BIBLE AND COMPUTERS
mADRID 2008
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Abstracts |
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International
Conference on “The Bible and Computers: Present and Future of a
Discipline”
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Monday 16 June Emanuel Tov, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Electronic Tools for Biblical Analysis at Home, at the University, and in the Classroom In the past two decades many developments have taken place in the area of the computerized study of Scripture. The impressive progress in hardware enabled much advancement in software and use by a greater number of users. Thirty and twenty-five years ago the main components for the computer-assisted study of Scripture were developed and used merely on mainframes, media that were only remotely available, and hence delayed extensive use by scholars and students alike.
This paper describes the various electronic resources that
have been developed in the meantime for the textual and linguistic study
of Hebrew Scripture, while focusing on the CATSS database and the
Accordance and SESB programs. These tools are used at home, in the
university, and in the classroom. Oliver Glanz, Werkgroep Informatika Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Computer's Who is Who
Displaying Hebrew and Aramaic on Handheld Devices That Lack Proper Complex Script Support Technology for displaying languages using complex scripts has made impressive advances in recent years, from the establishment and expansion of the UNICODE standard to the development of "smart fonts." These developments have paved the way for some strikingly beautiful Hebrew and Aramaic fonts, most especially SBL Hebrew and Ezra SIL. At the same time, the mobile market has been expanding rapidly, leading to a rise in demand for Bible software on-the-go. These handheld devices, however, have sought to meet their tight constraints on speed and storage by excising anything in the operating system that might be extraneous. As such, handheld devices generally do not include complex script support, with some not even supporting UNICODE at all. Thus, Hebrew and Aramaic texts have not been able to be presented in an aesthetically-pleasing fashion. This presentation shows a way in which I have been able to overcome the limitations in twohandheld platforms, namely Windows Mobile and Palm, to display Hebrew and Aramaic texts with all the beauty that recent UNICODE-based smart fonts have allowed. So far, this includes the Hebrew Bible with all of the vowels, cantillation marks, and symbols contained in the Westminster database, and it also includes the non-biblical Qumran texts with all of the editorial symbols contained in the database produced by Dr. Martin Abegg, Jr. For both platforms, this process takes advantage of the use of closed corpora of texts. It involves false rendering all of the texts under Windows using Microsoft's complex script library Uniscribe, making additional calls to Uniscribe to determine the precise choice and placement of each glyph, and recording that information in my own database. This information is then utilized on the handheld platforms to place each particular glyph in its appropriate place, and the user is able to scale the fonts larger or smaller. On Windows Mobile, the user can choose between SBL Hebrew or Ezra SIL. On Palm, which does not support UNICODE—or indeed any font with more than 256 glyphs, the Ezra SIL font was broken into multiple fonts and is used. The results are beautiful. A picture is below. The same process could be done to use SBL Hebrew if licensing issues presented no barrier.
These same general techniques could be used to display texts
in a wide variety of languages with complex scripts on an equally wide
variety of platforms lacking complex script support. I did this work as
a consultant for Olive Tree Bible Software, which specializes in Bible
software for handheld devices, and it is Olive Tree's intention to use
these same techniques to expand its repertoire of texts in languages
requiring complex scripts and also expand its repertoire of supported
handheld platforms. J. José Alarcón - Andrés Piquer - Pablo Torijano, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain Electronic Synoptic-Polyglot Edition of 1-2 Kings: Exhibition Session
This session will present a working sample of the electronic
version of the Synoptic-Polyglot Edition of 1-2 Kings in the
framework of the R+D Project Edición Electrónica Políglota-Sinóptica
de 1-2 Reyes (Göttingen Series y Oxford Hebrew Bible). Although the
academic community has a quite wide array of available electronic tools
and databases of biblical texts, it is also true than none of them are
focused on a textual comparative of versions, both within single-verse
issues and on higher-level textual phenomena (supplements, changes in
chapter-order, etc.). Taking as a basis the ongoing printed edition,
whose first fascicle (1Kgs 1-7) is in revision process, the electronic
SQL-based rendering of the text(s) of 1-2 Kings offers a series
of advantages for the scholar interested in textual criticism and in the
study of versions at large. These advantages can be summarized in the
notion of a “boundless” synoptic edition: without the physical
