automatically generate a Scriptural "commentary" from references to Scripture?

Since all or most references to Sacred Scripture are currently tagged in most Logos/Verbum books, does a tool exist that would allow a user to generate a list of Scripture references, and perhaps a couple of lines of text (such as in a search result) for a particular book, writer, or collection?

If this does not exist, it seems like it would be very helpful and relatively simple to create because all of the data now exists. Ideally, the results would be organized by book, chapter and verse.

For example, St. Thomas Aquinas did not write a commentary on the book of Acts. But in doing a search within my "Aquinas"collection for <Acts>, I got 500 results. By manually sorting them by chapter and verse, and extracting the relevant preview text, I've been able to create a useful tool: a sort-of Thomistic commentary on Acts (see an incomplete version of the document attached).

But couldn't this be done automatically by Logos/Verbum? And wouldn't it be a lot better than the version I've included as it would allow the user to dynamically adjust the scope of material to be indexed as well as to include new books as they become available in the Faithlife library?

Does this functionality already exist in the concordance or some other tool, but I'm missing it? If not, could someone from Faithlife offer some insight into the feasibility of such a tool?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

MJ. Smith

It sounds like you've done a good job of identifying the currently available functions. Basically you are asking that the Basic search has a sort sequence based upon the matched term(s) ....

Mark Barnes

Does this functionality already exist in the concordance or some other tool, but I'm missing it?

The Concordance tool comes fairly close, but has two disadvantages. (1) You can see less context that in your PDF. (2) You can run it only for a single resource.

If you want to stick with your manual method, make sure you're doing an inline search rather than a normal search. That will allow you to automatically preview an entire sentence or paragraph, rather than a snippet. You'll still need to sort into canonical order, though.

Michel Pauw

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/787527#Comment_787527

How do I get that Concordance Tool?

https://www.logos.com/product/51523/concordance-tool doesn't have a 'buy' option.

Michel Pauw

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/787544#Comment_787544

O, I see, it's a Logos Now feature, isn't it?

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/787545#Comment_787545

O, I see, it's a Logos Now feature, isn't it?

That's right.

Fr Devin Roza

For example, St. Thomas Aquinas did not write a commentary on the book of Acts. But in doing a search within my "Aquinas"collection for <Acts>, I got 500 results. By manually sorting them by chapter and verse, and extracting the relevant preview text, I've been able to create a useful tool: a sort-of Thomistic commentary on Acts (see an incomplete version of the document attached).

Nice work, and a very interesting idea! I'll bet St. Thomas would have loved having this technology when he made Catena Aurea! [:)]

I second Mark's suggestions, especially the one about using Inline Search if you're not happy with the Concordance's results and want to continue making these files. Then, play around with the Inline Search option to display "Sentence", "Paragraph" or "Article" to see what works best for your project.

SineNomine

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/787527#Comment_787527

You'll still need to sort into canonical order, though.

The ability to do that automatically sounds like a feature that Faithlife could build.

James Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/787527#Comment_787527

Dear Mark,

Thank you very much for your excellent suggestions. No, I definitely do not want to keep doing this manually, and the concordance tool gets me most of the way to where I want to be, as you said.

A couple of extra steps would really complete this for me:

1. if I could select a collection in the Concordance rather than just individual resources

2. if I had the option of selecting sentence, paragraph, or article, as the inline search allows

3. if I could save the results into something other than simply exporting the text, such as a "concordance" document that could be manually updated

And speaking of exporting, I do not seem to be able to export from the concordance tool. I get a message that simply says, "This panel supports export only."

Thank you again for your suggestions, they are a big help!

Best,

James

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/787687#Comment_787687

1. if I could select a collection in the Concordance rather than just individual resources

Agreed - and Faithlife have advised that this is on their wishlist - https://community.logos.com/forums/p/105207/740132.aspx#740132

And speaking of exporting, I do not seem to be able to export from the concordance tool. I get a message that simply says, "This panel supports export only."

Issues with exporting from the Concordance were reported at https://community.logos.com/forums/p/106591/737587.aspx#737587 and it looks as though there are still problems.

James Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/787699#Comment_787699

Dear Graham,

Thank you for your response, and for pointing me to those resources. I am glad that FL already knows these things, and I will look forward to their addressing them at some point, hopefully.

Best,

James