Tag: Accordance

Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ) in Accordance 10

The next generation of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) is the Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ). I’ve written more generally about scholarly editions of the Hebrew Bible, and have reviewed the BHS module in Accordance already. In this post I review BHQ in Accordance.

Some excellent scholarly treatments of the BHQ have already appeared. Anyone serious about learning how to use this resource discerningly (as all text critics must be discerning) will do well to avail themselves to these, probably in this order:

  • Emanuel Tov: “The Biblia Hebraica Quinta–An Important Step Forward” (PDF). Tov says the BHQ is “much richer in data, more mature, judicious and cautious than its predecessors. It heralds a very important step forward in the BH series.” Yet at the same time, “This advancement implies more complex notations which almost necessarily render this edition less user-friendly for the non-expert.” That said, anyone who reads Tov’s 11-page introduction will be well-equipped to begin making use of BHQ.
  • Richard D. Weis: “Biblia Hebraica Quinta and the Making of Critical Editions of the Hebrew Bible.” Weis has served as a member of BHQ’s editorial committee, so he is able to offer some good detail on “philosophical and pragmatic choices” made in publishing the editions. His article includes full sample pages of the print edition, too.
  • Blogger John F. Hobbins: “Taking Stock of Biblia Hebraica Quinta” (PDF). As I will note below, the oft-appearing, seldom-explained “prp=propositum=it has been proposed” of the BHS is replaced in BHQ with more conservatism in suggesting emendations. But Hobbins calls this “the chief drawback of BHQ” and writes “in defense of conjectural emendation” as it would appear in the apparatus. Not all text critics will agree–and many will appreciate BHQ’s approach–but his argument is compelling all the same.

Taking the BHQ for a spin alongside the BHS is perhaps the most helpful way to see how the two compare. It’s easy to have both side-by-side in Accordance. Here’s my workspace for reading the Hebrew Bible with BHS, BHQ, the apparatus for each, and the BHQ commentary. You can click or open in a new tab to enlarge.

You can see that the text of Deuteronomy 6:4-5 above is unchanged in the BHQ. Consonants, vowels, and cantillation marks are all the same. As the BHQ is based on the Leningrad Codex, just as the BHS is, the text itself is largely unchanged. (The BHQ, however, corrects the BHS to the Leningrad Codex based on new color photographs.)

Note that abbreviations in the BHQ apparatus are now abbreviations of English, not Latin. Those who have learned how to make use of the abbreviated Latin in the BHS apparatus may be somewhat disappointed to not be able to put that knowledge to use (and to have to learn a new system), but in the end this makes for a more widely accessible apparatus, in my view.

A comparison between the BHS apparatus and the BHQ apparatus at the same point is instructive. For Deuteronomy 6:4 BHS has a superscript “a” in the text after שְׁמַ֖ע, directing to footnote a, which reads: “𝔊 pr nonn vb.” I write here about the use of Accordance to quickly decipher the abbreviated Latin in the BHS critical apparatus. “𝔊 pr nonn vb” means something like, “The Old Greek/Septuagint puts before [שְׁמַ֖ע] several words.”

It’s easy enough, especially in the workspace how I have it set up above, to find out what these Greek words in question are: Καὶ ταῦτα τὰ δικαιώματα καὶ τὰ κρίματα, ὅσα ἐνετείλατο κύριος τοῖς υἱοῖς Ισραηλ ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ ἐξελθόντων αὐτῶν ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου. But the BHS alone does not give the reader much more guidance than that.

The BHQ apparatus, however, reads: “שְׁמַ֖ע Smr V S T | prec 4:45 Nash G ✝ •” Note that instead of a superscript letter in the text with the same letter as a footnote in the apparatus, the text of the BHQ is unmarked, and the apparatus note simply preceded by the word (שְׁמַ֖ע) under consideration. Some will find this gives the text an uncluttered feel; others may find it takes extra time to match text to apparatus. Hovering over the (all in English!) abbreviations in the BHQ in Accordance shows that the note says something like, “The Samaritan Pentateuch, Vulgate, Syriac, and Targumim all begin with just שְׁמַ֖ע. In the Nash Papyrus and Old Greek שְׁמַ֖ע is preceded by the text from Deut. 4:45.” Then the ✝ notes that the BHQ commentary gives the matter more discussion. For text criticism, I have been thrilled about the addition of an included-in-the-book commentary on the text and apparatus.

The BHQ commentary at this verse reads:

The Shemaʿ in both the Nash Papyrus and G is prefaced by an introduction taken from 4:45 with the following differences: both attest a cj. before ‏אלה‎; both omit ‏העדות‎ and the cj. attached to the following word; both read ‏צוה‎ for ‏דבר, but with “the Lord” as subject in G, whereas the Nash Pappyrus and some G Mss follow M in reading “Moses”; finally, both insert במדבר after “Israel.” For further background to the combination of certain biblical passages for liturgical reading, with particular reference to this addition in G and the Nash Papyrus, see Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 193. The six extant phylacteries follow M.

Thumbs up here for the additional detail provided in the BHQ apparatus and commentary and for Accordance’s presentation of it. In the print edition the commentary is in a section of the fascicle that is separate from the apparatus. In Accordance you can easily lay it all out together and see it at once.

Just as BHS was, BHQ is being published in fascicles, so a bit at a time. The following six already exist in print:

  • Fascicle 5: Deuteronomy
  • Fascicle 7: Judges
  • Fascicle 13: The Twelve Minor Prophets
  • Fascicle 17: Proverbs
  • Fascicle 18: General Introduction and Megilloth (i.e., Ruth, Canticles, Qoheleth, Lamentations, Esther)
  • Fascicle 20: Ezra and Nehemiah

The BHQ module in Accordance has fascicles 5 (Deuteronomy), 18 (General Introduction and Megilloth), and 20 (Ezra and Nehemiah) so far. 13 (The Twelve Minor Prophets) and 17 (Proverbs) will be added free of charge to those who have the BHQ package. They exist in print but have not yet come from the German Bible Society to Accordance for digitization. When Judges comes to Accordance, it and future fascicles will be available as paid upgrades.

