How to search this?

I actually have 2 questions. The first is given in the Subject.. More specifically, I want to know how to find a list if possible of king David's political and military accomplishments.

Second, I have just purchased Platinum Scholars. I feel like I need and want some more (contextual??) sources. I am not even sure if this is the proper term. Maybe, Israelite history, an overall look at the characters of scripture. (I am thinking bible and other texts as "summary sources." I guess this question is....What additional sources have you (seminary students) and/or (seminary professors) purchased for further background information? I was already planning on the AYBD.

Any help much appreciated.

William

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Rosie Perera

How to search this? ... I want to know how to find a list if possible of king David's political and military accomplishments.

You could do a Basic Search through your Entire Library for David NEAR accomplishments. I did and this is what I found:

Every Man in the Bible by Larry Richards has a section on David which includes a nice summary of his accomplishments, including this tidbit:

The years of David complete Israel’s transition from a loose tribal structure, under which God’s people lived in the days of the judges, to a monarchy. A number of important aspects of the transition are accomplished under David’s leadership:

• Transition from government by judges to an established monarchy
• Transition from a loose confederation of tribes to a united nation.
• Transition from anarchy to a strong central government.
• Transition from bronze-age poverty to iron-age economy and wealth.
• Transition from a subject people to conquerors. David expanded Israel’s territory some ten times!
• Transition from decentralized worship to centralized worship, with one city as both political and religious capital.

But there's much more in that good section, so buy the book (it's only $14.99). I shouldn't quote a huge chunk of it here.

I would also encourage you to do your own study on this interesting topic, and make up your own list. Relying on other people's summary lists is helpful at times when you are short on time and just need a quick answer. But if you really want to get to know David and his accomplishments, read the parts of Scripture that tell of his life (1 Samuel 16 - 2 Samuel 24; 1 Chronicles chs. 10-29), and keep a Notes file open to jot down what you are learning were his political and military accomplishments. You'll come away from it much more blessed than if you just read someone else's list.

Second, I have just purchased Platinum Scholars. I feel like I need and want some more (contextual??) sources. I am not even sure if this is the proper term. Maybe, Israelite history, an overall look at the characters of scripture. (I am thinking bible and other texts as "summary sources." I guess this question is....What additional sources have you (seminary students) and/or (seminary professors) purchased for further background information? I was already planning on the AYBD.

All the Men in the Bible (mentioned above) and All the Women in the Bible, by Larry Richards, are good for an overall look at the characters of Scripture. AYBD is excellent; good choice. The IVP Bible background dictionaries (NT ones are part of the Essential IVP Reference Collection; some of the OT ones are in pre-pub as the IVP Dictionary of the Old Testament bundle; the rest of the volumes aren't announced yet) are also excellent. As for Israelite history, I just made up a collection today of all my background resources on Judaism and Israel, and among them I would recommend A History of Israel, Third Edition, by John Bright (this was the textbook we used in my OT survey class).

But you already have, as part of Platinum, some good resources, which I recommend you make a collection for. For example:

A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ (5 Vols.)
New Manners and Customs of the Bible
New Testament Milieu
Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ, by Alfred Edersheim

There are more. See all the titles under the Bible History and Culture section on http://www.logos.com/comparison which have a Platinum dot (second to last column).

William

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/91881#Comment_91881

Rosie,

Thank you for the information. I appreciate your constructive criticism of my study technique. I was certainly planning to do the searching myself. I have a problem though. I guess my brain is not functioning as it could with my ongoing medical conditions. I did search David AND "military accomplishments" and David AND "political accomplishments" I got a few hits but nothing like I was hoping. I just do not have the repertoire of search words or how they are used. Is there a location that describes all the search terms and how they are used in conjunction?

How is NEAR very different from AND. Is it all in the same article? How is AND laid out?

William

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/91891#Comment_91891

How is NEAR very different from AND. Is it all in the same article? How is AND laid out?

William,

Well, as you are trying to find a logical connection between these two terms...having NEAR or "BEFORE" is going to be important....they have to be related in some way....just an article talking about David and then using the word "accomplishments" in reference to someone else won't be all that useful...

Also...anything topical such as a bible dictionary would have an entry on David. Also..topical bibles

Having said that....an entire library search of "David WITHIN 10 words accomplishments" turned up quite a list of passages speaking of what he did....and that (I agree with Rosie) is the best way to absorb this....let Logos make the list, but go through the passages yourself and make a list...

If you need any more help....just ask....

Kevin Becker

With Logos tagged by Bible references it's always a sound strategy to try to find examples in scripture. So for examples of military accomplishments you would expect words like "defeated" or "victory" This search gives me a list of victories directly attributed to David.

If you really want to be thorough, further restrict the search range to passages just about David and then search for victory and defeated etc. You could replace the military terms with built, did, established and other terms that speak of accomplishment.

Once you have a list of significant examples, search your Library for examples of these passages being cited. Hopefully you will find articles that include along the way other examples that your initial search didn't find. Then you can refine your list of accomplishments.

Or.... you can just read David's story taking notes along the way [:)].

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/91891#Comment_91891

Thank you for the information. I appreciate your constructive criticism of my study technique. I was certainly planning to do the searching myself. I have a problem though. I guess my brain is not functioning as it could with my ongoing medical conditions. I did search David AND "military accomplishments" and David AND "political accomplishments" I got a few hits but nothing like I was hoping. I just do not have the repertoire of search words or how they are used. Is there a location that describes all the search terms and how they are used in conjunction?

How is NEAR very different from AND. Is it all in the same article? How is AND laid out?

