Added a new video: Using ROOT search and Visual Filters to highlight keywords in your Bible

I just added a screencast video to show how to use ROOT search and Visual Filters to custom highlight keywords in Bible books. This technique can be very helpful is seeing threads of thought through the Bible text. I have added it to the wiki under Logos 5 Videos. I hope it is helpful.

Here is the direct link to the video on Vimeo - https://vimeo.com/55623122

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Comments

Sam West

Excellent videos! Excellent quality! Some of the best i have seen on the wiki. Thanks for all the good information.

Sam West

NetworkGeek

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441415#Comment_441415

Thank you Michael, I enjoy your videos!

Kenneth Neighoff

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441417#Comment_441417

Another great video. Thank you for the time and effort to create them.

Rosie Perera

These are excellent, Michael. Thank you!

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/441496#Comment_441496

Thank you, Michael. Very creative and useful.

I hope that when Logos allows us to share Visual Filters and Highlighting Palettes through Faithlife you will let us share in the fruits of your hard work! This is just the type of thing that with time will make Faithlife sharing really a tool to study the Bible better! [Y]

Jack Caviness

Thank you Michael

Rosie Perera

Michael, thank you again for the ROOT search video and this new one. I've now used them to create visual filters for all the most significant keywords in 1 John (your example book) and now 2 Corinthians.

I have a couple of questions:

1. How do you determine how far down the list of keywords to go before it's too many to care about. I started out using roots that occur at least 10x as my criterion, but of course in a longer book that might be too low, as there are going to be so many more roots in use that many times, and it might be unwieldy.

2. Also, there are some that I noticed you skipped over in your video (such as εἰμί) because they are common words with no particular significance. How do you determine which ones to skip over like this?

3. Finally, does your method of identifying keywords work equally well in the Old Testament? I'm not sure roots work quite the same way in Hebrew as in Greek, though my original language skills are weak. In the few books I tried, the most common words appear to have no root at all (represented by a dash, – ).

Michael Hite

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/442558#Comment_442558

1. How do you determine how far down the list of keywords to go before it's too many to care about. I started out using roots that occur at least 10x as my criterion, but of course in a longer book that might be too low, as there are going to be so many more roots in use that many times, and it might be unwieldy.

This is the most challenging part. You are looking for words that are "theologically significant" to the book. Often times, when the number of occurrences is low, I will look at where they are in a book. Are they all in one section or are they spread throughout the book. The ones spread throughout the writing are often more key to the book than a word used in one section. Example: the word "pray" occurs 7 times in the book of James but they all occur in Chapter 5. The word is significant to understanding chapter 5 but is not really key to the entire book. Trying to set a minimum is difficult. Longer books have higher numbers, shorter books have lower ones.

2. Also, there are some that I noticed you skipped over in your video (such as εἰμί) because they are common words with no particular significance. How do you determine which ones to skip over like this?

As I mentioned, you are looking for words with "theological significance" in the book. Common words (articles, prepositions, common verbs, etc...) often carry no particular theological meaning or significance. Those should be excluded.

3. Finally, does your method of identifying keywords work equally well in the Old Testament? I'm not sure roots work quite the same way in Hebrew as in Greek, though my original language skills are weak. In the few books I tried, the most common words appear to have no root at all (represented by a dash, – ).

The way roots are implemented in Hebrew in L5 is confusing to me. Mainly because my knowledge of Hebrew is lacking. They have also removed some information from the Analysis view from L4 that was significant for those of us with limited knowledge of Hebrew (transliteration, the ability to run a Bible Word Study from this view, the English gloss, etc...). I have done a similar type of work in Hebrew using L4 by combining lemma analysis and finding additional derivations of the word using the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. I am working on a method for Hebrew using roots, but I am not there yet.

I hope this helps.

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/442657#Comment_442657

I have been thinking about and experimenting with this - and, Michael, many thanks for posting your videos and sharing your insights. It is appreciated.

I was thinking there may be occasions when I would want to "combine roots" in terms of highlighting.

For example, looking at John's Gospel there are - as is well known - two words used for love - φιλος (occurring 19 times) and αγαπαω (occurring 44 times).

There are differing schools of thought as to whether this is significant or not or whether they are being used interchangeably.

So, depending on one's position on this question, and the context in which a discussion was taking place it might be appropriate to keep these two roots separate or to combine them.

