Eureka! Search for Anarthrous Terms

[briantipton]

I have spent way too long on this, but I finally got it to work. I want to share this with the forum in hopes of getting some feed back on it.

My goal was to find all the anarthrous occurrences of θεος in the NT even when another occurrence of θεος was articular. After much hairpulling and doodling and trying this and that, I managed to get a single ASE query to give the results. Adelphos published a query a while back attempting to do the same thing, but it only returned the verses where only an anarthrous θεος appeared and no articular θεος appeared at the same time. This left out verses like Luke 20:37 where θεος appears in a form that is both anarthrous and articular.

The result is that there are (according to this query) 241 verses that have an anarthrous θεος.

This should be usable to find any substantive that is anarthrous.

If you find something I missed let me know.

3/30/2006: I removed the query I made, because, as Charlie said, it didn't work...and it was so complicated that I knew it had to be right! ;)

[Adelphos]

Adelphos published a query a while back attempting to do the same thing.

Looks like a great construction.

I don't remember publishing any such thing, but if I did, and if it was half as complicated as yours, you need to blame Reuben for it, because -- if it was that complicated -- then Reuben most likely either helped me with it or actually constructed it for me. ;)

[briantipton]

Here is a link to the old post. It has been a while. :)

http://www.bibleworks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=948&highlight=anarthrous

[Charlie]

I think your search still misses quite a few verses. See for example Acts 7:55. It contains both an articular and an anarthrous theos and your search doesn't find it. See the attached query file for an example of a simpler search that finds all of the verses your search did plus about 20 more. The only element in the attached search that yours didn't have is an "agreement condition." When a Word Box is set as an agreement condition it means the word in the box (in our case here the article) may or may not exist in this position, but if it does, any agreement boxes attached to it must be true. So our search says there may be an article preceding the theos but if there is it must not agree in gender, case, and number.

The agreement condition setting within the word box is really very useful. It's worth taking the time to read what the documentation says about it.

I hope that helps.

[Adelphos]

See the attached query file for an example of a simpler search that finds all of the verses your search did plus about 20 more.

That's why you get the big bucks!

[Jonhenry]

Now all we have to do is have him make us up that chiasm search! :p

[briantipton]

So our search says there may be an article preceding the theos but if there is it must not agree in gender, case, and number.

The agreement condition setting within the word box is really very useful. It's worth taking the time to read what the documentation says about it.

I hope that helps.
:o

Boy does it. I looked at that query and said it seems to work, but boy is it complicated. I saw the radio's under How To Apply this Box, but didn't really understand what they meant. Guess I should have read a bit, huh. That is what I get for trying to brute-force it without sharpening the saw first.

I never thought about not linking one of the word boxes with the merge box. I don't know why, but I never thought about doing it.

Thanks so much.