constraints of book size, printhouse limitations, column widths, etc.,
the number of versions which can be included and edited is limited only
by the academic activity of the editorial team itself. This has led to a
larger number of versions becoming available. Some of these were
traditionally confined to the apparatus criticus and also quite
unaccesible in the academic community (e.g. Georgian manuscripts and
Coptic fragments). Also, the user has the option of displaying versions
in any order and can therefore choose a text layout which is more useful
for his or her research purposes. These options complement the highly
visual approach taken in the edition, where textual differences between
versions are marked by a system of color codes. All in all, the
internet-accessible system can constitute a useful contribution to the
study of the textual history of the books of Kings. Bertram Salzmann, German Bible Society, Stuttgart, Germany Presentation of the Stuttgart Electronic Study Bible
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Tuesday 17 June A. Dean Forbes, University of California, Palo Alto, USA The Challenge of Consistency I. The Present State of Affairs 1. Based on our linguistic stance, we have fashioned a representation of the linguistic structure of biblical texts. 2. Adequate representation requires human intervention, which unleashes inconsistency. 3. In our data, we have found multiple sources of inconsistency. 4. The costs of inconsistency depend on how the data are used but can be substantial. 5. Approaches to inconsistency detection range from random to systematic. II. Future Directions 1. Our evolving approach to inconsistency detection involves constructing text surrogates. 2. A pilot study has produced estimates of error rates, allowing us to focus on the areas of our data that most need improvement. 3. The pilot study also indicates that we must automate and enhance our approach.
Jan H. Kroeze, University of Pretoria, South Africa Designing an interactive network graph of modular linguistic data in an XML database of Biblical Hebrew (Kroeze, J.H., Bothma, T.J.D., Matthee, M.C., Kroeze, J.C.W. & Kruger, O.C.) Classic information retrieval is search-dominated and only effective if the user already has a good idea about the problem space and knows what to look for. It does not allow explorative investigation of available data. Knowledge workers, including Biblical Hebrew computational linguists, may look into the possibilities offered by visualisation techniques to find alternatives to fill this gap. Visualisation is a graphical display of data that facilitates creative information retrieval and exploration since it allows researchers to dynamically change the focus of a data-mining process or to implement what-if scenarios. Such an undertaking may stimulate new ideas and may be used to formulate new hypotheses, which may then be examined in more traditional, empirical ways. The various approaches towards visualisation may be categorised according to the number of dimensions represented. A text-based representation of the results of a data-mining exercise may be regarded as a one-dimensional rendering of the data. An interlinear table is a relatively simple, but very efficient, two-dimensional, non-graphical rendering of linguistic data. Ideally, one should explore the possibility of three- or multi-dimensional visualisations to render multi-modular linguistic analyses. XML provides suitable technology to capture or prepare the data that should be visualised, since this mark-up language is very customisable and extensible. XML may also be used to store text-mining results and to export these to other applications.
Yosef Ofer, Bar Ilan University, Israel Ha-Keter Software for Computerized Masoretic Bible Text Retrieval Ha-Keter Software was developed specifically for the purpose of computerized retrieval of the accurate Bible text. It includes vowels, cantillation signs, and ge'ayot, and facilitates complex searches in each of these components. The software is part of Mikraot Gedolot Ha-Keter project of Bar-Ilan University (Israel), headed by Prof. Menachem Cohen. The main goal of this project is to produce a new critical edition of the Bible, comprising four main elements: the biblical text, the masora, the targum and the major medieval biblical commentaries. The biblical text upon which the software is based reflects the best and most precise masoretic manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, the Aleppo Codex, which was prepared by the famous 10th century masorete Aharon Ben-Asher. The Codex was damaged in the Aleppo riots of 1947, and about a third of its pages were lost. These missing parts of the Codex have been reconstructed using various techniques. Inter alia, Aharon Ben-Asher's system in noting the ge'ayot is analyzed by the software in the existing parts of the Codex and implemented in the missing parts. The lecture will include a demonstration of some complex Ha-Keter textual searches that cannot be performed using standard biblical text software. Prof. Yosef Ofer, of the Bible Department of Bar-Ilan University, was also the scientific supervisor of the "Jerusalem Crown" Edition of the Bible, produced by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and published in 2000.
