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Why is John 5:4 missing in all English Bible translations?


davidmedina

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I am not talking about searching things but about comparing text. That is where everyone seems to get stuck at, tho king that I am searching for the verse. I am not. I am comparing text. This is very frustrating.

 

Bottom line, I still cannot do what I need to do. I cannot compare bible text properly with Accordance. So I am throwing the towel and just use the tool that does what I need.

 

What Joe suggest I do is not the proper way not even the way Accordance helps tells me to do it. It renders useless some of the tools like Difference list and compare feature.

 

Rick, if the NASB has the verse, Accordance should show the verse. That is the only way I can compare difference. I do not see what it is gain by omitting the verse in a comparison just because the primary search bible does not have it. The ESV may not have it but the NASB has it.

 

Thanks to everyone.

Edited by davidmedina
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David:

 

To conceive of this as a 'battle' is probably not the best cognitive frame in which to view things. After all, Rick concedes your point above and mentions there may be some ways to key the user into the differences. I concur with you that comparison between panes is logical—after all it is the only way of viewing of texts that enables the user to select "Compare" texts. This feature doesn't exist when two texts are in Zones. Consequently, Accordance does seem to build the expectation that comparison is done best with two texts in pane view. But a comparison is adjudicated by means of a predominate text (e.g., your Search Text).

 

I would like to see you continue to use Accordance. After all, the Accordance folk have responded to you and have taken notice.

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David,

I am entirely unhelpful to you, so will stop trying.

 

I find the fact that searching in the LXX-B for Romans 3:10 gives me a dialog stating that the book of Romans does not exist in my target search text to be helpful. I would also find such a dialog to be helpful for the same reason if I searched for John 5:4 in a text that does not have John 5:4.

Hi, Matt,

I agree, it's helpful to tell me I'm asking for a book that doesn't exist. But that dialog is the one for misspelling or making up any book name in any module. It has nothing to do with the handling of searches at the verse-level.

I think dialog boxes are unhelpful and annoying, and very old-school. If you wanted something different from the current behavior "which is show the next closest verse to the one you designated", I'd prefer a blank or --. But only if you searched only for the single verse that was missing.

 

I wouldn't welcome this if I search for John 5:1-48. I don't want a dialog box telling me I'm an idiot because there is no verse 48. I will see that in the result I get.

And, I don't want the result to show "--" at 5:4 as if the text is missing material there, because it's not missing anything.

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Thanks James, the mention of the battle was just a figure of speech just to say that I was quitting because I am failing in my attempt to explain it. I actually removed it one of my edit as I was already accused of being rude I wanted to avoid any further misunderstanding.

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Hi, Matt,

I agree, it's helpful to tell me I'm asking for a book that doesn't exist. But that dialog is the one for misspelling or making up any book name in any module. It has nothing to do with the handling of searches at the verse-level.

I think dialog boxes are unhelpful and annoying, and very old-school. If you wanted something different from the current behavior "which is show the next closest verse to the one you designated", I'd prefer a blank or --. But only if you searched only for the single verse that was missing.

 

I wouldn't welcome this if I search for John 5:1-48. I don't want a dialog box telling me I'm an idiot because there is no verse 48. I will see that in the result I get.

And, I don't want the result to show "--" at 5:4 as if the text is missing material there, because it's not missing anything.

Hi Joe, I think you make a valid point as an apparently longtime Accordance user.

 

Matt

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And, I don't want the result to show "--" at 5:4 as if the text is missing material there, because it's not missing anything.

 

 

But Joe, IT IS MISSING in the NASB! And it should not be if I am comparing Bibles using the method Accordance tells me to use to compare translations. That is the POINT. I am not asking Accordance to do anything its not suppose to do.

 

You may think is not missing. You may prefer not to be included, You may think that the NASB, NKJV and the KJV are wrong. But the people that put the NASB, the NKJV and the KJV felt that John 5:4 was part of the Bible and should be there when I use those Bibles, specially comparing versions.

