Duplicate Datatype Terms?

FrMoses
FrMoses Member Posts: 89
edited November 21 in English Forum

Greetings,

I recently tried to run a search for all the instances in which our Lord Jesus Christ encounters and heals a paralytic in the Gospel. Using Logos's datatypes, I used the following syntax:

person:Jesus person:"A Paralytic"

This resulted only in the account of the healing of paralytic lowered by his friends in Mark and Luke, as well as general references to healing paralytics in Matthew.

Using autocomplete in the syntax search to discover more datatypes, I found this was the search I needed to run to capture the paralytic in John and others:

person:Jesus AND (person:"Healed Paralytic" OR person:"A Paralytic" OR person:"Paralytic in Galilee")

My question is about these different datatypes; why are they separated in this way? Could there be a single datatype for all the paralytics in the Gospel? That seems easier to me, but there may be some compelling reasons for the way this is done. I'm trying to understand so I can use these types of searches better in the future.

Thank you kindly

I use Verbum with an 8-Core Mac Pro (2013) and a MacBook Pro (2017)

Tagged:

Comments

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,121

    A simple search of person:"Healed Paralytic" is all you need for the man in John 5. The other tags refer to other individuals. When multiple people share similar names, one can use the right click Context Menu to find which one belongs to the person you are looking for. While there are group names, most individuals (named or unnamed) have their own tag. If FL deems them insignificant, they get a generic name. 

    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."

  • FrMoses
    FrMoses Member Posts: 89

    Thank you very much for the clarification. I wasn't targeting the paralytic in John specifically, but rather, all the paralytics whom our Lord encountered. There must be a catch-all search for those, right? I'll keep looking. 

    I use Verbum with an 8-Core Mac Pro (2013) and a MacBook Pro (2017)

  • SineNomine
    SineNomine Member Posts: 7,043

    There must be a catch-all search for those, right?

    I believe paralyzed OR paralytic run in the NRSV[CE] on the Gospels catches all of them.

    “The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 35,677

    There must be a catch-all search for those, right? I'll keep looking

    I use the Context menu for this. And Louw-Nida sub-domains could be helpful. LN 23.170 came up for one and an inspection of the lexicon shows 23.142-184  is for "Sickness, Disease, Weakness".  So I run a query  louwNida:23.142-184 on my bible. It avoids the referents  that come with Person tagging, so you might find it useful.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • FrMoses
    FrMoses Member Posts: 89

    Both helpful responses, thank you!

    I especially appreciate the Louw-Nida approach as I've never used that one before. 

    Nonetheless, maybe this highlights a usability issue for many people who are coming to Logos knowing that it can run these amazing searches, but finding there is a bit of expert knowledge required. I still don't understand why the datatype, "A Paralytic," which Faithlife defines in the app as "Any person suffering from paralysis" doesn't catch all of these references. Again, perhaps I'm missing something, but it doesn't seem intuitive to me.

    Thank you again for the support and suggestions.

    I use Verbum with an 8-Core Mac Pro (2013) and a MacBook Pro (2017)

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,121

    I still don't understand why the datatype, "A Paralytic," which Faithlife defines in the app as "Any person suffering from paralysis" doesn't catch all of these references. Again, perhaps I'm missing something, but it doesn't seem intuitive to me.

    It would be reasonable to report it as a bug as Mt 9 and Mk 2 have two tags for the individual.

    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."

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 35,677

    I especially appreciate the Louw-Nida approach as I've never used that one before. 

    Nonetheless, maybe this highlights a usability issue for many people who are coming to Logos knowing that it can run these amazing searches, but finding there is a bit of expert knowledge required.

    I try to get users onto the Context menu because one could find some "gold" with the datatypes that are shown. But it requires some experience (try and try again!) to pick applicable ones  e.g. Healing - Cultural Concept might appeal. Just run the Search from the other side!

    The knowledge part was the use of Louw-Nida sub-domains (if you have the lexicon!).

    I still don't understand why the datatype, "A Paralytic," which Faithlife defines in the app as "Any person suffering from paralysis" doesn't catch all of these references. Again, perhaps I'm missing something, but it doesn't seem intuitive to me.

    Terminology: the datatype is Person. What you quote above are values or names, and FL (or their consultant) can choose what is most meaningful/accurate.

    You can create a Label ("Sufferers") to do something similar with an attribute Person and assign whatever name you like when you apply the highlight!  Then your search would be something like  label:(sufferers AND person:"Paralysis Sufferer").

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13