Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Henry Churchyard" <churchh AT usa.net>]

OK, I ran the following AWK program against the raw OTA BHS e-text:

##
 /^~c/{x=1;if (linelng>0) {endproc()};linelng=0;next}
 {if (x==1) {book=$0;chapter=0;verse=0;x=0;next}}
 /^~x/{++chapter;verse=1;next}
 /^~y/{++verse;next}
 {if ($0!~/\?/) {linelng+=(length($0)+1)}
    else {y=$0;sub(/\?.*$/,"",y);linelng+=(length(y)+1);endproc();linelng=0;
          y=$0;sub(/^.*\?/,"",y);linelng=(length(y)+1)}}
 END{endproc()}
 function endproc() {if (linelng>150) {print linelng, book, chapter ":" 
verse}}
##


And got the list given below of long spans between successive "?" marks
in the e-text.  Note the following caveats:

 1) If the material between two "?" marks spans across more than one
verse, only the last verse involved is listed.

 2) These lengths are based on the raw unprocessed e-text; the absolute
lengths will presumably be different by the time you get to the problem
step in the SIL processing sequence (though the relative lengths at
that step should still be approximately proportional to the raw
lengths).


 365 1 SAMUEL 19:10
 283 JEREMIA 5:7
 257 ESRA 4:13
 244 NEHEMIA 3:15
 243 DEUTERONOMIUM 3:17
 238 JEREMIA 27:13
 236 ESRA 5:3
 235 JONA 1:16
 235 JEREMIA 33:9
 234 1 SAMUEL 23:26
 233 RUTH 3:7
 233 1 REGUM 18:29
 231 DANIEL 6:5
 230 2 SAMUEL 16:11
 230 1 SAMUEL 17:41
 228 2 SAMUEL 10:5
 226 RUTH 1:11
 225 JOSUA 15:63
 225 JESAIA 36:8
 225 JEREMIA 28:6
 225 DEUTERONOMIUM 23:22
 225 1 SAMUEL 23:2
 224 1 SAMUEL 24:21
 223 JEREMIA 7:13
 223 1 SAMUEL 6:16
 223 1 SAMUEL 1:9
 222 JEREMIA 7:23
 222 GENESIS 10:4
 222 ESTHER 4:17
 222 1 SAMUEL 22:8
 221 JEREMIA 32:20
 221 GENESIS 45:28
 221 1 SAMUEL 25:39
 220 NUMERI 11:14
 220 GENESIS 22:6
 219 JESAIA 19:21
 218 JOSUA 10:10
 217 JESAIA 66:20
 217 EZECHIEL 5:11
 217 EZECHIEL 28:16
 216 RUTH 2:10
 216 1 SAMUEL 20:36
 215 JEREMIA 7:8
 215 JEREMIA 11:11
 214 NEHEMIA 9:37
 213 JEREMIA 19:10
 213 GENESIS 14:3
 213 1 SAMUEL 26:25
 212 NEHEMIA 13:15
 212 1 SAMUEL 16:3
 212 1 SAMUEL 13:19
 211 GENESIS 1:6
 210 1 SAMUEL 23:9
 210 1 SAMUEL 15:18
 210 1 REGUM 15:15
 209 ESTHER 8:1
 209 2 CHRONICA 24:12
 208 2 SAMUEL 6:3
 208 1 SAMUEL 14:29
 207 EZECHIEL 5:17
 207 1 SAMUEL 7:3
 206 NEHEMIA 1:2
 206 1 SAMUEL 20:15
 206 1 REGUM 13:32
 205 JEREMIA 52:10
 205 JEREMIA 3:20
 205 DEUTERONOMIUM 4:27
 205 DEUTERONOMIUM 13:17
 204 2 SAMUEL 16:10
 204 1 REGUM 20:13
 201 JEREMIA 52:21
 201 2 REGUM 17:10
 199 2 REGUM 17:27
 196 2 CHRONICA 27:1
 190 SACHARIA 12:9
 189 JEREMIA 39:1
 185 JEREMIA 51:35
 185 ESRA 8:11
 184 ESTHER 5:8
 182 DEUTERONOMIUM 27:19
 182 1 SAMUEL 23:1
 180 NEHEMIA 9:25


Here's 1 Samuel 19:8-10; there are two "?" markers missing, one after
W:/HW.)03 and one after L:/HAK.O70WT --

 1 SAMUEL 19:8
WA/T.O71WSEP HA/M.IL:XFMF73H LI75/H:YO92WT WA/Y."C"63)
DFWI61D WA/Y.IL.F74XEM B.A/P.:LI$:T.I81YM WA/Y.A70K:
B./FHEM03? MAK.F74H G:DOWLF80H WA/Y.FNU73SW. MI/P.FNF75Y/W00
 1 SAMUEL 19:9
WA/T.:HIY04 R63W.XA Y:HWF70H05 RF(FH03 )EL-$F)80W.L
W:/HW.)03 B.:/B"YT/O74W YOW$"80B WA/X:ANIYT/O73W
B.:/YFD/O92W W:/DFWI73D M:NAG."71N B.:/YF75D00
 1 SAMUEL 19:10
WA/Y:BAQ."63$ $F)61W.L L:/HAK.O70WT B.A75/X:ANIYT03
B.:/DFWI74D W./BA/Q.I80YR WA/Y.IP:+AR03 MI/P.:N"74Y
$F)80W.L WA/Y.A71K: )E75T-HA/X:ANI73YT B.A/Q.I92YR
W:/DFWI91D? NF71S WA/Y.IM.FL"73+ B.A/L.A71Y:LFH H75W.)00 P


>> From: Henry Churchyard

>> (it never occurred to me that anybody would write a software
>> program in such a way that the presence of the "?"  characters is
>> critically necessary to successfully process the text, since these
>> characters do not mark any feature of the manuscript L/B19a, and do
>> not represent any meaningful or ancient characteristic of the
>> Biblical text either).  So if the SIL software vitally depends on
>> an absolutely correct placement of "?" markers (which in fact does
>> not seem to have been present in the majority of the versions of
>> the BHS e-text over the years), then I would say that it is
>> somewhat finicky (the opposite of "robust").

> From: "Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>

> Software programmers are used to parsing texts, such as documents
> encoded in standards such as XML, according to the published
> specifications, which in this case are that a line in the original
> is terminated by "?".  The way in which my SIL colleague programmed
> this feature was precisely correct.  The problem was only with the
> text, which did not match the published specification.

Yes, but "?" is just about the most inessential and non-meaningful
feature of the BHS e-text transcription, so it's a little odd to have
your program critically rely on it; and here's what the "specification"
documentation says about it (section 2.7.3 holds true both for the
ca. 1989 CCAT BHS e-text and the OTA BHS, so I don't know in which
version of the e-text the "?" marks are "systematically verified" --
apparently not a version of the e-text which has been widely
distributed non-commercially):

      SUPPLEMENT TO THE CODE MANUAL FOR THE MICHIGAN OLD TESTAMENT
  by Alan Groves  Westminster Theological Seminary Philadelphia, PA 19118
                           Last Revised 6/7/89 

  2.7.3 The '?' has not been verified systematically at this point.

--
Henry Churchyard   churchh AT usa.net   http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/