 

Yo may be mistakingly thinking that I want it to be included in the ESV. I ado not. I want Accordance to faithfully and accurately display my Bibles as they were printed. That is all I want, specially when I am comparing them.

Edited by davidmedina
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I am not talking about searching things but about comparing text. That is where everyone seems to get stuck at, tho king that I am searching for the verse. I am not. I am comparing text. This is very frustrating.

 

David,

 

One helpful thing I had to learn when starting to use Accordance was that everything is a search. When I first bought Accordance, I panicked because I couldn't find a browser tree so I could navigate to a passage; eventually I realized I had to "search" for it. Even just reading is a search- you are telling Accordance to FIND a given passage (ie. John 5:4) and display it. You may not think of it that way, but that's what the app is doing.

 

Back up a step: searching for John 5 doesn't mean that the ESVS contains nothing before or after John 5; it just means that material isn't displayed. Likewise, material inside John 5 that is absent from this translation won't be displayed. If the ESVS (to use your example) doesn't have it, the app doesn't find it and doesn't display it. Adding another pane doesn't change that. Comparing text doesn't change that. Comparing text isn't a separate mode; it's just a set of visual marks in the current display and is thus limited to the verses contained in the main search text (in its current implementation).

 

Having said all of that, I have run into the same problem you found and think that the compare text function could be improved. Rick's comments above (such as implementing the double dash when comparing text) indicate that the Accordance folks see the problem and can address it. I'm sorry this is so frustrating for you, but your voiced concern will hopefully result in improved implementation for everyone, so thank you.

 

Jonathan

Edited by JonathanHuber
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Hi Joe, I think you make a valid point as an apparently longtime Accordance user.

 

 

I think your idea of a dialog box error (or a blank or --) has merit too, Matt.

(But, only if it's triggered only when searching a specific verse that doesn't exist.)

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Don't feel bad. I made the same mistake a couple years ago when I first bought Accordance. I started searching and playing around with NA27, then switched the text to BYZ (but the search thing was still on NA27), and I really thought the BYZ module was missing lots of verses! Then I posted here and realized how stupid I was.

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Hi ya,

I've been playing with this and would like to describe a few things I've seen and thought about. Please bear with me as this might be long and confused - I'll try to avoid the latter. In the end I think it all boils down to just a few small things but it took me while to get there so I’ll visit the journey on you also :) Also remember I'm only about coming up on my first birthday as an Accordance user.

I have realized that I use both tabs and panes and yet I cannot articulate why I choose one over the other necessarily. Often there is no choice - whatever it is just works that way. Other times I use tabs because they stack and I only need to have one thing visible in that zone at a time. Sometimes I do it because I'm in a text or tool and amplify pops a new tab in another zone. I tend to use panes within a tab to compare translations when I'm working in writing my own. I happily use the search box to locate to a verse in either case and have the context slider set to all, usually. But here is something I did not know about parallel panes until now - even if you do not search the search pane controls what verses are visible in the parallel panes. So if I want texts showing all content I must use tied or linked tabs. That I didn’t know.

Some things appear to work the same way in parallel panes and linked tabs but in fact do not. So I can try the example David started with and do it in parallel panes and get no indication of one text containing something which is missing in my search text. If I instead do this with a pair of tabs, one with a [link <first tab>] I can see that the two are different. Why is this ? Well I believe the reason is that in the tab case the search is run against both texts. In the parallel pane case the search is run against the text identified in the pull down by the menu. Then the selected verses drive the displayed content in the parallel panes. This all sounds reasonable enough but I think the doc on the latter case could be updated. For example see http://accordancefiles2.com/helpfiles/OSXV10/Default.htm#topics/04_gswa/the_search_tab.htm%3FTocPath%3DGetting%20Started%20with%20Accordance|The%20Search%20Tab|_____1 where there is a parallel pane which could be labelled with a numbered circle and the derivation of the content could be explained.

