I assume you mean lemmas that are translated in the NKJV

    I mean lemmas in the Greek text used by the translation, whether translated or not, which is the same count as a Bible Search.

    From Andrew's comment above I assumed the same, but Concordance provides an unfiltered count that agrees with Bible Search whilst filtering by Bible Text seems to agree with Word List. So I now assume that Andrew meant the latter. But many users are confused about the count in Word List when they compare it with Bible Search (and an unfiltered count in Concordance).

    lemma:αὐτός occurs 5465x (ESV), 5679x (NKJV), 5345x (CSB) according to the lemma popup in Morph Search (it varies with Preferred bible). BWS Translation section agrees with these counts.

    The filtered counts in Concordance are 5460x (ESV), 5679x (NKJV), 5345x (CSB). The Word List count for ESV is 5465, so it appears that Concordance needs some fine tuning and Word List is way too slow for more comparisons!

    My conclusion is that a Word List should be used on an original language bible if one is using it for vocabulary training or needs an accurate count.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Andrew Batishko
    Andrew Batishko Member, Community Manager, Logos Employee Posts: 5,366

    My conclusion is that a Word List should be used on an original language bible if one is using it for vocabulary training or needs an accurate count.

    Kind of similar to searching for original language words with relative positions (before/after). If you care about the specific details of the original language, you really should be using the original language.

    Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,139

    I mean lemmas in the Greek text used by the translation, whether translated or not, which is the same count as a Bible Search

    For me, that would be misleading. If one wants the original language text, one should use the original language text as the input. There would be no reason to run a translation. It fact, I would want it blocked as it would be misleading. If one allows the Greek vocabulary from an English text, then it must be on the words translated by that text or it is meaningless.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."