Andrés Enrique-Arias, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain ”Biblia Medieval” (an electronic corpus of Spanish medieval Bible translations) Historical parallel corpora (i.e. translations of a single original composed at different time periods) are a useful tool for historical linguistics, insofar as they make it possible to study the evolution of the language at all levels of analysis with particular clarity. When it comes to studying the historical evolution of Spanish, Biblical translations are especially useful material as they are the only texts for which there exist versions composed at every period of the language’s history, from its first written manifestations until the present time. This paper reports on the development of the Biblia Medieval corpus, the first aligned parallel corpus of medieval Spanish. Biblia Medieval is a freely accessible online tool which enables linguists to consult and compare side to side the existing medieval Spanish versions of the Bible, as well as to access the facsimiles of the originals. The paper addresses some of the main philological and technical issues that were faced by the creators of the Biblia Medieval corpus. Some of the topics covered are: selection of the texts, norms of transcription, procedure to digitize the facsimile images of the manuscripts, and design of the database and interface for the searches. The paper includes a discussion of how a parallel corpus of medieval biblical texts will enrich our theoretical understanding of phenomena of change and variation in Spanish from a diachronic perspective. The corpus, as well as other related documents and tools, are housed at www.bibliamedieval.es.
Christo van der Merwe, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa Biblical Hebrew Linguistics as Corpus Linguistics? This study illustrates how the synergy of available computer tools and linguistic theory may help a BH grammarian to do his job. In the form of a case study, it illustrates how these tools could be used in contributing towards a model for the more adequate description of BH particles. In this case study is hypothesized that an exhaustive corpus linguistic analyses of the BH particles holds the key to this endeavour. However, the qualitative experimentation and interpretation of the quantitative data should be informed by a well-justified theory of language. Since a “corpus linguistics” analysis represents no homogenous methodology, the paper commence with a brief description of this notion. Next, reasons are provided why basic insights from cognitive linguistics have been found useful as the theoretical framework to underpin this investigation. How these insights come into the play in the investigation all instance of אַף in the Hebrew Bible with help of two electronic tools are subsequently described. From the findings of this investigation it is clear that the model allows one to account for all instances in the corpus in terms of prototypical uses (i.e. “noteworthy addition” and “affirmation” in constructions where אַף governs sentences) and less prototypical uses. Each of the shifts could be motivated in terms of generally acknowledged principles. This profile of אַף, which represents primarily qualitative inferences from quantitative data, differs significantly from one, constructed for גַּם and עוֹד. Assessing this study as an instance of corpus linguistics, it is concluded that Biblical Hebrew scholars might benefit from more sophisticated ways to process multi-factorial considerations electronically.
Wido van Peursen, Turgama Project, Leiden University, The Netherlands A Corpus-Based Analysis of Syriac Phrase Structure The grammatical description of Semitic languages is usually organized along traditional themes such as ‘construct chains’, ‘apposition’, ‘adjectival attribute’. In grammars these phenomena often receive their own paragraph. A corpus-based computational analysis, however, starts with the actual data attested in a corpus. In the real corpora phrases of e.g. ‘a construct noun + a genitive noun’ alternate with more complex constructions in which various obligatory and optional phrase extensions are combined. The structure of these complex patterns receives much less attention in the scholarly literature. A computational analysis of a specific corpus, however, helps us to formulate rules that regulate the internal constituency of complex phrases. The paper will address the question of how these data relate to the information found in traditional grammars and how they can be used for a more data-oriented description of Hebrew and Syriac phrase structure. It will include a presentation of the “maximum matrix of phrase structure” that has been developed in the computer-assisted linguistic analysis of the Syriac text of Ben Sira in the framework of CALAP (Computer-Assisted Linguistic Analysis of the Peshitta), a joint research project of the Peshitta Institute Leiden and the Werkgroep Informatica Vrije Universiteit, and its successor, the Turgama project (see www.leidenuniv.nl/gg/turgama, in the near future to be changed into www.religion.leidenuniv.nl/turgama).