Accordance has produced a short video that shows a couple ways to use the BHQ, including a comparison with the print edition. It’s worth watching, since it explores not only the text, apparatus, and commentary that I cite above, but also the Masorah Magna (below the text in the print edition) and the Masorah Parva (at the margins of the print edition). Note especially (early in the video) how Accordance merges the Notes on the Masorah to eliminate the user’s need to go back and forth between references:

The place for the BHQ user to start is probably with the three articles at the beginning of this post. Then, the General Introduction contained in Fascicle 18 should be consulted. As with its other commentaries and books, Accordance has it presented beautifully. The English introduction tells what BHQ is, gives advice on how to use it (including full explanations of sigla and abbreviations), and tells a bit of background on the editorial processes leading to the BHQ as it is now. Click on the below for a larger image of the general introduction:

BHQ in Accordance is not morphologically tagged; Accordance does not currently have plans to tag it. But this is because the text is so similar to that of BHS already. Because I am so used to BHS and BHQ is still so new on the scene, I always have both open anyway, so I can easily get morphological tagging information from BHS. A tagged BHQ would be ideal, but it’s not a huge loss.

BHQ has less conjectural emendation than BHS. Case in point, “prp” (=”propositum”=”it has been proposed”) occurs 2,146 times in the BHS apparatus (a search that is exceedingly easy to do in Accordance). In BHQ what goes into “prp” is teased out a bit more. From the introduction to BHQ:

In cases where the editor proposes that a reading other than that of the base text is to be preferred, this is presented in the concluding portion of the entry following a double vertical stroke and the abbreviation “pref” (for “preferred reading”). The evidence supporting the preferred reading is recapitulated. If the preferred reading is not directly attested by any of the extant witnesses, but is only implied by their evidence, it is marked by the signal “(origin)”, i.e., that it is the indirectly attested origin of the extant readings. If the grammatical form of the preferred reading is not found otherwise in Hebrew of the biblical period, it is marked either as “unattest” (= “unattested”) or as “conjec-phil” (= “philological conjecture”), depending on the kind of external support for the reading. Where the proposed reading is a conjecture, it is not introduced by the abbreviation “pref” (= “preferred reading”), but by the abbreviation “conjec” (= “conjecture”). In line with the focus of the apparatus on the evidence of the text’s transmission, proposals for preferred readings will not seek to reconstruct the literary history of a text. Readings that are judged to derive from another literary tradition for a book will be characterized as “lit” (see the definitions of characterizations below).

Also,

Since the apparatus is devoted to the presentation and evaluation of the concrete evidence for the text’s transmission, a hypothetical reading (i.e., a conjecture) will have place in the apparatus of BHQ only when it is the only explanation of the extant readings in a case.

“Pref” occurs 201 times in the apparatus in the three fascicles so far published in Accordance. A primary difference in BHQ, though, is the level of textual or manuscript-based explanation given for why a certain reading is to be preferred. As someone who tries to be a cautious textual critic, I appreciate this.

Here are some additional resources for using BHQ:

  • A review of Fascicle 18 in Review of Biblical Literature (PDF)
  • A sample set of pages (print edition) of BHQ (PDF)… and note here that a .pdf of BHQ is not part of Accordance’s module
  • Accordance’s press release for BHQ
  • The product page for BHQ in Accordance

At least three things make it worth seriously considering adding BHQ in Accordance to your library. First, BHQ is a significant advance over BHS. Second, Accordance’s presentation of BHQ makes using it easier than it is in print. Third, the print editions would cost you just as much as or more than buying BHQ in Accordance. And, of course, an Accordance module is word-searchable, lighter to carry around, and so on.

All in all, BHQ in Accordance is well-produced, easy to use, and a great aid in textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible.

Thank you to Accordance for providing me with a copy of the BHS and BHQ modules for review. At the time of this writing, the sale price for that package was $149.99, an excellent deal. See all the parts of my Accordance 10 review (including the Beale/Carson commentary module) here. I reviewed BHQ’s predecessor, BHS, here.

BHS module in Accordance 10, reviewed

Oddly enough, the biggest challenge for me in my Hebrew exegesis classes was not to do with the Hebrew language itself. Instead, learning how to decipher the abbreviations and sigla in the “critical apparatus” of a scholarly Hebrew Bible stretched me most.

I recently wrote a brief introduction to the available scholarly editions of the Hebrew Jewish Scriptures (“Old Testament”), the Greek Jewish Scriptures (“Septuagint”), and the Greek New Testament, with most of the emphasis on that post falling on the Hebrew Bible:

Most students of the Hebrew Bible who read Hebrew know of the premier scholarly edition, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS, here on Amazon).  The BHS is now being updated by the BHQ (Q=Quinta), about which you can read more here. Both the BHS and BHQ are “diplomatic” editions of the text, which means that they reproduce a single “best” manuscript, the Leningrad Codex, in their cases. The footer in each page contains a critical apparatus, which lists variant readings from other manuscripts and versions that the editors have deemed to be of importance for getting even closer to the “original” (now often being called the “earliest attainable text”). In some cases, the editors may wish to show where another manuscript or version differs from the Leningrad Codex; the critical apparatus is where they do it.

However, the BHS editors show manuscript and version differences in their critical apparatus through the use of abbreviated Latin. Even those who know Latin will have to learn the abbreviations, and those who don’t know Latin will have an even harder time trying to decipher the apparatus.

Having figured out my way around the print edition of the BHS, and having reviewed Accordance 10, I have been eager to use the BHS module in Accordance. Here I review it.

The Original Languages base package in Accordance comes with HMT-W4, which gives the user access to the Groves-Wheeler Westminster Hebrew Morphology 4.16. This text reflects additional and ongoing corrections to the Leningrad Codex. Accordance says HMT-W4 is “almost identical” to the BHS text.

