1 reply to this topic

[Harry Hoffner]

A while back I licensed the Greek Tagged Pseudepigrapha module (PSEUD-T). Now I see that the entire PSEUD add-on package is on sale for only slightly more than I paid for the Gk alone. That is certainly NOT Oaksoft's fault. I just wish I had waited.

Now I am faced with the decision of which of the two offered English translations to license. The web description says that the older Charles translation synchronizes with the Gk text. It does not say that this is so with the newer Evans translation, but I cannot imagine that it does not. If I am wrong, please correct me. So then the first question becomes: Is the newer translation the better choice for me, if I can at present only license one?

Second question: My professional field is not NT or Inter-testamental literature; so only a few years ago I got around to purchasing H.F.D. Sparks' The Apocryphal Old Testament. Already owning that, I decided that my budget did not permit me to later buy the Charlesworth-edited volumes of translations in the Anchor Bible series. Using the Accordance PSEUD-T module I see verses keyed to abbreviations such as Sol_A, etc, that have no correspondence in Sparks or in Charles. They could very well be to Charlesworth, which I do not yet own. Sol_A (etc) does not correspond to the standard SBL abbreviation for OT Pseudepigrapha found in The SBL Handbook of Style (p. 75 "T. Sol." to distinguish this document from "Odes of Solomon" and "Psalms of Solomon"). It would seem to me that it would have been better to use these SBL standards for the PSEUD_T abbreviations, even if the ones presently adopted are from Charlesworth. Sparks apparently blends Sol_A, Sol_B, _C and _D into one continuous translation with one line count; so I cannot find the A, B, C and D line counts there.

It would surely help people like me, who do not own the Charlesworth volumes, but try to follow the SBL Handbook of Style, if the Accordance Module would either use the SBL abbreviations or would explain their own abbreviations somewhere instead of requiring us all to own Charlesworth (not that owning that set isn't useful for professionals in the field).

Having "vented" now about this, it is very possible that in my carelessness I may have overlooked such a listing of abbreviations in the Accordance documentation. If so, I apologize!

[Helen Brown]

There are a lot of issues here! I will try to deal with them.

A while back I licensed the Greek Tagged Pseudepigrapha module (PSEUD-T). Now I see that the entire PSEUD add-on package is on sale for only slightly more than I paid for the Gk alone. That is certainly NOT Oaksoft's fault. I just wish I had waited.

These add-on packages are relatively new, and you have had the PSEUD-T for almost a year.

Now I am faced with the decision of which of the two offered English translations to license. The web description says that the older Charles translation synchronizes with the Gk text. It does not say that this is so with the newer Evans translation, but I cannot imagine that it does not. If I am wrong, please correct me. So then the first question becomes: Is the newer translation the better choice for me, if I can at present only license one?

All the versions synchronize together (it involved a lot of work) but the PSEUD-E follows the Greek text of the PSEUD-T more closely than Charlesworth, and only translates the Greek. Charlesworth included translations of texts from other languages, and our module does not have all the Greek texts, such as the first 20 chapters of Sybillines, and some of the Apocrypha.

Having "vented" now about this, it is very possible that in my carelessness I may have overlooked such a listing of abbreviations in the Accordance documentation. If so, I apologize!

Indeed, each of these modules and many others have Read me first files. They should be installed along with the module into the Read Mes folder, but in any case you can find and read any of them including those for modules you do not own, with the module on the Scholar's Collection CD-ROM. PSEUD-E was new on the Scholar's 6.9.

This is a good reminder to everyone to read the Read Mes, and to update their CD-ROMs so that they do have access to the new modules and updates.