José Antonio Alvarez, St. Andrews University, Scotland, U.K. An alternative reading of 1 Kings 17 Both old and new O.T. scholarship has seen 1 Kings 17-18 as a battle between Yahweh and Baal. To certain extent this is a true statement. It is true because the term Baal and Yahweh can be observed in 1 Kings 18:21 (“Elijah came near to all the people and said, ‘How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him. But the people did not answer him a word’ ” [v.21]). However, if one takes a closer look to 1 Kings 17 one can observe the term Yahweh in the text, but the term Baal is not in the text. In I Kings 17, Elijah is not challenging the people as he is doing in 1Kings 18:21 regarding Baal; instead, in 1 Kings 17, the prophet is receiving orders from Yahweh for his survival (“go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. It shall be that you will drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there” [1 Kings 17:3-4]) and his missionary work with the widow of Zerephath (“arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you” [1 Kings 17:9]). Consequently, this portrays that one cannot say that every chapter of the Elijah cycles is a platform for battle between Yahweh and Baal. Thus, based on the lack of textual evidence in connection to Baal, one needs to ask why O.T. scholars have interpreted 1 Kings 17 as a contention between Yahweh and Baal. One of the reasons why Baal has been associated with 1 Kings 17 is due to the geographical setting (Zerephath) of the narrative. Due to both time and scope of this investigation, I cannot interact with every scholar who observes 1 Kings 17 as an arena of contention between Yahweh and Baal. Due to the fact that Sweeny is both a respected O.T. scholar and the most recent scholar who argues that 1 Kings 17 portrays a conflict between Yahweh and Baal, he is the ideal partner for dialogue regarding the so called battle between Yahweh and Baal (1 Kings 17). As I mentioned at the beginning of this investigation, historically O.T. scholars have seen 1 Kings 17 as a battle between Yahweh and Baal; however, this investigation aims to portray that one of the main motifs in 1 Kings 17 is yada. This will be achieved by presenting Sweeney’s view regarding Baal in 1 Kings 17, a critique of Baal’s motif used by Sweeney in 1 Kings 17 and this author’s interpretation of the usage of yada by the widow of Zerephath in 1 Kings 17.
Carl J. Bosma, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, MI, USA The use of Bible Software (Libronix) in teaching O.T. and N.T. courses
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Wednesday 18 June Eep Talstra, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands System and Design. What about linguistic data categories and Poetry?
Janet Dyk, Werkgroep Informatica, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands Computers and Complex Phrase Structures in Biblical Hebrew Not all syntactic structures follow the bottom-up or top-down approaches which have been developed to deal with data. The potential of language to embed, gap and be recursive creates challenges for the computer linguist. The data simply does not follow the so carefully designed hierarchy of linguistic structures. In this contribution examples of complex phrase structures will be discussed in which coordination of elements at various levels, strings of elements in construct state, and embedded verbal structures play a part. It will be proposed that even the most complex structures are composed of the same basic units which should be analyzed and treated consistently both when occurring in isolation and when occurring with other units to form more complex structures. The basic units and the types of extensions of these units are finite, although the potential combinations are infinite.
Javier del Barco, CSIC, Madrid, Spain - Guadalupe Seijas, UCM, Spain Woes in Pre-Exilic Prophecy: A Computer-Assisted Study on Syntax and Semantics This paper will focus on the study of the series of Woes in preexilic prophetic texts, from Protoisaiah, Amos, Micah and Habakkuk. We have overtaken a text-linguistic based formal analysis of these texts. Such an analysis includes a syntactical approach considering clause structure, macrosyntactic particles and the use of verbal forms, and a semantic-based study of the literary devices and elements peculiar to this genre as well. As a part of our methodological approach, we have used our own computerized databases, which include main morphosyntactic information in order to retrieve pertinent linguistic data. Through this analysis we will try to detect whether there is a correlation between the form (syntax) and the meaning (semantics) in these texts.
Natalio Fernández Marcos, CSIC, Madrid, Spain The Greek Pentateuch and the Library of Alexandria The paper focuses on the translation of the Greek Pentateuch in the 3rdcentury BCE and its connection with the cultural project of the Mouseion, the famous Library of Alexandria. The records and echoes of the Letter of Aristeas and other Jewish-Hellenistic authors, Christian sources and Byzantine Chronicles on the first translation of the Bible will be analyzed. Some final reflections will try to compare the ancient dream of the Alexandrian Library as an universal temple of knowledge with the digital paradigm of internet.