But for the user who wants not just the text but the apparatus, an add-on module is needed. If you already have HMT-W4 or BHS-W4 for your Hebrew Bible in Accordance, you can save money and buy the apparatus by itself. It’s just $50, which is a good deal. (Note: there are no Masora–Masoretic marginalia–included in the module; it’s just the apparatus at the bottom of the page.)  If you have Accordance and don’t already have a Hebrew text, you could buy this package, where BHS-T is the “complete text of the Hebrew Bible, following the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, with the Groves-Wheeler Westminster Hebrew Morphology 4.14. This module includes vowel pointing, cantillation marks, and lemma and grammatical tagging information for each word in the text.”

In any of these Hebrew texts in Accordance, there is instant parsing easily available as you go through the text.

BHS with apparatus in Accordance significantly streamlines study and use of the critical apparatus. Accordance makes it easy to do textual criticism without carrying the heavy BHS around. I really appreciate being able to access the BHS critical apparatus on my laptop, and in a way that is integrated well into the Accordance program. The layout is good, the feel is intuitive, and the windows are easy to set up. Here’s how I have Accordance set up to use the critical apparatus with the Hebrew text and Old Greek in view (click to enlarge):

There’s the BHS critical apparatus, right under the text. Anything in blue in that window is hyperlinked and will display something in the Instant Details window. If I want to know what “pc Mss” means in the apparatus, I see it unabbreviated in the Instant Details just by mousing over the blue text. (If you don’t need the abbreviations expanded, you can also hover over the superscript letters in the BHS-T text, and the corresponding content from the apparatus pops up.)

Using the layout above you can quickly see what an abbreviation in the apparatus stands for in Latin, but this is not translated into English. In the above example, it’s obvious that “manuscripti” for “Mss” means manuscripts–no Latin knowledge is needed to understand that Latin word. But what is “pauci”? Those with good vocabulary may be able to recall that a paucity of something is a small number, a lack, so “pauci” here means few.

But not all Latin in the apparatus is that easy. I would like to have seen this module provide a translation from Latin into English.  This is probably my only complaint about this module. I believe this is not unique to Accordance and has more to do with how the German Bible Society may have offered the licensing for the apparatus. All the same, getting from abbreviated Latin to unabbreviated Latin, while nice, may not be enough for the beginning text critic.

Some good news, though. There are two workarounds to be able to translate the apparatus contents from Latin to English. First, there is Google Translate, which I understand has improved its accuracy over the last few years. Here is the link for Google Translate from Latin to English. Simply copy Latin from Accordance into the query box in Google translate, and you’ll have your English. “prb l c” in the apparatus becomes, “probabiliter lege(ndum) cum” in Instant Details, which Google gives me as, “probably read with.”

A yet easier way to get to English is possible within Accordance itself, and it’s quite smooth, thanks to the good programming and easy layout of the software. Dr. Hans Peter Rüger’s well-known “English Key to the Latin Words, Abbreviations, and the Symbols of BIBLIA HEBRAICA STUTTGARTENSIA” is available in Accordance.

Note that in the bottom right zone, my far right tab (behind the open one) is this “BHS Latin Key.” I can easy look up an abbreviation in that tab’s search bar. It’s also simple to just right click the abbreviated word in the apparatus and “Look up” in “Dictionary” to quickly access the English/Latin key.

As far as the BHS apparatus itself, BHS remains the scholarly standard. BHQ is beginning to update/replace it, and there are other scholarly projects underway. The BHS apparatus is not exhaustive, nor could it be. But it does offer a good representation of variant readings from different versions (e.g., the Latin Vulgate, the Greek LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, Aramaic Targums, etc.) and different manuscripts (whether a specific Old Greek manuscript or just the general “Mss” for “manuscripts”).

There are different editors for different portions of the BHS, and some are less cautious than others in suggesting textual emendations. In the Minor Prophets, for example, editor Karl Elliger seems to have no trouble writing “prp”=”propositum”=”it has been proposed” when he wants to suggest an alternate reading. Sometimes this means that someone else has proposed what Elliger is footnoting; other times it’s just his suggestion, and not always with textual/manuscript evidence accompanying the suggestion. So the user of BHS should not use the critical apparatus, well… uncritically.

An especially neat feature that wowed me is that I can open up the apparatus and search by content to study all 2,146 times the Latin abbreviation “prp” occurs in the BHS apparatus. You can even search the apparatus for its Hebrew and Greek contents. Curious how often ποῦ finds its way into the apparatus? A simple search shows its four occurrences.

And you can search the apparatus by manuscripts mentioned. Change the search bar to “manuscripts,” then right click in the bar and select “Enter Word…” and you get this:

It’s a great way to be able to interact with the apparatus, much of which simply isn’t possible in print.

Bonus: Accordance offers an excellent, succinct explanation of critical editions here, with emphasis on the critical editions available in Accordance. If you’re interested in BHS in Accordance, you’ll want to read it.

If you do text criticism in the Hebrew Bible and have the money to spare, Accordance’s BHS apparatus is well worth getting, though most users will want to make sure they also have the “BHS Latin Key,” too. All in all, it’s a well-executed and seamlessly-integrated module.

Thank you to Accordance for providing me with a copy of the BHS and BHQ modules for review. See all the parts of my Accordance 10 review (including the Beale/Carson commentary module) here. I will review the BHQ separately in the future.

BHS, the Göttingen Septuagint, and other critical editions: a basic orientation to what they are

Image source: http://www.usc.edu/ (click on image for more details)

Most students of the Hebrew Bible who read Hebrew know of the premier scholarly edition, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS, here on Amazon).  The BHS is now being updated by the BHQ (Q=Quinta), about which you can read more here. Both the BHS and BHQ are “diplomatic” editions of the text, which means that they reproduce a single “best” manuscript, the Leningrad Codex, in their cases. The footer in each page contains a critical apparatus, which lists variant readings from other manuscripts and versions that the editors have deemed to be of importance for getting even closer to the “original” (now often being called the “earliest attainable text”). In some cases, the editors may wish to show where another manuscript or version differs from the Leningrad Codex; the critical apparatus is where they do it.

There are two other similar projects underway for the Hebrew Bible. One is the Hebrew University Bible Project, also a diplomatic edition, but unlike BHS and BHQ, based on the Aleppo Codex. The HUB includes a more extensive critical apparatus than BHS, so that readers can see more textual variants.