But then David goes on to point out that Difference Lists don't work with tabs, and because of the way the parallels work, don't work properly in the parallel panes case. I tried this out and I agree. If I take a search for Jn 5:4 with ESVS and NAS95S and get a difference list 5:4 which exists in NAS95S is not listed as a difference though in fact it is one. I do not claim to fully understand difference lists or collation, but difference lists appear to be a collation - roughly. As Rick points out it works in one direction. So it appears that I cannot do a truly accurate text diff, which is a surprise to me, unless I know beforehand that one text contains all the verses in the other text, and which one it is.

Now I come to another thought - given that tabs and panes have different functionality what ought each to be used for, what are each ones strengths and limitations ? Where they do not overlap its a no-brainer - just use the one that does what you need. Where they appear to overlap its a bit harder - and that’s really in parallels and [link]ed tabs it seems. Perhaps there are other cases. The above would be one case - are there others ?

Next another thought - I decided to look for the text contained in Jn 5:4 in a word search. This was instructive. In the NAS95S it pulled up Jn 5:4. In the ESVS I got an error dialog saying that "There are no verses in the current range of the ESVS text, which fit the current search entry". Hmmmm..... that seems a mite inconsistent. Why doesn’t it do that for verses ? But consistency comes in various flavours ...

Then there is the other issue of doing a verse search for 5:4 and getting 5:3. It seems that this a bit like flex vs exact searching, only there is no such option for verse searches.

So where does that leave us ? Not sure, but it seems that :

1. a little tweak here or there in the doc would help clarify for people how the content of parallel panes is determined, and what users might expect as a result. Is my assertion above that it derives from the verses contained in the searched text correct ? I don’t know but it sure looks like it. If this is already in the doc could someone point me to it ? But its really worth being clear how panes and tabs differ in this respect.

2. some sort of exact versus approximate verse search support might be helpful. In exact mode one could throw errors. Not having a separate mode would cause issues for people who use “book 99:99” to get to the end. A pref might control default behaviour as Matt suggests. There is already a ch:vs-ch:vs format and so on, so syntax extension for this would seem possible. It seems we already get errors for an unknown book. But for a simple typo of a ch or vs not.
Oh this is more complicated than I thought. I tried to go to Jn 99:99 and got to the end of the book. I tried John 25:1 and got to 21:1. What ?! Yep did it again. Hmmm… turns out it was going to the last chapter and then to the verse if it exists. So 25:15 takes me to 21:15. Hmmm….. that was a surprise. Could/Should we have a book:start and book:end syntax ?

3. offer the option of having panes behave like parallel tabs with regard to the application of search - more like they use LINK rather than the search panes list of found versus. I do not even know if I like this idea entirely and it would have to be controlled by a pref and default to existing behaviour etc. Perhaps simply allowing context to be separately derived in each pane might be enough.

4. If not 3 then in some way make a true text to text diff possible without requiring prior knowledge of the content.

For the brave who got this far my apologies it really probably wasn’t worth the time you’ll never now get back :)

OK I’m done I think … I hope … err … back to Greek.

Thx
D

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David,

 

May be interested in this.

I like you was interested in your orginal post, but was at work, live in Sydney. John 5:4, I seemed to remember from my time at Moore College, was an edition to the text; this is reflected in the ESV and some other translations.

 

I post the discussion from Comfort Text commentary.

John 5:3b-4. While other translations have kept this in.

WH NU omit 5:3b-4
P66 P75 ℵ A✱ B C✱ L T cop
NKJVmg RSV NRSV ESV NASBmg NIV TNIV NEB REB NJB NAB NLT HCSBmg NET
variant 1 include only 5:3b
D Ws 33
none
variant 2 include only 5:4
A✱ L
none
variant 3/TR include 5:3b-4, with different variations in later manuscripts—printed in TR thus:

[p. 273]