Reinhart Ceulemans, K.U.Leuven, Belgium Dealing with Unanswered Questions Regarding the Hexapla in a New Computerized Edition Ever since Frederick Field published his collection of Hexaplaric fragments (1875), new discoveries, critical editions and studies on the field of biblical and Patristic texts have seen the light. This calls for a new and critical edition of the Hexapla, expanding upon and improving the work of Field and his predecessors. The Hexapla Project endeavors this task, making use of a electronic interface created especially to serve this goal. The combination of this new interface and its availability on the internet makes it possible for the various editors to comment on the work of their colleagues. Evidently such advantages were not at Field’s disposal. Apart from these practical advantages the new interface can also be put to the test regarding more substantial issues concerning the Hexapla. Despite growing current interest in this textual synopsis, present-day scholarship is still far from answering all its questions. Problematic issues concerning the set-up itself of the Hexapla are numerous: was there a double Symmachus edition? Did Origenes himself also compile a Tetrapla, in addition to his six-columned edition? Another aspect of the Hexapla that has hitherto not received the attention it deserves is its impact on Christian exegesis. In my paper I aim to discuss some of these problems, thereby insisting mostly upon the Christian reception (Greek and Latin) of the Hexapla, and the way in which the new computerized edition by the Hexapla Project can incorporate the (provisional) conclusions reached by individual editors. In my conclusion I will not insist upon the technical data of actually entering new data, but rather upon how the computerized edition can deal with scholarly issues like the Christian afterlife of the Hexapla.
Elizabeth Robar, Hexapla Institute, Louisville, KY, USA The Hexapla Project: Lessons Learned The Hexapla Project began in 2001 with an abundance of text-critical expertise but little of the technological knowledge needed to fulfill its goal: an online, fully searchable, critical edition of the Hexaplaric Fragments (in addition to the standard print edition). The first four years of the project produced text-critical work, but contributors used mutually incompatible ASCII fonts for the Greek, Hebrew and Syriac, and hand-coded their data in a poorly understood and error-prone pseudo-XML format, all on different platforms and in different word processors. A new graduate fellow was appointed in 2005 who brought skills in database architecture and web development. Within months a proof-of-concept database and web-based data entry interface that stored all the data—and from it programmatically generated the apparatus—were presented at SBL. Since then, with the aid of a graphic designer, the interface has been extensively revised to mimic the text critic’s natural workflow, maximizing the efficiencies provided by the computer and minimizing the time and effort required of the scholar. At IOSCS in 2007 the latest interface was presented and received high praise for its clarity and usability. With the collaboration of text critic, database architect, web developer and interface designer, the Hexapla Project appears well poised to achieve its initial goal, as well as benefit other projects through the lessons learned and the choices made.
Marco V. Fabbri, Pontificia Università della Santa Croce, Roma, Italy A computer-assisted comparison of the vocabulary of Philo of Alexandria and the Wisdom of Solomon Los comentarios sobre el Libro de la Sabiduría contienen opiniones distintas sobre su relación con los escritos de Filón de Alejandría. Aunque la mayoría considera que el autor de la Sabiduría escribió antes que Filón, hay notables excepciones. Los comentarios de David Winston (The Anchor Bible 43, Doubleday, Garden City, NY 1979) y de Giuseppe Scarpat (Biblica 1, 3, 6; Paideia, Brescia 1989-1999) piensan que Sabiduría se escribió en la edad de Calígula (37-41). De ser así, el autor pudo conocer a Filón. Más aún, Scarpat considera que los contactos entre Sabiduría y Filón son tales y tantos, que prueban que Sabiduría depende de Filón y es, por tanto, posterior al alejandrino. Actualmente, gracias a los esfuerzos del "Norwegian Philo Concordance Project" , disponemos de una base de datos informática, que contiene el análisis morfosintáctico del entero corpus de Filón. Desde 2005 esta base de datos se encuentra integrada en algunos conocidos programas de investigación bíblica; entre ellos Accordance. El hecho de que Accordance integre, además de la base de datos de Filón, las del Nuevo Testamento griego, la Biblia de los LXX y los Pseudepígrafos judíos de lengua griega, permite nuevas comparaciones que antes no eran posibles. El profesor Kåre Fuglesth, del Philo Concordance Project, ya publicó A Comparison of Greek Words in Philo and the New Testament (Texts and Studies in Religion 97; Edwin Mellen Press, Lewinston 2003). Mi contribución consiste en comparar el vocabulario de Filón con el de Sabiduría y de otros escritos judíos de lengua griega (2-4 Mac), comparables a Sabiduría por su extensión. El examen de los porcentajes de lemas comunes entre tales escritos y Filón parece proporcionar un nuevo fundamento para el estudio de posibles dependencias literarias.
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