The other scholarly edition of the Hebrew Bible is the Oxford Hebrew Bible Project, “a new critical edition of the Hebrew Bible featuring a critical text and extensive text-critical introduction and commentary.” Though the BHQ contains commentary, too, the OHB differs in being an “eclectic” text, meaning that, as R.S. Hendel says (quoted in Tov),

The practical goal for the OHB is to approximate in its critical text the textual “archetype,” by which I mean the earliest inferable textual state.

Though the textual apparatuses of the BHS/BHQ and HUB can theoretically aid the reader in approximating the textual “archetype,” the text of the OHB offers that approximation rather than reproducing an actual manuscript (as the diplomatic editions do). Hence, the OHB is an “eclectic” edition. (So, too, are the two major scholarly editions of the Greek New Testament, the NA27 and UBS4.)

The Septuagint–the Greek translation of these Jewish Scriptures–has various scholarly editions, too.

On its Website the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) has a great primer on the various editions of the Septuagint. Below, “OG” stands for “Old Greek.” They write:

The creation and propagation of a critical text of the LXX/OG has been a basic concern in modern scholarship. The two great text editions begun in the early 20th century are the Cambridge Septuagint and the Göttingen Septuagint, each with a “minor edition” (editio minor) and a “major edition” (editio maior). For Cambridge this means respectively H. B. Swete, The Old Testament in Greek (1909-1922) and the so-called “Larger Cambridge Septuagint” by A. E. Brooke, N. McLean, (and H. St. John Thackeray) (1906-). For Göttingen it denotes respectively Alfred Rahlfs’s Handausgabe (1935) and the “Larger Göttingen Septuagint” (1931-). Though Rahlfs (editio minor) can be called a semi-critical edition, the Göttingen Septuaginta (editio maior) presents a fully critical text, as described below.

Beginning Septuagint students are likely to own just “Rahlfs” (the Handausgabe mentioned above). But those who want to do more detailed text work with the Septuagint want more than the mini-apparatus in that edition.

Between Accordance (here) and Logos (here), nearly everything listed in the above quotation is available in electronic form. Accordance has Rahlfs’s Apparatus, parts of the larger Göttingen edition, and both the smaller (Swete) and most of what is currently available in the larger Cambridge Septuagint. Logos has all the volumes of Göttingen that have been completed to date.

There is more here about the scholarly versions of the Septuagint, including a volume-by-volume listing of both the Cambridge and Göttingen projects.

I have been fortunate to receive a review copy of BHS and BHQ Hebrew Bible editions from Accordance, as well as the existing volumes of the Göttingen Septuagint from Logos. I’ll be reviewing each in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: My review of BHS in Accordance is here. My BHQ review is here. Part 1 of a short primer on using the Göttingen Septuagint is here.

My Accordance 10 review: all six parts (plus Beale/Carson module review)

Here, collected in one place, are all six parts of my review of the Bible software program Accordance 10, as well as my two-part review of the Accordance module for Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, edited by G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson.

Part 1: In which I finally try out Accordance Bible Software for Mac (new version 10!)

Part 2: 4 Cool Features in Accordance 10

Part 3: 3 Powerful Ways to Search in Accordance 10

Part 4: The Original Languages Collection in Accordance 10 meets Septuagint Sunday

Part 5: Accordance 10: Bells and Whistles

Part 6: More Bells and Whistles in Accordance 10

Review of Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, edited by G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson:
part 1 / part 2.

UPDATE: Go here to see my comparative review of BibleWorks, Accordance, and Logos.

UPDATE 12/29/12: Here I review the User Notes feature.

Thanks again to Accordance for the review copies of the Original Languages Collection and the Beale/Carson module. Five stars for all of the above.

Review: Accordance 10’s Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, by Beale and Carson (part 2 of 2: the content)

Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, edited by G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson, is available as an add-on module in Accordance 10. In the first part of my review of the module, I focused on Accordance’s presentation of the commentary. Here I review the content of the commentary itself, but still with a close eye on how I’ve experienced it in Accordance.

I mentioned in my last post that for reading this commentary straight through (e.g., if I want to spend some time absorbing the introduction to any given book), I can easily detach it from a given workspace where it has shown up as a “Reference Tool.” I also noted that navigating through the various headings and sub-headings of the commentary is very easy, as Accordance lays it out.

To quickly view hyperlinks you can do a “Popover” for Instant Details by holding a click on a hyperlink or by pressing option-click. Or, as I’ve begun doing since my last post, you can just have the Instant Details always open. This way I can quickly read the text of a verse that is merely referenced in the commentary, and not lose my place in the body of the commentary.

Highlighting is also mercifully easy, so that my commentary currently looks like this:

One thing to appreciate about the content of the commentary right off the bat is that it succeeds in its hope that

Readers will be helped to think through how a particular NT book or writer habitually uses the OT; they will be stimulated to see how certain OT passages and themes keep recurring in the various NT corpora.

Take D.A. Carson’s introduction to 1 Peter, for example:

The OT is cited or alluded to in 1 Peter in rich profusion. In a handful of instances quotations are introduced by formulae: dioti gegraptai, “wherefore it is written” (1:16, citing Lev. 19:2), dioti periechei en graphē, “wherefore it stands in Scripture” (2:6–8, citing Isa. 28:16; Ps. 118:22; Isa. 8:14), or, more simply, by dioti, “wherefore” (1:24–25a, citing Isa. 40:6–8) or by gar, “for” (3:10–12, citing Ps. 34:13–17). About twenty quotations are sufficiently lengthy and specific that there is little doubt regarding their specific OT provenance. For a book of only five short chapters, there is a remarkable record of quotation. Yet the quotations tell only a small part of the story, for 1 Peter is also laced with allusions to the OT.

Andreas J. Köstenberger’s introduction to John is remarkably thorough in this regard, containing (among other things!) a table of introductory formulas John used for OT quotations, a comparison between how John uses a given OT text and how other NT writers use it, how John’s quotations relate to potentially underlying Hebrew and Greek texts, and so on.