εκδεχομενων την του υδατος κινησιν 4 αγγελος γαρ κατα καιρον κατεβαινεν εν τη κολυμβηθρα, και εταρασσεν το υδωρ· ο ουν πρωτος εμβας μετα την ταραχην του υδατος, υγιης εγινετο, ω δηποτε κατειχετο νοσηματι
“waiting for the movement of the water. 4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first stepped in, after the stirring up of the water, was made well from whatever disease he was afflicted with.”
A2 C3 L Θ Ψ 078vid Maj it
KJV NKJV RSVmg NRSVmg ESVmg NASB NIVmg TNIVmg NEBmg REBmg NJBmg NABmg NLTmg HCSB NETmg

This portion (5:3b-4) was probably not written by John, because it is not found in the earliest manuscripts (P66 P75 ℵ B C✱ T), and where it does occur in later manuscripts it is often marked with obeli (marks like asterisks) to signal spuriousness (so Π 047 syrh marking 5:4). The passage was a later addition—even added to manuscripts, such as A and C, that did not originally contain the portion. This scribal gloss is characteristic of the expansions that occurred in gospel texts after the fourth century. The expansion happened in two phases: First came the addition of 5:3b—inserted to explain what the sick people were waiting for; and then came 5:4—inserted to provide an explanation about the troubling of the water mentioned in 5:7. Of course, the second expansion is fuller and more imaginative. Nearly all modern textual critics and translators will not accept the longer portion as part of the original text. NASB and HCSB, however, continue to retain verses in deference to the KJV tradition.

 

Likewise Metzger's text commentary will have a note.

 

From memory the better commentaries may discuss this and the reading is marked as a possible edition in UBS text, remember because it was a class example. Some versions, such as the KJV woulld retain this because they are based upon a different and much later text type.

 

The best place to get a brief outline of textual criticism is look at Daniel Wallace's stuff on U tube. Type in textual criticism Daniel Wallace to u tube

 

Hope this goes a little way to help you understand why John 5:4 does not appear in the ESV text. There should be a note at the bottom of the text stating it may be an addition.

 

Leaving you in God's Care and Grace

 

Phil

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David,

 

Just looked at my print edition of the ESV. the text you want to compare is indeed a footnote in the ESV. The committee on translation decided it was an addition that was not in the earlier manuscripts. Therefore, they placed it as a note.

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One thing that may help is to step back from the request and consider what you are asking. If I say 'Compare John 5:4 in these translations', whose understanding of John 5:4 do I want? A more clear example may be to consider the Psalms. In many modern English translations, Psalm 3:1 lines up with the Hebrew bible's Psalm 3:2 (as the English puts the heading 'psalm of david' as verse 0). So, if I wanted to say 'Compare Psalm 3:1 in these translations', the matter of whose Psalm 3:1 it is makes a huge difference! For this reason, you always must specify the text in question to compare against, so there are no assumptions.

 

Taking this back to the current situation, if I ask the ESV to display the chapter of John 5, it has no idea what other translations have added verses there. Perhaps another translation added a verse zero, or verses at the end, or verses in the middle. (Or ESV took them out - the point isn't who to blame for adding or removing, but the fact that ESV doesn't know about it). Since ESV is my text that does the understanding, the only verses shown will be the ones that make sense to ESV.

 

I hope this helps clarify why the search text matters, and why having ESV at the top means the other translations don't display it. If we were to consider more drastic examples (such as the LXX and its Jeremiah), the differences and need to specify a search text become huge.

 

All that being said, I think there is a notable improvement that can be made here. If we are using the Compare Text (or related List Text Differences) feature, we could at that point consider how both texts would interpret the request, including any verses either text would want. So, we would ask both ESV and NASB to interpret John 5, collating the results as necessary. I don't think this should occur if Compare Text is off, for many of the above reasons, but when doing a comparison it sounds reasonable to me.

 

Thanks for all of the discussion and feedback. We do strive hard to make Accordance as ideal as possible for every user's working scenario.


One minor thing for Daniel's long post:

 

A better way to think of panes in terms of a search is the [CONTENTS] command, rather than [LINK]. Remember, Link copies the search argument, while Contents copies the found verses. So, a parallel pane is like a text that always has Contents and Tie on.

