Skip to content

Quick tutorial

Jump to bottom
Zoltán Kovács edited this page Dec 26, 2025 · 4 revisions

Introduction

This Bible study tool offers work on texts that are close to the oldest manuscripts. Since there are no punctuation (spaces, commas, periods) in the old texts, and there is no verse numbering, we consider each book of a Bible edition as a continuous raw text of Greek characters from α to ω. (To simplify working with texts, Greek characters are transcribed to latin characters a-z.)

A Bible edition is defined as an old compilation of books that are considered canonical. Definitely, we work with a set of Old Testament books, translated into Greek and presented as the electronic version of the Septuagint, identified with the name LXX. Also, a set of Greek New Testament books are present, identified with the name StatResGNT.

Research questions like Is an Old Testament passage quoted properly? can be studied with this program. Non-punctuated texts can be compared without loading Bible databases. Also, if the default databases are loaded (via File>Add books), Greek Bible texts can also be compared directly.

The program is command-driven. Its graphical user interface follows the conventions of the terminal based application. Therefore, the commands provided by the menus are literally the same as in the terminal based application and not translated into other languages, either.

Example uses

  1. In Romans 2:21 Paul seems to quote the Law. In the program in menu Passage>Lookup… the user types KJV Romans 2:21 to check the English version of the text, and similarly, StatResGNT Romans 2:21 to get the Greek version. (Importantly, the modules KJV and StatResGNT need to be installed by the system administrator in advance. See Help>Show available Bibles… for your options in simple lookups.) By doing the same for Romans 2:22, and for LXX Exodus 20:13 and 20:14, the user decides to compare the Greek texts ου μοιχευσεις ου κλεψεις and κλεπτεις ο λεγων μη μοιχευειν μοιχευεις. These should be copied and pasted in Edit>Text 1… and Edit>Text 2… After then, the program informs the user that the two texts have a Jaccard distance near 0.63 (which is a substantial distance).

  2. The words κλεψεις and κλεπτεις are similar. In the a-z transcription they are shown as kleceis and klepteis. The user may want to enter these words with their a-z transcriptions in Edit>Latin Text 1… and Edit>Latin Text 2… Their Jaccard distance is near 0.42 (which is a bit closer).

  3. Now, the user loads the indexed Bibles via File>Add books. Several features of the program can be used from now on. For example, the user can put the a-z transcription of a part of Psalms 39:14-18 and 69:1-6 in the two clipboards. (Note that these texts are numbered as 40:14-18 and 70:1-6 in some Bible editions.) This is achievable via Passage>Lookup 1… and Passage>Lookup 2… by typing LXX Psalms 39:14+23 39:18 and LXX Psalms 69:1+37 69:6, respectively. This notation allows to cut the first 23 or 37 letters of the passages. (Analogously, appending a number with a minus sign to the end of the passage definition, it is possible to cut some of the last letters of the passages.) The Jaccard distance is near 0.19 (which means a close relationship).

  4. The user wants to check if Exodus 20:13 is repeated in the Old Testament. By putting this passage in Passage>Lookup 1… by typing LXX Exodus 20:13 it is possible to start a search for an exact match via Edit>Search 1… By selecting LXX, the program finds another match in Deuteronomy 5:17. Book position 19880-19891 means that the second match can be found in Raw>Raw… by entering LXX Deuteronomy 19880 12 (here 12 is the length), or stored in clipboard 2 with the same input in Raw>Raw 2… Here, the Jaccard distance of the texts in the clipboards is 0 (because they are identical).

  5. The user thinks that parts of Psalm 116 are quoted somewhere in the New Testament. The command Quotation>Get refs… with parameters StatResGNT LXX Psalms 116 starts a search for all possible matches where the Old Testament passage can be a unique text that is quoted in the New Testament. Here, Romans 15:11 seems to be a plausible result.

  6. The user would like to identify the quotation mentioned by Paul in I Corinthians 1:31. This is a difficult task, so a tokenized transcription of the verse is obtained via the command Passage>Tokens… with parameters StatResGNT I_Corinthians 1:31 (note the underscore) and the tokens 2443 2531 1125 3588 2744 1722 2962 2744 are shown. (Currently, these are Strong's numbers.) After checking these numbers, 2744, 1722 and 2962 seem relevant. A search via Edit>Search… with parameters LXX 2744 1722 2962 6 shows that on a length of 6 tokens there is only one match in the Old Testament, namely, in Jeremiah 9:22, and, among the deuterocanonical books, in Sirach 39:8. Another search with parameters StatResGNT 2744 1722 2962 3 informs the user on a second match in the New Testament, namely, in II Corinthians 10:17.

Clone this wiki locally