As noted above, there are several ways I can easily use Instant Details to look up each of the verses mentioned in the commentary, without losing my place in the main body. Note that the commentary uses transliteration for Greek and Hebrew throughout. For those who are not huge fans of transliteration (myself included), this is offset by the ease with which I can look up any of those verses in Accordance in the original texts, right alongside the commentary.

In the below screen shot I have the GNT-T text at bottom left tied to the Beale-Carson Commentary. This is simple to set up with a right click on the tab, then going to “Tab Ties.” This means that as I advance through 1 Peter, for example, the GNT-T text follows me. In the instance below, I have the parallel NET open, so that a Greek-English diglot follows me through the commentary. In the “Context” zone at the right I have the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Old Greek (LXX) open with my favorite corresponding English translations (NET and NETS) below.

One thing I sort of stumbled on that is really neat. Besides clicking on a hyperlinked verse in the text (to show me that single verse in the Context zone), command-clikcing on a hyperlinked verse gives me all the verses in my commentary’s paragraph that are hyperlinked. Note the “Verse 1 of 12” below, and how Isaiah 8:14 is right below Leviticus 19:2 in my LXX. What a nice feature!

Okay. Back to the content of the commentary itself. The introductions to each NT book, then, do well to orient the reader to trends in how that particular writer interacts with the OT text. The list of contributors is impressive–see it here. The commentary seeks to analyze not only instances where the NT quotes the OT, but also “all probable allusions” as well.

Generally speaking, each citation or allusion in question is organized around these facets:

  • The New Testament context: “the topic of discussion, the flow of thought, and, where relevant, the literary structure, genre, and rhetoric of the passage”
  • The Old Testament context of the source of the quotation or allusion–already things get interesting here, because NT writers do seem to feel free to recontextualize or resituate OT passages…
  • How early Judaism literature understood the given OT text. Even when there is little evidence of citation in early Judaism, there is still explanation. Köstenberger, for example, on John 2:17 briefly discusses the Jewish valuing of zeal, drawing on Phinehas, the Maccabees, and the Qumran community.
  • Textual issues, e.g., changes in verb tense from the LXX to the NT, and explorations of what text (proto-MT, LXX, etc.) or texts might inform the NT author’s quotation, including good discussion of textual variants (in the MT, LXX, and GNT!)
  • “How the NT is using or appealing to the OT,” i.e., are they so steeped in the OT that its language comes out naturally and not as a deliberate quotation? Does the NT writer have fulfilled prophecy in view? Etc.
  • The “theological use” of the OT by the NT writer

This last category ties much of the other content together. For example, on the theological use of Mark 1:2-3, Rick E. Watts says, “As such, eschatologically, in Jesus Isaiah’s long-delayed new-exodus deliverance of Israel has begun in Malachi’s great and terrible day of the Lord (Mal. 4:5).” Watts is dense here, but delightfully so, in my opinion. He develops these themes further–especially that of the new exodus–throughout his analysis on Mark.

I mentioned in my last post that you can search this module in a dozen different ways. The search bar is similar to Google, in that you can search English content by a single word, but also by a phrase in quotation marks, so that that exact phrase comes up in your search. Unfortunately the “Greek Content” and “Hebrew Content” searches (which search using Greek and Hebrew letters) are not available in this module, but that’s no fault of Accordance’s, since the commentary uses transliteration.

Fortunately, “Transliteration” is a search option, so you can easily look up how the commentary treats a given Greek or Hebrew word. Searching hilastērion, I see that all seven of its uses in the commentary are at Romans 3:25.

There were a few times when I wanted to go deeper into a passage than the commentary allowed. For example, Paul’s citation of Malachi in Romans 9:13 has, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” It’s hard to imagine anyone using a commentary who doesn’t want at least a little explanation of “hated” here. The commentary, to be fair, does have, “This choice of Jacob meant the rejection of Esau,” but doesn’t connect this rejection with the verb “hate.”

This just means that Beale and Carson’s commentary won’t be the only place I turn for in-depth study of a passage, but all my seminary professors say don’t use just one commentary anyway! Not a major loss here. The book is already huge (though not on a computer, thankfully), and attempts to be only “reasonably comprehensive” (which it very much is), not exhaustively so.

Besides that, it took me about three seconds to find in Accordance the NET Bible note on Malachi 1:3:

The context indicates this is technical covenant vocabulary in which “love” and “hate” are synonymous with “choose” and “reject” respectively (see Deut 7:8; Jer 31:3; Hos 3:1; 9:15; 11:1).

This commentary is what we book reviewers like to call a monumental achievement. It sits in the carrel of many a student in my seminary’s library. For good reason. And Accordance has done a magnificent job if seamlessly integrating a rich and multi-facted commentary into its software. This is a five star commentary with five star integration into Accordance 10.

Beale and Carson say in their introduction:

If this volume helps some scholars and preachers to think more coherently about the Bible and teach “the whole counsel of God” with greater understanding, depth, reverence, and edification for fellow believers, contributors and editors alike will happily conclude that the thousands of hours invested in this book were a very small price to pay.

After consulting the original biblical texts, this commentary will always be the first place I turn when I am looking to better understand (and share with others) how the New Testament uses the Old. I am grateful for those “thousands of hours invested in this book.”

Thank you to Accordance for providing me with a copy of the Beale/Carson commentary module for review. Scroll through for all six parts of my Accordance 10 review here.

Review: Accordance 10’s Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, by Beale and Carson (part 1 of 2: the module)

Baker Academic has made its way to Accordance 10 Bible Software. The first offering is Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, edited by G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson. Here I review it, with this first part of the review covering Accordance’s version of it.