The beauty of using visual filters for this is that each of us can choose which option we wish to adopt (or even cater for both cases depending on the discussion we are involved in).

Michael Hite

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/443153#Comment_443153

Thanks Graham - I am glad the videos are helpful.

For example, looking at John's Gospel there are - as is well known - two words used for love - φιλος (occurring 19 times) and αγαπαω (occurring 44 times).

One way I have dealt with this issue is to keep the roots separate, but create two custom highlighters with the same base color, and add one additional feature to distinguish the different words. This allows me to see them clearly but still differentiate which word is which in the text.

Obviously, you could combine the two words in the visual filter using the OR modifier. Example: root:αγαπαω OR root:φιλος - (I know you know this, but thought I would include it for others reading the post [:)])

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/443160#Comment_443160

Hi Michael

One way I have dealt with this issue is to keep the roots separate, but create two custom highlighters with the same base color, and add one additional feature to distinguish the different words. This allows me to see them clearly but still differentiate which word is which in the text.

Yes, that would work well.

Thanks, Graham

Thomas Jackson

Michael,

Great Video!!! Thank you.

Thomas

Jo Decaesteker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/442657#Comment_442657

1. How do you determine how far down the list of keywords to go before it's too many to care about. I started out using roots that occur at least 10x as my criterion, but of course in a longer book that might be too low, as there are going to be so many more roots in use that many times, and it might be unwieldy.

This is the most challenging part. You are looking for words that are "theologically significant" to the book. Often times, when the number of occurrences is low, I will look at where they are in a book. Are they all in one section or are they spread throughout the book. The ones spread throughout the writing are often more key to the book than a word used in one section. Example: the word "pray" occurs 7 times in the book of James but they all occur in Chapter 5. The word is significant to understanding chapter 5 but is not really key to the entire book. Trying to set a minimum is difficult. Longer books have higher numbers, shorter books have lower ones.

2. Also, there are some that I noticed you skipped over in your video (such as εἰμί) because they are common words with no particular significance. How do you determine which ones to skip over like this?

As I mentioned, you are looking for words with "theological significance" in the book. Common words (articles, prepositions, common verbs, etc...) often carry no particular theological meaning or significance. Those should be excluded.

Interesting method and thoughts indeed!

I wonder whether someone could comment on my idea of percentage/ration I've been playing with, based on Michael's method:

First, here's a screenshot using Michael's method, organizing results for nouns, verbs and adjectives by "Root" > "Lemma" for the Gospel by Mark in the ESV. All levels collapsed.

You notice the total number of roots (for nouns, verbs and adjectives) on top of the analysis view is 5,436. Could it be interesting to calculate the percentage of occurences of roots to determine whether it could be a keyword?

Let's take the root "λεγω": it seems to occur 341 times. That's 341 / 5,436 * 100 = 6.27 % (of all nouns, adjectives and verbs, that is!).
Look at the root "Ιησους" which occurs 82 times, which is 82 / 5,436 * 100 = 1.5 % (again, of all nouns, adjectives and verbs.).

We can organize even further: we could analyse it by "Root" > "Part of speech" > "Lemma" to filter the lemma's per verbs, nouns and adjectives, all under their main root.

This is really powerful stuff!

My question then - after stating my ideas - is this: would it be interesting to add the criterium of ratio/percentage to determine whether a certain root/word is a keyword? After all: 6 out of 100 seems more important than 6 out of 1000, right? I know my method isn't entirely accurate because some entries on the lemma level may be counted more than once (because of several reasons: Michael gives an example in his video around the 25th minute: there a verb is counted twice because it can be indicative or subjunctive...).

Maybe my method would be more applicable if we're considering smaller passages like chapters or parts of them? Or maybe we can use both of them to compare the importance (percentage) of words within a chapter versus book, ...?

Basically, I'm looking for more criteria to really refine the results to find keywords.

Now, I'm down to these criteria:

1) number of occurences (absolute number)
2) distribution of the roots/lemmas: over the entire book, in one or more clusters / passages...
3) theological significance (eliminate common verbs/words)
4) percentage of occurence? (my idea)5) ...???

It IS challenging... Any thoughts on this anyone?

Also, out of curiosity, is there a way to find the total number of words (on the manuscript level!) in a Biblebook? I know the morph search and add all the parts of speech, but is there another way? I though a word list would do it, but it doesn't give the total of all the words...

Cheers, in Him!

