The various Accordance versions of the Hebrew Bible and Morphology

[tebel]

Accordance offers four main versions of the Hebrew text and morphology: BHS-W4, BHS-T, HMT-W4 and now BHQ. As I understand it HMT-W4 is now the default Accordance text. I have some questions about it and its relationship to BHS-T in particular.

 

1) What is the difference between the TEXT (not morphology) of BHS-T and HMT-W4? When I click on "About this text" it only says Hebrew Masoretic text with no further information. I would like to know about this text and how it was put together.

 

2) At present only BHS-T has tags for the apparatus although one can access the apparatus in HMT-W4 by clicking the verse and -cmd-. I find the tagging helpful and wonder if there are also plans to tag HMT-W4 as it is now the default text.

 

3) BHS-T does not seem to be fully integrated with the Syntax module in that clicking on a verse in the Syntax does not highlight it in BHS-T.

 

4) It is worth mentioning that though there are three Hebrew texts there is only ONE morphology database, which is my view is something of a limitation because as Hebrew scholars know, parsing is not an exact science. Having at least two morphology databases from different sources is preferable. I think for instance of the fact that the AF Analysed text (Logos) frequently parses imperfect forms as preterite. It would be nice to be able to compare morphological information. Does Accordance plan to offer another morphological database?

 

rari

[Helen Brown]

BHS-T is the text of the Stuttgartensia including the sigla for the apparatus. It is licensed from the German Bible Society, and they asked us to port the Westminster morphological tags to it, to make it more useful. We did so, and will update the tagging from time to time, but not necessarily as often as Westminster does. It does not sync with either syntax as the siglas throw off the alignment.

 

The HMT-W4 (was BHS-W4) is the text and tagging from The Groves Institite at Westminster. They maintain and update this complete database. They have conformed the text to that of the Leningrad Codex, and so have some minor differences from Stuttgartensia, hence the name change. The HMT-W4.syntax (was BHS-W4.syntax) works in conjunction with this text. We cannot add the GBS sigla to the Westminster database.

 

I doubt that anyone wants to invest the time and effort to produce an alternative morph tagging of the Hebrew Bible.

 

I hope this helps to answer your questions.

[tebel]

For my part it makes sense to use as my default BHS-T. The fact that it does not sync with the syntax is a minor issue, and the matter of homogeneity between text and morphological analysis is also of secondary importance.

 

As for another morphological analysis, the Westminster tagging remains the gold standard. Unless another database is already available and being offered, I agree that it makes no sense to produce another.

 

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.