One nice thing about Accordance’s setup is that I can use Commentary on the NT Use of the OT just as any other Accordance tool (for the below and all images in this post, click or open in new tab for larger):

Or I can right-click on the tab to “detach it,” so that it’s its own workspace. For reading through a good deal of text at once, this is ideal. One other great feature, as you’ll see in the left sidebar below, is how easy it is to navigate through all the sections and sub-sections of the book:

But what about how I’d actually need to use this resource? To really make sense of it, I’d need the Hebrew MT, Greek LXX, possibly English translations of each, and the Greek NT all open and easy to view. Combining that kind of layout with the hyperlinking in Accordance’s version of this commentary would be sweet. Wonderfully… it’s possible. Check this out:

For a resource that can be had in print for under $40, it seems like paying nearly $60 for the Accordance module could only be justified if the electronic version could do things the print version can’t. The electronic version can, indeed, do some unique things. (See the image above.) Especially for a commentary like this with lots of cross-references and constant movement between Greek, Hebrew, and other versions, being able to see multiple versions at once–together with the commentary–is a huge benefit. It saves time and allows me to better grasp how NT writers used OT texts by seeing a quotation alongside its original context.

The Instant Details (which I happen to have closed above to maximize screen space for different versions) show whatever hyperlink you hover over–this gives you yet another window for text display, and is particularly useful for, say, quickly seeing a longer passage in English. Things did get a little buggy when I opened the Instant Details the first time, but I assume that was because of how many windows I had open (not the module itself, necessarily):

I was able to get rid of the jumbling on the top right by closing and re-opening the Instant Details. See now below:

One really nice feature about Accordance’s Beale and Carson commentary module is how many ways you can search it. Accordance then tells you how many hits come up for your search, and using the “move down one mark” arrow keys, you can easily move through the results. You can even see the “real” (i.e., print) page numbers! Look again at that image at right–that’s 12 different ways you can search Beale/Carson. Pretty handy.

Most folks interested in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament likely know of its solid reputation and are perhaps now merely trying to decide between a print and electronic version. (In a second post I’ll review the content of the commentary.) If you use Bible software regularly already, I think it is well worth the extra cost to own Accordance’s module. It’s facile to get around, hyperlinked nicely, easy to line up with original language texts, highly searchable, and quite readable as a detachable resource. I, for one, am really glad to have this module on my computer.

Thank you to Accordance for providing me with a copy of the Beale/Carson commentary module for review. Scroll through for all six parts of my Accordance 10 review here.

UPDATE: Read the rest of my review of Beale/Carson here.

More Bells and Whistles in Accordance 10 (final installment of my review)

Here are a few more bells and whistles in Accordance 10. These are to add to the bells and whistles I mentioned yesterday.

    1. The Context Slider  

I’m in James. Wondering about wisdom.

So I right click on “wisdom” to search for the word in the rest of the Bible. I get the following results:

Great for a word search. I can scroll through the results, seeing one verse at a time–every verse containing “wisdom.” Note that next to the context slider it says there are 202 verses displayed. The frequency count for “wisdom,” though, is toward the top right of the image above, just under the search bar–212 flex hits. (I wrote more about Flex Search here.)

But what if I want to see each of those uses in context, without having to open up a bunch of new windows? Easy, I just slide the context slider one notch to the right:

Note that while my “212 flex hits” stay the same, there are now 546 verses listed. This means a bit more context is listed for each occurrence. Moving the context slider to 3, I get even more context for each use of “wisdom”:

The Context Slider goes all the way to the right for the setting “A,” which shows me all the uses of “wisdom” still marked in red, but with the context of the entire Bible surrounding it:

As you can imagine, being able to see the word search results with varying degrees of context makes for fruitful word studies.

2. Constructs

This feature looks a little more complicated, at least on first glance. But it’s well worth spending the time to figure out how to use it, because of all that it can do.

Accordance Constructs are a graphical interface that allow for more complicated searches… you know, things like, “How many times do the words God and love appear in the New Testament within seven words of each other… in Greek?” Setting up this search using the Construct feature looks like this and takes a very short time to do:

Clicking on Search at bottom right, I get the following results:

But that’s a lot of Greek to wade through. If I need an English translation, clicking on “Add Parallel” above gives me the same results, translated:

There is much more the Construct search can do–but this gives an idea of its potential utility. More from Accordance on Constructs can be found in their help files here.

3. Modules

Accordance sells a number of add-on modules. Though I have not used them, two that look to be particularly useful are a bundle for Hebrew text criticism (including the BHS text and apparatus, and new BHQ volumes with apparatus) and some volumes of the critical Göttingen text of the Septuagint (e.g., here and here). Accordance also offers add-ons of various commentaries, including the NIGTC series, NICNT, the JPS Torah Commentary, and quite a few more. Though there are certainly strong opinions in the biblical studies community as to whether one should own commentaries as physical books or as 1s and 0s, Accordance makes the latter possible with modules that integrate with the rest of the program.

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I’ve really enjoyed learning and reviewing Accordance 10 this last week. It’s a great program. I love being able to use Bible software that is native to a Mac, and a really good software at that. Accordance can do a lot. I think what has impressed me the most has been how customizable all the panes, zones, tabs, etc. are, without sacrificing any quality. Already in the last week I’ve been able to use Accordance to speed up some tasks in both my studies and my ministry.

For ease of reference, here are all the parts of my review of Accordance 10, which this post (#6) completes.

Part 1: In which I finally try out Accordance Bible Software for Mac (new version 10!)
Part 2: 4 Cool Features in Accordance 10
Part 3: 3 Powerful Ways to Search in Accordance 10
Part 4: The Original Languages Collection in Accordance 10 meets Septuagint Sunday
Part 5: Accordance 10: Bells and Whistles

Coming soon: Review of Beale and Carson’s Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament add-on module.

I received a free copy of Accordance 10 for review. There were no expectations placed on me as to the nature (or length!) of my review, whether positive or negative.

Accordance 10: Bells and Whistles

I recently read somewhere in the Accordance Forums that an early Accordance user from the 1990s said the product should come with a warning that it may cause sleepless nights! As I’ve reviewed Accordance 10 (as a long-time Mac user but new Accordance user), I’ve already seen the wisdom in that suggestion. It’s hard to put down. Accordance is actually a really fun program to use: sleek, pleasing, productive, and really easy to customize as I’ve gotten the hang of how to move things around.

The four parts of my Accordance 10 review so far are here, here, here, and here. Specifically I’ve been reviewing the Original Languages Collection. UPDATE: final part, part 6 of my review, is here: “More Bells and Whistles.”

