A possible softball for power users...

[Abram K-J]

In Romans 4:17 Paul quotes Genesis 17:5, with the introductory formula καθὼς γέγραπται ὅτι. The ὅτι seems to be functioning as nothing more than quotation marks (as it often does in the Greek NT). There is a little ambiguity in that the part of Genesis 17:5 that he quotes (πατέρα πολλῶν ἐθνῶν τέθεικά σε) is preceded by ὅτι. One could make the case that the introductory formula in Romans is just καθὼς γέγραπται and the ὅτι comes not from Paul but from Genesis. Though I doubt that's true.

Either way, this has me curious as to how I can use the search feature to find given uses of introductory formulas before Paul quotes Scripture. Searching καθὼς γέγραπται seems easy enough. But what if I want to look for every time Paul uses ὅτι before a quotation? Or something else? Searching ὅτι and manually going through the results in that case takes time--time well-spent, but I'm curious if there's a way in a given text (GNT-T) that already recognizes quotations (by italicizing them) to find all the times a certain word or words introduce a quotation.

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Hi AbramKJ,

 

You could try a construct search for οτι where it performs the function of a subordinating conjunction with subclassification of recitative. This is how its classified in the passage from Rom you mention. That gives a 130 hits about the place. You'd have to analyze the cases returned to see if they are more or less the thing you are looking for. Of course this might be too broad in which case you could add καθως to the construct or γέγραπται. Anyhow this is perhaps something to try.

 

Thx

D

[David Lang]

Definitely not a softball question. Accordance does not support searching the styles in a text (such as italics for OT quotations) so there's no easy way to do this. Your best bet might be to open the OT in NT parallel and display the parallels in Greek. Search the Reference field for Rom-Philemon to find all the OT quotations in Paul. That at least narrows your starting point.

 

I would then begin working my way through the pericopes, selecting the introductory formula in each one and searching for it, either by option-clicking the top item in the Amplify toolbar item or option-clicking the Search Selection toolbar icon which I've added to my toolbar. (I'm option-clicking to search for the inflected rather than lexical forms of each phrase.) I would then shift-click a highlight style to highlight all the occurrences of that introductory formula. That way, as I click through each pericope in the parallel window, I'll have any previously encountered introductory formula already highlighted.

 

If you just want to focus on ὅτι, you could use hits highlighting to highlight all its occurrences and then work your way through the pericopes in the Parallel window. That way, you would avoid looking at every occurrence of ὅτι, and only examine those which appear in a recognized parallel.

 

Hope this helps.

[Abram K-J]

Thank you both--a helpful start.