Long Psalms superscriptions not displaying full corresponding Hebrew text

[Ken Hall]

This is about Psalms with superscriptions that appear to have 'missing' Hebrew verses when searching in English texts. It is also a feature request to improve the coding / mapping in Psalms such that for any English verse corresponding to multiple Hebrew verses, the full text of all corresponding Hebrew verses would also display, whether doing a search in a Hebrew text or English text.

 

If anyone else has noticed this issue and is concerned, please acknowledge your concern with a reply.

 

I recently looked into Psalm 51, using the English HCSBS as my search text but also displaying Hebrew texts (BHS-T and HMT-4) in additional panes. After I got to the psalm, I was shocked to see that in the Hebrew, Ps. 51.1 was entirely missing, as well as Ps. 52.1 (Heb.). I was alarmed. I assumed there was an error in Accordance and sent in a correction report. However, in the reply I learned that if I had searched on the original Hebrew text instead of the English text, the 'missing' verses, which happened to be part of a superscription, would display properly and not be missing. And that is exactly what happened. However, it seems odd and just not fair that when displaying an English verse, the Hebrew text that goes with it should be missing, depending on the text you search in!

 

I'd like to request that Accordance modify the coding to map any such English verses to the full Hebrew text that corresponds to that English verse, so that when displaying English text, all the Hebrew text that goes with it is also displayed. As it is now, when searching in English texts, part of the Hebrew Bible is missing –– or at least appears to be until you change the search text.

 

Here's the problem in more detail, using Psalm 51 as my example:

 

If the main search text is an English text (for example, HCSB), part of Ps. 51.0 (specifically, the words “For the choir director. A Davidic psalm”) do not show up in the Hebrew even though the rest of Ps. 51.0 is there in both English and Hebrew (i.e., the words “when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone to Bathsheba”). I believe this problem arises because Psalm 51.0 in English really goes with two verses in Hebrew (Ps. 51. 1, 2) but in actuality mapped only to the Heb. text of Psalm 51.2, thus overlooking Ps. 51.1.

 

Likewise, Psalm 52.0 in English corresponds to Ps. 52.1 & 2 in Hebrew but is only linked with Ps. 52.2, thus overlooking the Hebrew for Psalm 52.1. Thus in Ps. 52, the Hebrew words for Psalm 52.1 ("For the choir director. A Maskil of David") are just not there.

 

This problem I am noticing occurs only when starting from an English search text, not when searching in BHS-T or HMT-4.

 

Dr. J. has just recently reiterated in a podcast that Accordance continues to strive to be “the world’s premier Bible study program.” I love Accordance, and in keeping with this motto, I would kindly request a programming modification to fix this apparent 'missing Hebrew verses' display problem. This would bring a fully consistent display of corresponding Hebrew and English verses, eliminate the feeling of alarm when discovering supposedly missing Hebrew verses, and it would also make for more accurate Bible study.

 

-- Ken Hall

[Helen Brown]

We have been well aware of this issue from the beginning of Accordance, but a clean and logical solution has eluded us until now. We still hope to find one.

 

In the meantime, here is my standard advice, specially formatted for Psalm 51:

 

 

You can be absolutely sure that there are no missing verses in any of our established Bible versions.

Ps 51 is one of a few Psalms where the so-called heading takes up 2 verses in Hebrew. Where the heading is a complete verse, vs 1 in Hebrew matches vs 0 in English. Where the heading is part of a verse, the Hebrew appears to have a missing verse 0 when the English is the search text, but when Hebrew is the search text, the English does display the heading. In the case of Ps 51, when you display it in parallel after searching the English text, the English displays only vs 0 and then 1 etc., so it does not put vs 1 in parallel.

There are many other places where users report that text is missing. The answer is always to make the text in which text seems to be missing, the search text. Then you can see if verses are really missing, or whether the other text actually has it combined with another verse, or is omitting it, or has renumbered it.

On the mobile app it actually is best to display the entire text in reading mode and use the GoTo to jump to the required verse. It is much more hassle to search on verses, in my experience.