Now that I’m getting more comfortable with the program, I want to post about some bells and whistles in Accordance 10. These are features that really make the program stand out.

1. Instant Details: more than I thought

That Accordance has instant parsing details is great, but to be expected of any Bible software program.

Image from Accordance’s features page

But here are two cool bells and whistles about the Instant Details.

Instant Details already parse whatever word you hover over. But this same area can also be used to just as quickly give you information from a given tool that is tied to a biblical text. If you hold down ⌘ (the command key) while you hover over a word, the Instant Details will give you the information from the first tool related to the text. So you can see your top lexicon’s entry for that word, for example. Or if you hover over a verse number and press ⌘, you get the information from the first reference tool you have. For example, hovering over a verse reference and pressing the command key gives me this in my Instant Details (click on image for larger):

One other sweet feature about the Instant Details is that you can arrange the order of how parsing elements occur. This accounts for those who will come to Accordance having learned under any number of different grammars and systems. You can drag and drop elements to put them in the order you desire:

A nice touch.

2. Interlinears: however you want them

Having been trained at a seminary that prizes original languages, I am a little biased against interlinears for those who are really seeking to learn the language. (I find the “burn your interlinear” mantra I’ve heard from some quarters a little excessive, though.) Realistically, however, some exposure to biblical languages is better than none, and there are surely users who will want to make use of an interlinear. Greek and Hebrew texts come with interlinear English translation and word parsing as the default, but you can easily turn it off and back on again as needed. See the options at left, where you can set up exactly what you want to show in your interlinear. Here’s what the interlinear feature looks like with the options at left checked (click for larger):

3. It is so, so fast

When I first started using Accordance, I’d open it and then go to Safari or some other program to wait for it to load. But what I quickly realized is that I didn’t actually have to. This thing is up and running fast. I had Accordance set up so that four different workspaces would come up upon opening the program (NT, Hebrew OT, LXX, and a “Search all” workspace I created). Everything was ready to go in 8 seconds. That’s a lot of workspaces to have open fast!

Then when I opened Accordance such that it only needed to load two workspaces, that time dwindled to 5 seconds. Don’t bother surfing the Internet while you wait for Accordance to load. It’s ready to work when you are.  Searches on words are immediate, and the Instant Details give you the details, well… instantly.

Part 6 of my Accordance review will be my final review of the program itself. In that I’ll look at a few more bells and whistles: the Construct search and the context slider. After that I expect to be able to review an add-on module. Stay tuned!

I received a free copy of Accordance 10 for review. There were no expectations placed on me as to the nature of my review, whether positive or negative.

The Original Languages Collection in Accordance 10 meets Septuagint Sunday

Here I look closely at a “workspace” I’ve set up in Accordance 10 to study the Septuagint.

This series of reviews has been made possible by my having received a review copy of Accordance 10, Original Languages Collection. I have not been asked or expected to provide a positive review–just an honest one. See the first three parts of my review here (installation and setup), here (4 cool features), and here (3 powerful ways to search). UPDATE: Here is part 5, “Bells and Whistles.” UPDATE 2: part 6, “More Bells and Whistles.”

Here’s what my Septuagint workspace looks like (click for larger):

I’ve got three texts open–the Hebrew on the left, the Greek in the middle, and the English on the right. These each come with the Original Languages Collection. With hyperlinks to Accordance’s product info page, they are:

As I mentioned in a previous post, the NETS, while not perfect, is the best English translation of the Septuagint on the market. I have been really glad to be able to access it. The Original Languages Collection also includes the older and still helpful Brenton English translation of the Septuagint.

By going to “Set Text Plane Display” (available easily by right clicking from within a pane, or from Accordance’s “Display” menu, or by the shortcut ⌘T), you can change the theme/color of the individual text. If you wanted the LXX to stand out, for example, you could change it to the “Vintage” theme which makes it a nice, pleasing yellow, as in the picture at right. In fact, I’ve changed the colors on my Greek Tools (the LEH Lexicon) and Reference Tools (The IVP New Bible Commentary)–just so they stand apart a bit more as references. Being a long-time user and now reviewer of BibleWorks, I have been fine with the keep it simple but powerful philosophy. However, it really is a nice touch–especially if you’re looking at a screen for a long time–to be able to customize themes and colors.

Here are a few neat things I can do with the Septuagint setup above:

  • Triple-clicking on a verse reference automatically pulls up the accompanying text in the IVP commentary. This would be of slightly limited value for books that are in the Septuagint but not the Protestant canon that commentary covers. But…
  • …I can open up Conybeare and Stock’s Septuagint Grammar right next to the LEH lexicon
  • Triple-clicking on a word automatically displays the entry for that word in the lexicon

There are other ways to do searches without triple-clicking (for example, Amplify, which I discuss here), but triple-clicking is the quickest way I’ve found so far.

At this point I did run into a little bit of difficulty. Mounce’s Greek Dictionary is set as the default Greek lexicon. And triple-clicking always goes to the default lexicon, i.e., whatever is first in the list.

Working with the LXX, I wanted the LEH lexicon to be the one a triple-click would look up. But Mounce comes by default in the first position. So even with the LEH open, triple-clicks would look up in Mounce. 15 minutes searching through menus, icons, and Preferences and 10 more minutes in Accordance’s help section gave me no solution. Finally I turned to the Accordance Forums and–voila!–my answer. Not an immediately intuitive way forward, but I was grateful for the help.

That done, I now have my LXX workspace just how I like it.

Speaking of help, Accordance has multiple sources of support, from active user forums (in which Accordance staff participate) to extensive help files. The podcasts are good, too (index here). Because the layout/interface change from Accordance 9 to 10 was pretty significant, I looking forward to hopefully seeing updated podcasts for 10 that reflect this. Right now there is this episode on Accordance 10.

I have a Greek New Testament workspace set up similarly. The Original Languages Collection has the Greek dictionaries/lexicons you can see above–Mounce works well for the NT, and I love that it has word frequency counts. (Although you can easily get this and more from Accordance for any given word.) As far as I can tell, I have to change the default Greek dictionary back to Mounce when I’m in my NT workspace, if I want triple-clicking on a word to lead there.