Jo D.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/491544#Comment_491544

number of occurences (absolute number)

If you want accuracy, you must use a Greek text rather than an English text.

distribution of the roots/lemmas: over the entire book, in one or more clusters / passages...

You can do this for individual lemmas and roots by searching for that individual lemma/root in a morph search, and then clicking Graph Results. Choose a graph like Number of Hits in Book/Number of Words in Book.

percentage of occurence?

Again, the graph above will give you this information.

is there a way to find the total number of words (on the manuscript level!) in a Biblebook?

You could use Copy Bible Verses to copy/paste the Bible Text into Word.

Michael Hite

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/491544#Comment_491544

Those are good ideas Jo - as Mark Barnes points out much of that work can be done looking at the individual root and graphing the results.

2) distribution of the roots/lemmas: over the entire book, in one or more clusters / passages...

This point cannot be stressed enough. There are occasions when a word occurs a large number of times within a book, but the uses are so concentrated (in a pericope or a chapter) that they are not a keyword to the entire book as a whole. Individual searches and graphing the results can be valuable here as well. For example, The word γυνη (translated wife or woman) occurs 41x in 1 Corinthians. But when we look at the way the word is distributed throughout the letter we find that two chapters (7 and 11) contain all but 4 of the uses of the word. We can graph that by doing a root search for the word in the book and then selecting "Number of Hits in Chapter" to graph the results. This word is one tof the top 10 most frequently occurring words in the book, but it would be hard to argue that it is a keyword for the entire book when the uses are concentrated mainly in two chapters.

3) theological significance (eliminate common verbs/words)

Also, care should be taken when eliminating common verbs. A great example is found in the book of James. For a long time I eliminated the verb λεγω from my keyword list in James because it is such a common verb (to say). It is actually the most frequently used word in the book (outside of articles, conjunctions, etc...) occurring 24 times. But I was missing a significant point that James is making throughout the book using this word. His persistent admonition on controlling the tongue (emphasized in chapter 3) is reinforced throughout the book by phrases such as "Let no one say...", "For he who says..." "if someone says...", "Someone may well say..." etc... This is brought to focus in 2:12 when he says "So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty.

The other word in James that comes to mind here is ποιεω (to do, or make happen). This is a very common word in the New Testament (635x) and we might be tempted to dismiss it from our list in James as just being a common verb. But with 17 uses throughout the book he is definitely stressing the idea of doing - "But prove yourselves doers (ποιεω) of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

The point is sometimes common words are being used in significant ways within a book.

4) percentage of occurence? (my idea)5) ...???

A third concern is there are times when this cannot be reduced to a mathematical equation. The word καλυπτω (reveal, revelation) occurs only 8 times in 1 Peter. But he begins the book (1:5,7,12,13) with it and ends the book (5:1) with it. It is certainly significant to his letter, but as a percentage of total words in the book it may score low. Additionally, basing the percentage on the total number of words in the manuscript for a book would include many small words (pronouns, articles, conjunctions, etc... ) which may adversely skew the results.

I hope this is helpful.

Jo Decaesteker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/491568#Comment_491568

Cheers, Mark and Michael!

Yes, the distribution is immensely important to see whether a root/word is really a keyword for the book as a whole, thanks for clarifying that, both of you.

And eliminating seemingly "common"words might indeed be wrong for some occasions...

About the third concern: indeed it can not be reduced to pure mathematics, and you are right: prepositions, articles and words like that may/will skew the results. That's why I go along with you and do a morph search on @v OR @n OR @j only. And I compare the individual numbers of roots with the total amount (of nouns, verbs and adjectives, that is). And of course, this is only part of the whole research, it is and can not be the only factor that determines whether a word is a keyword for a book as a whole...

Thanks again, this really helps!

In Him!

Jo D.

Michael Hite

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/491610#Comment_491610

Jo,

I got an email about an additional post asking about why Graph Results was greyed out, but I don't see the post here. Did you resolve the question and delete it?

Jo Decaesteker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/491835#Comment_491835

I did, Michael, and I found the solution

The view was set to analysis...

That's why graph results was greyed out.

Switching to verses or aligned resolved the problem!

Cheers!

Daniel Brueno

Michael I did find one way to get to your custom highlight faster, I hold down (end) while clicking on formatting. It brings you too the end of your highlights, you could also put the high counts highlight at the bottom of the list.

ps thanks for the very cool video!

gary