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All that being said, I think there is a notable improvement that can be made here. If we are using the Compare Text (or related List Text Differences) feature, we could at that point consider how both texts would interpret the request, including any verses either text would want. So, we would ask both ESV and NASB to interpret John 5, collating the results as necessary. I don't think this should occur if Compare Text is off, for many of the above reasons, but when doing a comparison it sounds reasonable to me.

Joel,

After more thinking, and seeing Daniel's post, this is what I was going to recommend, as well, that if and only if the Compare Text option is selected, then verses present only in the second text should get placeholders. Couldn't get my head around how that interacts with the Show Context setting, though, so didn't add the suggestion.

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The best place to get a brief outline of textual criticism is look at Daniel Wallace's stuff on U tube. Type in textual criticism Daniel Wallace to u tube

 

 

Phil

 

Hey — You can also find Wallace's stuff on iTunes U. (This link will open in your browser then take you to the correct page in iTunes.) I've downloaded the series and watched much of it more than once. I really appreciate what the folks at CSNTM are doing and now start all my Amazon purchases at CSNTM.org to help support them.

 

Julie

 

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David – I do a lot of comparing of texts and mostly don't have the Compare box checked. The window I use for my daily reading always has at least two English versions open in parallel in each tab. I always have the NAS95 as my search text. When I run into differences and want to see what a bunch of versions say, I will amplify to a custom window that has 16 texts. I use the NAS95 as my search text there, too. This screen shot may be hard to make out unless you blow it up, but you'll able to see the set-up.

 

post-330-0-84584800-1384866950_thumb.png

 

Each translation team has to decide what to do with the phrases/verses that are not found in the NA28th (or whichever modern Greek text they're working from). The NASB/NAS95 team decided to include the extra stuff within the text and just put it it brackets w/footnote to let the reader know that the textual support for the phrase/verse is poor. If one is sitting in a group and the teacher or preacher has a KJV or NKJV in front of him, the NAS95 reader is looking at a similar text. The ESV/NRSV/NIV reader will be seeing a couple of dashes and some extra space but will find the text in his footnotes.

 

The ESV committee (and many others) decided to put the poorly supported words/verses in the footnotes. Frankly, I wish the NASB/NAS95 had done the same. I have marked the poorly supported parts of the English text in the versions I most often use.

 

Since I have become aware of the differing approaches of the various committees, using the NAS95 as my search text avoids the issues you have been running into. Accordance functioning the way it does has not caused any difficulties for me. I find using the Compare box is much more useful when I'm examining closely related texts: KJV & NKJV, NASB & NAS95, GNT28-T and GNT-TR. Using Compare with the NIV and KJV doesn't give me much help.

 

That said, it would be helpful if, when starting with one of the texts that takes the ESV/NRSV approach to poorly supported readings, the words would still be displayed in the NAS95, NKJV & others, or that there would at least be an indication that the text differed.

 

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Hey Joel,

 

Thanx for this. I had not considered CONTENTS. Its certainly a better way to match tab behaviour to current pane behaviour. I was suggesting LINK to indicate the behaviour possible in tabs which is not possible in panes. In any case what you suggest sounds fine to me though I would still suggest the doc tweaks to clarify what the user sees when and where.

 

Thx

D

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All that being said, I think there is a notable improvement that can be made here. If we are using the Compare Text (or related List Text Differences) feature, we could at that point consider how both texts would interpret the request, including any verses either text would want. So, we would ask both ESV and NASB to interpret John 5, collating the results as necessary. I don't think this should occur if Compare Text is off, for many of the above reasons, but when doing a comparison it sounds reasonable to me.

 

 

I am fine with that. My only reservation is that the use of the word "Parallel" is not precise as it does not match the genera usage of the word, except for long time Accordance users that have absorb the "accordance way".

 

I did some research to see if I was the one mistaken. This is what I found:

 

Bible Gateway defines Parallel Bible as:

 

One of the advantages of having access to more than one Bible translation is that you can read them side-by-side. Comparing and contrasting how different Bible translators render the same Scriptures can help you grasp the nuances of a Bible passage, or can shed light on a difficult-to-undestand verse.