For my Hebrew Bible study, the Original Languages Collection gives me the Hebrew MT (mentioned above) and these solid lexicons:

The Original Languages Collection also comes with Ross’s Hebrew Grammar.

The Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Concise DCH) is a relatively new publication. Its inclusion is a highlight of this package. From Accordance’s product page:

This Dictionary (CDCH) is an abridgment of the 8-volume Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), the first volume of which appeared in 1993. The DCH was the first dictionary of the Classical Hebrew language ever to be published. Unlike other dictionaries of the ancient Hebrew language, which cover only the texts of the Hebrew Bible, either exclusively or principally, DCH records the language of all texts written in Hebrew from the earliest times down to the end of the second century CE. That is to say, it includes not only the words used in the Hebrew Bible, but also those found in the Hebrew Book of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus), the Dead Sea Scrolls, and all the ancient Hebrew inscriptions.

Previous versions of Accordance had tiered-levels within individual collections, so that the Library collection still had intro, standard, and premier. So, too, with the Scholar’s collection: intro, standard, and premier. I found this time-consuming to navigate whenever I’d look at Accordance 9 on their Website, so the simplification in Accordance 10 (there is no tiering in the Original Languages Collection) is a huge improvement. It streamlines the decision-making process for those looking to get into Accordance.

The Original Languages Collection, as the Accordance site notes, has resources close to a $2,000 print retail value. That’s not a padded figure reflecting already electronically free public domain resources, either. I am impressed with the $299.99 price tag on this collection.

And I’m especially impressed that I can have all I currently need to use for text-based Septuagint research in one place. Two thumbs up for this collection.

3 Powerful Ways to Search in Accordance 10

Here are three powerful and creative ways that Accordance 10 allows you to search through its texts and resources. Add these three cool features to the four I highlighted earlier: analytics, the customizable toolbar, the magnify feature, and the one-volume IVP commentary and one-volume Eerdmans dictionary that come with the Starter Collection and higher.

1. Flex Search

Here is how Accordance’s site describes Flex Search, new in Accordance 10:

Flex Search is a new feature of Accordance 10 that finds variations of the words and phrases you search for. Specifically, Flex Search will find all inflected forms of verbs and all singular and plural forms of nouns. This mode also allows words to occur out of order or to have other words in between them.

If I wonder, for example, whether “Jesus wept” might have some other verses similar to it, I type in “jesus weep” in the search bar, make sure it’s set to “Flex Search,” then enter. You can see that in the results below, even though I searched with “weep,” Flex Search brought up results with any inflection of “to weep” (wept, weeping, weep). Just under the search bar is shown the statistic “18 flex hits.” Click on the image below or open in a new tab to view larger:

Order doesn’t matter here: “weep jesus” gives me the same results as “jesus weep.” You can even combine an Exact Search with a Flex Search by placing the term you want to search exactly in brackets. This is a good move for those of us who use Google frequently, where something like a Flex Search can happen somewhat intuitively.

This option is available only in the English versions–there is no Flex Search option for Hebrew or Greek texts, for example.

 2. Amplify

From the site again:

Accordance offers a highly efficient form of searching known as amplifying, which allows you to search for any word or phrase just by selecting it in the text you are reading and then clicking the Amplify icon in the toolbar. For example, if you are reading about the Ten Commandments in Exodus 34:28 you can amplify to a dictionary article on the topic by selecting the phrase “Ten Commandments” in the Bible text, clicking on the amplify icon in the toolbar, and then choosing the desired dictionary. You can also triple-click on any word to quickly amplify to your default dictionary or lexicon. This method of searching is much faster than opening a new module and manually typing in your search.

Using this feature has taken me a little bit of time to figure out, but now that I have I’m really enjoying it.

In Mark 1 below, I double-clicked on “wilderness” to highlight it and then went to the Amplify icon in the customizable toolbar up top:

Then a whole range of options is available to me. I can look up “wilderness” in English tools and find the definition in the Eerdmans dictionary. And the triple-click option is neat, too–by triple-clicking on a selected word, you look it up in your default dictionary or lexicon.

I can think of one possible way for a future update to improve the Amplify function (I know, I know! this one just came out). I was using Accordance with two Workspaces open: Accordance’s “NT Study” and my own “Hebrew Bible.” When I tried to look up an English word from the Hebrew Bible Workspace in the Eerdmans Dictionary, it moved me over to the NT Study Workspace where Eerdmans was already open. As a result I lost my initial place and had to go back to the “Hebrew Bible” Workspace.

There may be a good explanation for this and an easy way to prevent it from happening that I just don’t know about (if I find one out, I’ll post an update here). But it would have been nice to just have the Amplify search open the dictionary in my same Workspace. UPDATE: It’s an easy fix in the Preferences section. I just had to check “Confine amplify to the same workspace.”

Workspaces, by the way, are a great way to stay organized and working on multiple projects at the same time in Accordance.

3. Search All

The word “Trinity” does not appear in the Bible. But what if I want to see what biblical resources say about the Trinity, and where in the Bible they see the various interrelating persons of the Trinity? The “Search All” bar at the top right of Accordane allows the user to search all of Accordance’s resources by word (or even by Scripture reference). The screen shot below shows in the left sidebar the resources that returned a hit. You can see that Accordance gives me all the times “Trinity” appears in the NET Bible notes! That’s quite useful.

You can also use the “Search All” bar to access images.

There are a few more things I want to cover in my Accordance 10 review, but to those of you reading–are there any features you’d like me to comment on? Or questions you have about the program and its features, how it all works together? I’d be happy to try to take these up in future posts. Feel free to leave me a comment if so.

This series of reviews is made possible by my having received a review copy of Accordance 10, Original Languages Collection. I have not been asked or expected to provide a positive review–just an honest one. Part 1 of my review of Accordance 10 is here, and part 2 is here. UPDATE: Here is part 4, a review of the Original Languages Collection. UPDATE 2: Here is part 5, “Bells and Whistles.” UPDATE 3: part 6, “More Bells and Whistles.”