Hacking the Bible

[Chuck Schneider]

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/march/bible-in-original-geek.html

 

This article starts off with the more extreme idea of what folks are doing with the Bible as data and Bible software, but it gets really fascinating once you make it to the main body.

 

I can also appreciate that it focuses a little much on an Accordance competitor, but the discussion about the things that Bible software (in general) makes possible was kind of inspiring.

 

 

[Abram K-J]

Thanks for posting this, Chuck.

 

Re this: "Can we combine these translations algorithmically into something that charts the possibility space of the original text?"

 

Maybe I'm underestimating the power of computers, but isn't part of the fun of language that it's fluid enough to resist algorithms? Certainly any algorithm would have to make heavy use of context (since context determines meaning) rather than just, say, lexicons or one-to-one translations of words.

 

I often wonder how we'll be using electronic devices in 10 years for studying the Bible. Accordance 10 is pretty great all-around, but that doesn't stop me from daydreaming about what Accordance 14 will look like! Maybe by then we'll have predictive text entry.

[Daniel Francis]

I know some may see this as weird but it is little difference from the translations inserted and referenced in the Amplified Bible and reminds a lot of

 

The Word: The Bible from 26 Translations which was done in the 80's and published in 1993. Now the beauty for us is computers makes things so much easier.

 

_dan