 

You’ve always been able to view multiple versions of the Bible in parallel (side-by-side comparison) on Bible Gateway, but it wasn’t the easiest feature to find. At Bible Gateway, we’ve worked to make it simple to read more than one Bible side-by-side. Here’s how to do it.

 

 

 

And CBD:

 

Parallel Bible consist of different Bible translations placed side-by-side in one volume. Each page contains a complete Scripture portion from each of the versions so that the reader may easily compare the differences and similarities between the versions.

 

 

 

If the purpose of Parallel Bible is to compare Scripture portions side by side, doesn't then follows that each version has to be shown in its totality? Just pick any printed Parallel Bible and that is the way publishers print those Bibles. Why? because I want to compare how the ESV translate the text and how the NASB translate the text and what are the difference and similarities between them. According to the industry standards usage, that IS the meaning of Parallel Bible. Otherwise, how can I compare translation?

 

Now, I know that Accordance uses Parallel text and tools just to sync between them. And that each software can choose how they want to do things. But don't you guys see how that is confusing and misleading this is?

 

Even Accordance itself in it's help files leads me to believe that if I put two different Bible version next to each other as Parallel and click in the Compare switch I will see the difference. This is from the Help files:

 

Compare Text: You can compare the differences between the first two texts, or multiple texts...

 

 

 

Doesn't stand to reason that if I am going to compare two text I need to have the full text of each translation?

 

Keep in mind that the ONLY WAY the Compare switch is on is when the different Bibles are open as Parallel in the same pane.

 

And still, there is no easy way to accomplish what I need to do. This is my dilemma: What In Logos I can do with a simple use of a function key (f7) is going on three pages of discussion and it seems like what I ask has become something controversial subject.

 

 

I would welcome what Joel suggest as a solution.

Edited by davidmedina
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I agree in part with David's point. The issue is not one of manuscript integrity, but of how Accordance handles variations between texts.

 

For instance, in Matthew 6:13 the NASB95 brackets

 

[For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.],

 

while the ESVS eliminates it altogether. The bracketed portion appears regardless of which text is the search text. Accordance, obviously, does not redact that portion from the NASB95 when the ESVS is dominant.

 

I gather from this that as long as a variation extends to an entire verse, Accordance redacts the secondary text, but not if the variation is contained within a verse.

 

So, in David's example Accordance leaves the bracketed portion within the NASB95 in John 5:3,

 

[waiting for the movement of the waters;

 

but removes verse 4. This seems inconsistent to me. Why remove only a portion of the variant text? Why not either remove the full variant from the secondary text, or else leave all variants in place regardless of the search text?

 

I say this as a non-programmer who has no idea at all of the underlying complexities of what Accordance has managed to do for us, and, thinking the best, I believe that they have reasons for their decisions. The good folks at Accordance have a harder job than we can comprehend in making decisions like this. As users we have the right to comment; let's not assume that they make ANY decisions in haste or out of a lack of care.

 

For what it's worth, David, I've used Accordance for a long, long time. It gets more use than any other single program on my Mac. For me, whatever little quirks it has are greatly outweighed by its usefulness. I've found enough printing mistakes in traditional books to know that nothing is ever prefect.

Edited by gplawhorn
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For what it's worth, David, I've used Accordance for a long, long time. It gets more use than any other single program on my Mac. For me, whatever little quirks it has are greatly outweighed by its usefulness. I've found enough printing mistakes in traditional books to know that nothing is ever prefect.

 

Gplawhorn — That's where I am. Perfection will not be found this side of heaven. I have found workarounds when things don't operate exactly as I would have expected. I am satisfied with the Accordance engine & interface as they are and yet welcome the improvements and features that have come steadily since I came onboard in 2003 with Accordance 5. We have new resources available to us regularly. When I run into problems I can always get the answers in the Accordance Help or here.

