vid

Is there some wiki-style site, where one can for each NT verse take notes of synoptic parallels, patristic support for passage, manuscript support and variations, patristic variations, apocrypha parallels, etc? Or maybe is this work already done in satisfactory manner in some scholarly publication?

Currently, I have to use Nestle-Aland to check manuscript differences, use incomplete Synoptic Parallels website for synoptic parallels, examine "church fathers" and apocrypha in various editions and hope for good footnotes, and all the rest you can imagine. And when I find something lacking in my source, it is impossible to add note of it for other readers of same source.

If there is nothing like that, do you think it would be worth to start something of sorts? Would you use it?

avi

I think the situation is worse than you have enumerated.

There exists no search engine, at least none that I know of, which would permit someone to ask, for example,
"seed of David"
list all the sources of this phrase, then, list all of the acknowledged, printed interpretations, with links....

esword is the best I have found, thus far....

Our own search engine at FRDB, is quite miserable....

For patristic evidence, one needs, at a minimum, the date of the oldest extant manuscript, as well as its condition, and the relative fidelity to the original papyrus, as determined by which criteria....

Further, it would be good to know in such a search inquiry, who is the source of this "Patristic evidence"???--because many of the "patristic" authors are quoted only in the writings of someone else...

vid, you are the only person on this forum, capable of implementing useful change, in my opinion. The other forum participants are very skillful with linguistics and languages and Bible scholarship, and philosophical arguments, but unfortunately they apparently possess no inkling of how one goes about constructing a modern data base for a contemporary, computer based search engine. Have a go at it, vid, if the question interests you. I wish you well!!! I know you possess the skills....

We possess such a paucity of genuine evidence, how unfortunate that we couple that handicap, with such inadequate tools to analyze this impoverished extant data....

avi

mountainman

Hi vid,

That's a great vision man. I dont know of anything like this out there yet, but I could be wrong. One would expect someone should have constructed something like this - at one of the many foremost universities - when the relational database technology came through in the eighties. And maybe they have, but I have not heard about it yet.

I have created database tables for authors of antiquity and for texts of antiquity, for papyri, inscriptions, and for a number of texts outside the NT, but what you are describing here, is something which appears to work at the atomic level of each NT verse, is a few dimensions beyond where I have been. But I follow your drift.


YES.

However as you may know I have become, because of my reckless impulsiveness, to regard the NT apocrypha as an integral component of the mystery which everyone is trying to solve - namely the origin and date of the NT. Therefore, it seems to me that not only could one envisage loading in to a database the verse by verse detail of the books of the canonical NT, but I would also do the same for the one hundred odd other texts of the "Gnostic Gospels and Acts, etc".

The reason that I would counsel this approach is because I think that the texts of the books of the canonical NT and the books of the noncanonical NT are highly related, but in a way that it not yet understood. I dont think that the NT alone is going to advance the solution of understanding or specifying this relationship, yet understanding the relationship is integral to the whole mystery.

You might also need to load in the verses of the LXX.
The authors of canonical NT used and cite from the greek LXX.
The authors of noncanonical NT used and cite from the greek NT and LXX.


I am guessing you have a database system in mind, geared for casual enquiries down every available search path possible, with possibly hundred of meta-layers capable of being called up for examination. Perhaps you might like to create a "Chrestos Portal" to examine all the instances that "Chrest" is mentioned. WARNING WARNING This also brings in the matter of the "nomina sacra" which are universally deployed in substitute for "Key words and Concepts" throughout the earliest Greek NT. The system must be able to have a primitive "nomina sacra layer" to match the reality of the evidence. Finally, to do it justice, you may need to have a Greek (and Coptic) interface. UGGGHH. Cant help there, but others could. Maybe your going to stick with (multiple) English translations? I dont know the limits of what you have in mind. But what would I know?

It is certainly an imposing task, but not impossible. I was in the database trade for a cupla decades, and even wrote a history of it. If you consider going ahead, and are receptive to experienced feedback, feel free to bounce any ideas off the PM system.

Best wishes,


Pete

PS: Also see this thread