Logos or Logoi? Getting to the root of matters; ex. Zech 10:6B

“Because I am yhwh/adonai their God, I will attend to [(AnAh, answer, or hear = cause for effect, in EVV] them.”

While, in some texts, there is ambiguity for (AnAh: root I, “answer,” or II [sometimes designated III], “afflict,” not a single EVV at Bible Gateway renders Zc 10:6B (= post-athnach portion) as “...I will/did afflict/humiliate them.”
No wonder, given that at 9:16 God promised a future salvation for His flock, and instructed them to pray for His blessing at 10:1, and the blessing is prophesied in 10:6 by means of mainline futuristic verbs: I will strengthen (waw consecutive + pf), I will save (impf), I will bring them back [perhaps here a purposeful double entendre construction! involving return and dwell], and they will be (waw consecutive + pf) and I will attend to (waw conjunctive + impf) them.

[The TLOT provides a compelling case for the etymological and the “semasiological chain” of (AnAh I as: “to turn around” >“to react” > “to turn attention to someone or something” >“to be occupied with” > “to react willingly,” ...i.e., essentially as more appropriate in many OT texts than the introductory Hebrew vocabulary gloss and common English rendering “answer,” which might imply simply speech/verbiage.]

Yet Logos (the scavenger) also links (AnAh [II, or sometimes III], “afflict,” from LTW, in effect providing different logoi, root-words, and a meaning that really has no pertinence for Zech 10:6B, one that is rarely, if ever, proposed as fitting there. (LTW itself does not connect that entry to Zech 10:6B.)

2Qs for discussion:
1) Does anyone find the linkage to a different root in LTW inappropriate/potentially confusing or misleading?
[As an analogy: I was married to one twin; if I couldn't distinguish from the other twin, I'd have been in a heap of trouble.]

2) Does anyone feel any tension at the nexus between Bible study and current iterations of biblical software/Logos?
Whereas a Bible student's goal might be the meaning of the biblical texts (the logos, if one allows), biblical software (Logos) may be content with collating all available data (logoi), without regard to any type of requisite analysis.
Is the ideal of software that draws from many sources but presents that information in a measured fashion — while eschewing misinformation — an impossible or undesirable goal?
[Don't AI versions adapt/order/aim to evaluate and eliminate misinformation, even as many of the better biblical study resources attempt to do?]

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MJ. Smith

1) Does anyone find the linkage to a different root in LTW inappropriate/potentially confusing or misleading?

No, I consider it inappropriate for Logos to assume any single source is the "answer". My usual complaint is the opposite. Logos is not strict enough in its text-forward approach and often lets later theological interpretation bleed into the texr. The easiest example is the tagging of Genesis 1:1-3 with "Holy Spirit". That may be the correct interpretation but is not what the text says. It is what a Christian reading the text interprets it to mean.

2) Does anyone feel any tension at the nexus between Bible study and current iterations of biblical software/Logos?
Whereas a Bible student's goal might be the meaning of the biblical texts (the logos, if one allows), biblical software (Logos) may be content with collating all available data (logoi), without regard to any type of requisite analysis.

I am particularly aware of this issue right now because I have been fight a chatbot over keeping data text centered rather than issue centered. The training material of AI is so strongly issue oriented, denominationally centered that no matter how explicitly you insist the text comes first, is the base, the foundation of everything else, it keeps drifting back to what is predominant in training materials - often quite subtly. The example that drove me nuts was creation - out of nothing or organizing pre-existing matter. While, depending on your canon, the Bible clearly in later passages favors one position, Genesis 1:1-3 can be read either way as shown by the fact that denominations do in fact read it in different ways. However, getting the apparatus of Bible study to allow the text to be agnostic on the topic with the choice being at the interpretation level is difficult. I believe Bible software has gone too far in allowing interpretation in the textual aids. I believe (strongly) that the role of Bible software at its best is exactly "collating all available data" and all possible interpretations so that the Bible student can actually wrestle with the text and find its actual meaning rather than pretending to study while collecting data to prove what they already belief. The latter is NOT putting the text first.

So, yes, I agree that there is a tension and that there will always be a tension but my concerns are the flip side of yours.

Don Parker

Ty, MJ.
Always glad to hear from you, even (maybe especially) if we have some differing viewpoints.
[BTW, thought I entered this into a "Discussion" section, but posts the same as "Ask a Q?"]

As to #1, I don't think you mean to suggest that a single source stands behind my root I.D. here (rather than all the BG EVV translations, majority of my lexical resources - at least those specifically citing Zc 10.6, several commentaries, grammars, etc.).
Nor that either root I.D. would be considered a more "theological/confessional" translation.
(God disciplining AND caring for His people is actually a repeated wordplay multiple places in Zech [even in 10:3, pAqad as alternately "punish" and "care for" — albeit acknowledging multiplicity of views on the "leaders" there], as in other OT [and NT] texts.)

On the other hand, I don't know of a single source that points to II, "humiliate" in Zech 10:6B; but you may?
[LTW gives one possible BH use of (AnAh; it does not cite Zech 10.6 as an instance of such a use.]
And, in that case, I would very much like to hear an exposition of 10.6 using that root I.D., tracing the verb forms and placement of the verse in its context. I will issue a mea culpa on this instance.
[But, really, I think there are a multitude of such questionable uses in contexts and questionable attributions to specific sources as reflective of those meanings throughout Logos.]

At any rate, it seems rather we may be touching on the famed langue (general uses in a language) and parole (specific meaning in a given context) issue. You, emphasizing the former; me placing greater stress on the latter in the final analysis.
So, "trunk" has a multitude of nuances/uses that might be in "He grabbed the trunk." But if the context adds an environmentalist seeking to prevent a tree being cut down, or a child at the circus approaching an elephant, or someone rushing from a hotel room to go on a cross-Atlantic voyage, well, adding any of those other meanings for such contexts — barring special circumstances — I'd consider superfluous and voided "possibilities."

As to #2, Since life is short, I myself always preferred sources/teachers to get to the top-ranked several choices, along with pros and cons and — IF they were able — to identify which they preferred and why. But to each their own. [BTW, TLOT points to two more proposed homonyms/homographs. Should Logos break out each of those as separate look-up queries so as to be more visible as "possibilities?"]

However, might you:
1) Summarize, maybe with an example, in terms a computer simpleton might comprehend, your work with AI revisions?
2) Opine outright (so as not to just assume your view) whether you think it helpful/laudable/impossible to remove any errors from AI versions, or even Logos?