Hi William,

You can find info on all the search syntax here: http://wiki.logos.com/Search_HELP and here: http://wiki.logos.com/Search_Fields_List

NEAR is more restrictive than AND. For example if you search for David AND "political accomplishments" Logos will find all articles that contain both David and the exact phrase "political accomplishments" -- regardless of how far apart David and "political accomplishments" appear in that article, but with NEAR, they must be "near" each other. I'm not sure how Logos defines how near they must be. If you want to be really specific about it, you can use BEFORE, AFTER, and WITHIN (e.g., David WITHIN 2 WORDS "political accomplishments") will find "political accomplishments of David" or "David's political accomplishments."

However, since your search wasn't finding very many hits, what you want to do is broaden it, not make it more restrictive. For that I think you need to give up on having "political accomplishments" or "military accomplishments" in quotes. You're restricting the hits to have those exact strings in that order, but authors might write about David's accomplishments without using those exact phrases. So a less restrictive search might be:

David AND accomplishments AND (military OR political)

You can use parentheses around search terms to group them with a higher precedence than the adjacent operator, much as you can in mathematics (e.g., 5 x 3 + 2 would normally be interpreted as 5 x 3, then add 2, to get 17, but if you want the addition to happen first you'd do 5 x (3 + 2) and you'd get 5 x 5 = 25).

Searching strategy is a skill that develops over time. Be willing to think outside the box. What might some synonyms or related words for "military" be that would help you find David's military accomplishments without using that exact word "military"? (Victory, battle, etc.) Ditto for political (Leadership, king, etc.). While the syntax is different, many of the same principles apply in Google searching (i.e., how to refine your search terms to get more relevant results) so the more you work on honing your Google skills (I recommend Google Guide) the better you will become at searching in Logos. And getting better at Googling is a good skill to have anyway... (Google doesn't have the NEAR, BEFORE, AFTER, or WITHIN capabilities, though; so Logos searching is better than Google in that regard!)

Sharon

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/92092#Comment_92092

Thank you for the information. I appreciate your constructive criticism of my study technique. I was certainly planning to do the searching myself. I have a problem though. I guess my brain is not functioning as it could with my ongoing medical conditions. I did search David AND "military accomplishments" and David AND "political accomplishments" I got a few hits but nothing like I was hoping. I just do not have the repertoire of search words or how they are used. Is there a location that describes all the search terms and how they are used in conjunction?

How is NEAR very different from AND. Is it all in the same article? How is AND laid out?

Hi William,

You can find info on all the search syntax here: http://wiki.logos.com/Search_HELP and here: http://wiki.logos.com/Search_Fields_List

NEAR is more restrictive than AND. For example if you search for David AND "political accomplishments" Logos will find all articles that contain both David and the exact phrase "political accomplishments" -- regardless of how far apart David and "political accomplishments" appear in that article, but with NEAR, they must be "near" each other. I'm not sure how Logos defines how near they must be. If you want to be really specific about it, you can use BEFORE, AFTER, and WITHIN (e.g., David WITHIN 2 WORDS "political accomplishments") will find "political accomplishments of David" or "David's political accomplishments."

However, since your search wasn't finding very many hits, what you want to do is broaden it, not make it more restrictive. For that I think you need to give up on having "political accomplishments" or "military accomplishments" in quotes. You're restricting the hits to have those exact strings in that order, but authors might write about David's accomplishments without using those exact phrases. So a less restrictive search might be:

David AND accomplishments AND (military OR political)

You can use parentheses around search terms to group them with a higher precedence than the adjacent operator, much as you can in mathematics (e.g., 5 x 3 + 2 would normally be interpreted as 5 x 3, then add 2, to get 17, but if you want the addition to happen first you'd do 5 x (3 + 2) and you'd get 5 x 5 = 25).

Searching strategy is a skill that develops over time. Be willing to think outside the box. What might some synonyms or related words for "military" be that would help you find David's military accomplishments without using that exact word "military"? (Victory, battle, etc.) Ditto for political (Leadership, king, etc.). While the syntax is different, many of the same principles apply in Google searching (i.e., how to refine your search terms to get more relevant results) so the more you work on honing your Google skills (I recommend Google Guide) the better you will become at searching in Logos. And getting better at Googling is a good skill to have anyway... (Google doesn't have the NEAR, BEFORE, AFTER, or WITHIN capabilities, though; so Logos searching is better than Google in that regard!)

Thanks Rosie,

This answered some questions I have had.

Sharon

Bob Pritchett

You can use the Syntax search on the Andersen Forbes Hebrew database to find everywhere David is the subject of a clause.

Choose "Syntax" in the Search window, then "AFAT" as the database, and then use the Query drop-down to select the Subject (Andersen-Forbes) or English Subject (Andersen-Forbes) template, depending on whether or not you want to search for "h:dwyd" or "David".

You can then add the ESV or another Bible to the translations box in the results, and see the Hebrew/English side by side.

Unfortunately I'm not syntax-savvy enough to tell you how to do an even smarter search based on this template, looking for particular verbs. And we don't (yet) support the "Analysis" grid for Syntax search results, which will be very cool. Once we do -- in an upcoming release -- you could then sort and group all instances of David as the subject by the verb in the clause.

Kevin Becker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/92288#Comment_92288

Unfortunately I'm not syntax-savvy enough to tell you how to do an even smarter search based on this template, looking for particular verbs. And we don't (yet) support the "Analysis" grid for Syntax search results, which will be very cool. Once we do -- in an upcoming release -- you could then sort and group all instances of David as the subject by the verb in the clause.

This is awesome news Bob, thanks!