TIP OF THE DAY 3: Name beginning

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I'm trying a different approach -- one that emphasizes Logos/Verbum vocabulary and available data. We've reached the point where the posts are more typical i.e. 2-4 questions a day. Let me know if this approach is useful. Especially tell when when I have assumed knowledge that I should have explicitly offered. If this proves to be successful, there might be a gift certificate or two to those finding errors and omissions. I am leaning towards preserving the posts in the form of a shared .docx file for a personal book because of the ease of adding additional linkage between topics but I still may just create a reading list as I have in the past.

EXCURSES: Software and linguistics vocabulary

Datatype

A kind (or family of kinds) of information distinct from other kinds. Each data type has its own internal rules and structure.^[1]

Morphology

Technically, morphology is the study of a word’s form (part of speech, tense, etc.).

In Verbum, a morphology, or morph, refers to the properties of a word (or part of a word, or rarely multiple words) that determine how it is categorized within a morph analysis.^[2]

Onomastics

The science that studies names is called onomastics, from the Greek word onoma which means both “noun” and “name.” Onomastics is a very broad subject because virtually all persons and places have names, as do many things. The study of names encompasses all languages, areas of the world, and historical periods.^[3]

Semantics

semantics is the study of the meaning of language forms. In contrast to grammar, which classifies words as nouns, verbs, etc., according to how they are used, semantics classifies words according to their meaning. Semantic categories (or classes) include objects, events, abstracts. ^[4]

Parts of speech

The words in a sentence have rather well-defined duties in the expression of the thought. We classify them according to their use in the sentence as parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, articles, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.^[5]

Semantic domain

semantic domain. n. The broad category of meaning in which a word is to be understood, especially as it relates to other similar words. Semantic domain theory organizes a language’s vocabulary into groups of words related in meaning (according to sense relations), so that words can interrelate and define each other.

Cultural concepts

The Lexham Cultural Ontology (LCO) is a hierarchy of cultural concepts used for indexing the Bible and other texts from the ancient near East. There are currently over 1100 concepts in the Lexham Cultural Ontology. Each LCO concept represents a cultural practice or a concept related to a cultural practice from the biblical world that is also useful for indexing Logos content.^[7]

Ontology

In data science, an ontology is a formal representation of knowledge within a specific domain that defines the concepts, entities, properties, and relationships between them. It provides a structured framework for organizing and understanding data in a particular field or area of interest.

Discourse analysis

The study of language as it is used in actual communication, or the study of specific linguistic devices used to create a discourse.

QUESTION: What data does onomastic studies collect about a name?

SOFTWARE: Enter the question into the Logos/Verbum Smart search or into Perplexity (or similar product).

RESULTS: “Onomastic studies collect various types of data about names, particularly personal names. This includes analyzing the frequency and popularity of names within a population[1], as well as examining the religious and cultural significance of name components[2]. Researchers in this field study the etymology of names, their historical context, and how they relate to social, political, economic, and religious institutions[3]. Onomastic studies also investigate the bestowal, adoption, and deployment of names within specific communities[3]. Additionally, the field examines the linguistic aspects of names, including their grammar, orthography, and syntax[4]. In some cases, onomastic research extends to the study of place names and divine names, as well as their historical and cultural implications[2][5].

[1] André Lemaire, “Identifying Inscriptional Names in the Century before 70: Problems and Methodology,” in The Tomb of Jesus and His Family?: Exploring Ancient Jewish Tombs Near Jerusalem’s Walls: The Fourth Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013), 153.

[2] Richard S. Hess, “Did Yahweh Have a Wife?: Iron Age Religion in Israel and Its Neighbors,” in Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2012), 215.

[3] William Sailer et al., Religious and Theological Abstracts (Myerstown, PA: Religious and Theological Abstracts, 2012).

[4] David W. Baker, “Review of Studies in Aramaic Inscriptions and Onomastics by Edward Lipiński,” Ashland Theological Journal XLIV (2012): 94.

[5] Thomas W. Franxman, Genesis and the Jewish Antiquities of Flavius Josephus, vol. 35, Biblica et Orientalia (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1979), 9–10.”

This translates into the following information of use to a non-specialist that Logos/Verbum should capture for a personal name – whether human or supernatural.

• Name
• Original language (especially useful for gauging assimilation)
• Pronunciation (important in cultures that assign meaning to names)
• Name type (see coding requirements below)
• Name category (see coding requirements below)
• Name etymology
• Name variants
• Name in translation
• Sparklines of use across canon
• Ngrams of use across time (see Google Ngram Viewer: Joshua,Jacob)

QUESTION: Does my Bible have a reverse interlinear?

SOFTWARE: Note, if your Bible does not have a reverse interlinear, you will not have access to many of the features discussed throughout this document. You may wish to purchase the reverse interlinear or change the Bible you are using for study.

Method 1: Verifying within your open Bible – information panel (v37 dynamic panel toolbar)

1. Open your Bible.
2. Select “Home” tab, the first option after the reference box.
3. Select “Info” next to last option on the right of the line below.
4. Expand the Reverse Interlinear header to see the details of the reverse interlinear. Note that if there is no reverse interlinear, the header will not appear in the information pane.

Method 2: Verifying within the Library panel.

1. Select your Bible.
2. Select the information pane i.e. the “I” in a circle just before the panel menu on the panel toolbar.
3. Expand the Reverse Interlinear header to see the details of the reverse interlinear. Note that if there is no reverse interlinear, the header will not appear in the information pane.

Method 3: Verifying within your open Bible – information panel (v37 dynamic panel toolbar)

1. Open your Bible.
2. Select “View” tab.
3. If the toolbar that opens below offers an interlinear option, you own the (reverse) interlinear. If the option does not appear, you do not own it.

QUESTION: What filter will underline personal names in my Bible?

SOFTWARE: The Factbook filter is often sufficient even though it is much broader than personal names. It can be set to underline all references to the person excluding pronouns and implicit inclusion via a verb.

1. Open your Bible.
2. Select “Formatting” tab
3. Open “Factbook Tags” to configure what is highlighted with blue dotted lines.
4. On the top slider, turn the Factbook Tags on.
5. In the list of elements to show, select only “People.”
6. Select “Show underlines”
7. Close Factbook Tags menu.

^[1] Verbum Help (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2024).

^[2] Verbum Help (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2024).

^[3] “Name,” in Compton’s Encyclopedia (Chicago, IL: Compton’s Encyclopedia, 2015).

^[4] Paul Ellingworth and Eugene Albert Nida, A Handbook on Paul’s Letters to the Thessalonians, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1976), 224.

^[5] William Sanford LaSor, Handbook of Biblical Hebrew: An Inductive Approach Based on the Hebrew Text of Esther, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988), 130.

n. noun

Matthew S. DeMoss, Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 111.

^[7] David Witthoff, Jessica Parks, and Sean Boisen, Lexham Cultural Ontology Dataset Documentation (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2015).

Steven E. Runge, “Discourse Analysis,” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).