 

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Gplawhorn — That's where I am. Perfection will not be found this side of heaven. I have found workarounds when things don't operate exactly as I would have expected. I am satisfied with the Accordance engine & interface as they are and yet welcome the improvements and features that have come steadily since I came onboard in 2003 with Accordance 5. We have new resources available to us regularly. When I run into problems I can always get the answers in the Accordance Help or here.

 

Julie, I agree with you, I do not expect perfection. Logos, Accordance, whatever software out there are just tools. But would't you agree that things should work as expected? If they do we can concentrate in Bible study instead of having to find work arounds.

 

Consider how much time has been spent in this issue.

 

Just trying to do a simple text comparison which I cannot do unless I use work arounds. My point is if Accordance choose to have a compare switch, should we expect to works as one expect it to work?

 

But this is the problem I am having: every time I run in to something that either does not work as expected or it's is more complicated to do or its is a unique way of doing things, I just close Accordance and just open Logos. How many times I have to do this until I just stop using Accordance and only use Logos?

 

I do like Accordance, it is fast, it is clean and straightforward. I would love to use it more. But I find myself fighting with the software more than actually using it.

 

The biggest example is the mobile app. I had to stop using it and deleted it from my iPad. In general it is not a bad app. But the selecting of text or highlights or notes, it is backward and a deal breaker for me.

 

Again, I find myself using Logos on my iPad.

 

It is clear that long time Accordance user loves Accordance. They love and prefer the way it works. I do not want to blow things out of proportion either, but new users like me may be having a tougher time adapting to Accordance because of many unique way of doing things. To me it has been a bitter sweet experience. Sometimes it feels like many features are not complete or done in a backward way dating back to the 1990's technology.

 

This is what I would love to do: I would love to use my time and Accordance to study the Bible instead of having to come here to spend many hours discussing this. I want to be able to use the software as expected. I want to be able to compare Bible text and not having to second guess Accordance. That is what I would love to do.

Edited by davidmedina
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This is what I would love to do: I would love to use my time and Accordance to study the Bible instead of having to come here to spend many hours discussing this. I want to be able to use the software as expected. I want to be able to compare Bible text and not having to second guess Accordance. That is what I would love to do.

 

Unless I'm mistaken, I believe you should now be able to do just this. We've answered your original concern as best as we can, with Joel (and possibly I) suggesting an enhancement, which you indicated your support of. And you should now understand how this currently works so you aren't surprised again. You're free to continue to voice your opinions on various things, but as far as this thread's original concern, I think we've covered it.

 

Thanks again for the feedback and support.

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  • 3 years later...

David – I do a lot of comparing of texts and mostly don't have the Compare box checked.  The window I use for my daily reading always has at least two English versions open in parallel in each tab.  I always have the NAS95 as my search text.  When I run into differences and want to see what a bunch of versions say, I will amplify to a custom window that has 16 texts.  I use the NAS95 as my search text there, too.  This screen shot may be hard to make out unless you blow it up, but you'll able to see the set-up.

 

attachicon.gifScreen Shot 2013-11-18 at 5.44.12 PM.png

 

Hello Julia,

 

I was wondering how you were able to open up these 16 different Bible translation versions for the same passage? [see your screen shot above 2013-11-18]

 

Also, how do you choose which (and the order they appear) of all the Bible translations available to add the roster of 16 versions?

 

Regards,

Ben3

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Hello Ben

 

This is a Workspace which came with the initial installation. Click on the button and choose Theme sample. 

post-32723-0-66452900-1482494433_thumb.png

 

This is only to show you how you can create workspaces. You can change them etc..

Edited by Fabian
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David I believe your issue is your starting point. If you start out with NKJV or Amplified or KJV or another that utilizes the complete traditional verse mapping system you will get results for the few missing verses like John 5:4 or 1 John 5:8 but accordance parallels as i understand it based on the mapping system or verse layout of the original translation you asked to compare to...so starting of with the ESV you will not see verses that modern translators have deemed to be glosses and therefore have no place in the text in their minds.

 

-Dan

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