[resolved] Need Help Constructing Syntax Search for "(the) Son of God"

I'm learning to build syntax searches, and I'm trying to use syntax search to see if I can get the same results as using the Grammatical Relationships function. I tried to look for instances of υἱός used adjectivally with θεός using the following syntax search:

This search, however, returned only 38 results, which is fewer than the results I get from Grammatical Relationships. It's missing Mt 26:63; Mk 5:7; etc. How should I modify my syntax search?

Strangely, John 1:34, for example, appears in my syntax search but NOT in Grammatical Relationships. Is there a grammatical reason why this verse is excluded?

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Dave Hooton

It's missing Mt 26:63; Mk 5:7; etc. How should I modify my syntax search?

Add the following to your diagram using OR as indicated

Strangely, John 1:34, for example, appears in my syntax search but NOT in Grammatical Relationships

i can't explain that.

Graham Criddle

Strangely, John 1:34, for example, appears in my syntax search but NOT in Grammatical Relationships. Is there a grammatical reason why this verse is excluded?

There are textual variants on this verse as:

ὁ ἐκλεκτὸς τοῦ θεοῦ

And I have seen and testify that this one is the Chosen One of God.

One very early manuscript and a few other early witnesses have “the Chosen One of God,” but most other early and later witnesses have “the Son of God.” Both titles refer to the same person, so there is no great difference in understanding the passage. The difference is largely found in what is emphasized by the expression, whether the chosen status of Jesus or his divine sonship.

Rick Brannan and Israel Loken, The Lexham Textual Notes on the Bible (Lexham Bible Reference Series; Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), Jn 1:34.

So some texts include the word υἱός and some don't

Opentext does - which is why the Syntax search works

but Cascadia doesn't

I guess you are using Cascadia in the BWS Grammatical relationships section which is why you don't get any results

If you change this to use OpenText

you will get it in the BWS

What is strange - and I can't explain - is that the text shown uses the variant reading and doesn't include υἱός[:O]

Stephen Ku

Thank you both for your very prompt replies.

Graham, your explanation made perfect sense. I did not realize that you could choose a different syntactical database for Grammatical Relationships. Thank you.

Dave, I tried adding "or" above the head term but it returned 0 results. What I did was I clicked on the plus sign above the head term to select "or".

This is what my diagram looks like now, and I don't know how to replicate the red arrows on your diagram:

If you could also please explain what the function of "or" is, i would really appreciate it.

Screen Shot 2015-06-06 at 7.25.08 AM.png

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/733502#Comment_733502

Hi Stephen

Hopefully the video at http://screencast.com/t/w86CdyKi will show you how to build the search Dave describes and explains what "or" does

Graham

Stephen Ku

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/733506#Comment_733506

Whoa, thank you so much, Graham, for the personalized video screencast tutorial! Based on your tutorial, I was able to create a slightly modified search diagram and get the same number of results (43 to be precise):

HOWEVER, again comparing the results to that of Grammatical Relationships, it's still missing John 5:25 and Gal 2:20, where υἱός is tagged as a "qualifier" as opposed to a "definer."

As a beginner student of syntax searches, I'm wondering whether there's a catch-all approach that would get exact results matching what's in Grammatical Relationships. For example, if I were to search for "(the) Son of Man," is there a rule I should follow that can guarantee complete search results? Without comparing the discrepancies, I would not have known to add qualifiers and definer to my search.

Thank you again for your patience in guiding me.

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/733527#Comment_733527

HOWEVER, again comparing the results to that of Grammatical Relationships, it's still missing John 5:25 and Gal 2:20, where υἱός is tagged as a "qualifier" as opposed to a "definer.

These aren't returned for different reasons

As you say John 5:25 has υἱός tagged as a qualifier - you can address this by selecting both (tick both boxes in the editor) in which case either term will match or deselect definer in which case all types of modifiers will match

Gal 2:20 is different as it has an extra level - head term -> definer -> qualifier -> son. To "ignore" the extra term you can click on the Modifier and then select "Matching skip levels" from the General information in the editor. This will cause a hit even whether it is "further down the tree"

As a beginner student of syntax searches, I'm wondering whether there's a catch-all approach that would get exact results matching what's in Grammatical Relationships.

That's a much more difficult question and I am not aware of a standard answer to that one. Hopefully those more knowledgeable than I will be able to comment on that.

Stephen Ku

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/733530#Comment_733530

After much trial and error, I managed to construct the following syntax search that returned the same results as Grammatical Relationships:

This seems to work on any scenario where a word is used adjectivally with another word. I've tested "Son of Man," "his son," "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" and the results were all identical with those returned by Grammatical Relationships.

If anyone can think of a way to simplify this search diagram, that would be awesome!

Not sure what the practical benefits of this exercise are for other users.[:)] I guess it was a good experience in the process of learning syntax searches.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/733754#Comment_733754

If anyone can think of a way to simplify this search diagram, that would be awesome!

Sometimes simple looks to be verbose but you could have a diagram without the OR:-

Head Term ---> Modifier (may or may not be present) ---> Unordered ---> etc.

Tim Bahula

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/733754#Comment_733754

Thanks for working through this, Stephen. It was just what I was looking for this morning!