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davidmedina

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Hi:

 

I am taking Accordance through it's steps to see how right is for my Bible Study needs. I have been reading and watching everything I can about how to use Accordance. But I am still confused on many things.

 

What I am doing is studying the Book of 1 John. I want to do background research on 1 John. How do I do that? Everything I have tried so far does not give me what I want. I have spent 3 days trying to figure this out.

 

This is what I am trying to do:

 

I want to know what my resources have on 1 John Background. I watch Dr. J podcast and I got the impression that using "Search All" Accordance searches my entire Library for the word. Sure enough it did. I search 1 John in "All Tools" selected and it gave me every instance of the word 1 John. But that is NOT what I want. I want Accordance to tell me the articles on the books that talk about 1 John and not the incidence of the word.

 

I then tried to select the verse reference "1 John 1:1" in the Bible, right click to get the menu and click on Look Up> Dictionary and what I get is the same thing under Search all. It opens up Eerdmans Dictionary to the first incandesce of the word on that book which has nothing to do with 1 john but with the Canon of Scripture. It only sort of worked when I selected to Lookup on Commentary, but because the first time the word 1 John 1:1 happened to be in the Commentary for John. Still, it was only for that Commentary.

 

What I need is for Accordance to give me a list articles about 1 John and NOt the incidences of the word "1 John".

 

It looks to me that the only way is to go book by book, open to the index page and see if it has an entry for what I am looking for. Is that's the only way? If not, if it can be done via search, how?

 

Thanks,

 

David

Edited by davidmedina
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You were close with your first option, so search 1 John in 'All Tools'. The key is to select 'Reference' from that same Search All options menu, rather than English. That is what specifies that you want the scripture reference 1John, rather than the word phrase '1 John'. Let me know if this helps!

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You were close with your first option, so search 1 John in 'All Tools'. The key is to select 'Reference' from that same Search All options menu, rather than English. That is what specifies that you want the scripture reference 1John, rather than the word phrase '1 John'. Let me know if this helps!

I dont have "reference" between the Search All options. Only English, Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. Then Scripture and images and lastly: All, All Text. All Tools, and Graphic Tools.

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Hi,

I think Joel means "Scripture"

 

So select "All tools"

and

"Scripture"

 

then enter 1John

 

does this give you what you are looking for a little more?

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Sorry, it was called "Reference" in v9 and forgot we changed it to "Scripture" :)

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Gotcha. It gets me closer but still, what gives are occurrences of the word 1 John and not a list of articles on 1 John. For example, for the IVP-NB Commentary is show "Approaching the Bible". That's not what I am looking.

 

What I need is a Bibliographical result as I went book by book and made a list of all the articles I found about 1 John.

Edited by davidmedina
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I did some experimenting, and I think you can get closer if you use Search All and do an "English" search for "1 John" (without the quotes). Then look carefully at the entries on the left. They will list the resource and then the specific field the term shows up in. For example, when I did this I had three entries for IVP-NB Commentary:

 

IVP-NB Commentary (Titles)

IVP-NB Commentary (Content)

IVP-NB Commentary (Bibliography)

 

You want to look only at the (Titles) entries.

 

Note that while the fewest number of hits you will see is 2, "2" hits is really only one. Both "1" and "John" are considered a hit. So there's only one article in IVP-NB, but it counts as 2 hits because there are two "words" in the search field.

 

The difficulty you are having arises in part because Search All only allows a limited number of search fields to be accessed. Not all resources (even of the same type) have the same set of search fields. For example, IVP-NB can be searched for:

Reference

Titles

Content

Authors

Scripture

Bibliography

Page Numbers

Transliteration

 

 

While ZIBBCNT can be searched for:

Reference

Titles

English Content

Scripture

Greek Content

Hebrew Content

Transliteration

Bibliography

Manuscripts

Page Numbers

Captions

Table Titles

 

So instead of offering all the possible fields, some of which don't apply to some (or even many) modules, Search All "maps" the various fields to a smaller subset. Thus "English Content" "Content" "Bibliography" "Titles" and "Table Titles" (no doubt among others) all map to the "English" field in Search All, but Accordance lists each field separately in the results.

 

Lorinda

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Thanks Lorinda,

 

That was what I first did but I get very strange results. For example,

 

IVP-NB Commentary (Title) 2. When I click on it what I see is useless (see attachment).

 

Apparently this is a kind of search that cannot be done with Accordance. I just want to see what my tools have to say about 1 John. Does that mean I have to go book by book and see if it has any content? Isn't this software suppose to make Bible study easy? I am a bit frustrated with Accordance right now. I am sure is probably me not knowing what to do, but I have watched about every video in the website as well as Podcast and I still confused.

 

How do you guys do background search for a book study?

post-32482-0-96044400-1381198544_thumb.jpg

Edited by davidmedina
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I agree that view is not the most helpful. Interestingly, you can see the whole (or at least more of) the Holman Dictionary article in that view. If you double click on the entry on the left, that is IVP-NB (Titles), Accordance will open a new tab/zone with the full article, like this:

post-407-0-04980000-1381201577_thumb.png

 

I've tended to be selective about which books/modules I seek background information in. So I'm more likely to simply search for "1 John" in the Holman or Eerdman's dictionary, for example, or scroll up to the intro in the IVP-NB or ZIBBCNT/ZIBBCOT if I was first reading commentary on a particular passage.

 

But, if I wanted to do Search All for this--and I can see the advantage of doing so--I'd probably create a group of the resources I'm most interested in (For example: Holman Dictionary, Eerdman's Dictionary, IVP-NP and ZIBBCNT/ZIBBCOT if I had other commentary sets, I'd include them, too). Then I'd use search all with this group, look for the "Titles" entries, double click those entries, and read them in an adjacent zone.

 

I'm sorry you are finding Accordance frustrating. Keep asking questions, and hopefully you'll find there are ways to do what you want to with Accordance.

 

Lorinda

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As an aside, I think it would be helpful if Search All included a Titles/Entries field. I think every category of tool except Texts has either a Titles or Entries field standard for modules in that category, and it would certainly simplify these kind of searches.

 

Lorinda

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Actually, you got me really close to where I want to get. Not the ideal way I would love to get but at least I can get the information I want. Once you double click on the entry and it opens up to the book and I am able to navigate easier.

 

I think the main stumbling block I have is that I am use to Logos and it's Passage Guides that makes what I am trying to get really easy. I just trying to get the same information but the Accordance way.

 

Thanks.

Edited by davidmedina
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