Philo Database Formatting question

I was looking at the Early Christian Writings website and specifically Philo. I know that someone has put this on E-sword, but is there any interest in getting some of this stuff on BW?

The other question then would have to do with format. Is there a good way to incorporate this into BW? I'll claim ignorance (i haven't looked into this at all), but i see at least three divisions, and I dont know of a way that they'd work in Bible works.

1. Work title. E.g. On the Creation. Ok this works easy as a Book name, like how Josephus' Jewish Antiquities fits in under the Josephus version.
2. Roman numerals within the work (I honestly don't know what the significance is). So would these fill book chapter number slot?? I'd think that's okay except,
3. Arabic numerals. If we did these as verse numbers, they would reset within each chapter correct? Problem being, what happens when section II. has its first number begin with 7.?

One could incorporate the text rather easily by ignoring these divisions, but i figured if someone does the work to make it, might as well have the standard reference divisions maintained. This would also help if some day the Greek text was available to Philo for use as well.

Michael Hanel
MDiv Student Concordia Seminary
MA Classics Student Washington University

I would check with Mike and the BW folks to see if this is something they are already working on. They have already done Josephus and are working on the Apostolic Fathers, so I would think that Philo would be on their agenda.

I'll ask him. I was just thinking if there are things users can do, it continues to keep costs down because they dont have to have their people working on such things. Mine's definitely a short term bonus, if they had worked out getting the Greek or whatever, that'd definitely top this.


Mike

I think it would be great if you wanted to compile an English version, so long as there are no copyright issues involved.

There are instructions in the manual for the format of the text.

I would think if the BW folks were to work on this it would be in Greek.

I just sent an email to Tom at e-sword, asking about the "provenance" of the Philo database that is available. My hunch, however, is that the source file came from a non-public domain version of Yonge's translation which has been posted to the web for some time now.

This website claims that the English translation that is available was done by Yonge, and that it is public domain (though transcribed anonymously). Unfortunately...or at least annoyingly...I did a really close comparison of the text that he provides and it seems that Yonge's original edition was not the one transcribed, but rather Hendrickson's revised edition (the edition that Libronix uses legally).

Hendrickson has produced some great revisions of earlier scholarly work as of late. When they produce these revisions they also put in to them a lot of added features. For instance, in the case of Philo, Hendrickson invested the man hours inserting the Loeb Classical Library numbers into Yonge's text so that a user could compare translations. They also updated some of the footnotes and archaic language of the translation and inserted Loeb's titles for each work. Because of these additons, their text IS NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Before I figured this out, I had converted On the Creation and Allegories 1 & 2(with embedded footnotes). I have even come up with a list of book names and a system for incorporating the Loeb numbering and Yonge's numbering. (See attached text file). I stopped the conversion process out of frustration. There was a bit of work involved, but it seemed that the work that I was doing was only for myself, as I could not ethically distribute the fruits of labor, due to the copyright questions.

Now, there may be some ways around this. If someone could tweek that controversial Java tool to crawl on to the site and make the necessary conversions, that may be possible (though this may still be unethical). The other issue is that since this website has had the text available to the public for quite some time without Hendrickson doing anything about it, perhaps it has become public domain by default...though I am not sure. I contacted the folks at BibleWorks about these files, but I don't know what came of it. Perhaps either Mike or Rick can jump in to inform us!

With the above being said, let me add that I would love to see something done to make these texts available! I think that if interested folks on the forum could get on board, the English text could be converted in a few weeks...it's not that tough to do. I don't think that we should proceed, however, unless copyright issues are taken care of in as straightforward a manner as possible.

I have also contacted Tom at E-Sword regarding the provenance of their files. If they got their text from a truly public domain source, then there will be no ethical problem in converting it!

Oh the possibilities...oh the ambiguities!

Hmm. I suppose I'm too trusting to believe what I see then. The Philo on the Early Christian website did indeed say public domain and that the person who transcribed it was unknown. So i assumed it was safe. Also since it was significantly old it would be past copyright. Certainly this is more frustrating than it looked from the outset....

Mike

Hey Michael, would you be willing to further discuss this off forum? Send me an email personally if you like:

jdarlack AT gcts DOT edu

Hi guys.

I emailed BW about 10 months ago about whether they might be able to do a Greek-English Philo as they had for Josephus. The answer was a yes, and that the Philo project was slated as their next main (primary literature) task after Josephus was completed. I also asked about the pseudepigraphical literature, and the answer on that too was a "yes." This project is also planned. They said (10 months ago) that both of these would be done over the next couple of years. Let us hope this is still the case!

Chris Beetham

Wheaton College Graduate School

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chris Beetham

I emailed BW about 10 months ago about whether they might be able to do a Greek-English Philo as they had for Josephus. The answer was a yes, and that the Philo project was slated as their next main (primary literature) task after Josephus was completed. I also asked about the pseudepigraphical literature, and the answer on that too was a "yes." This project is also planned. They said (10 months ago) that both of these would be done over the next couple of years. Let us hope this is still the case!

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Hi Chis,

This is in fact still the case. But any help that we can get will speed the task. We have not started on Philo yet, but hope to soon. Josephus is almost wrapped up. We are also working on tagging the Apostolic fathers and that should be finished by the end of the year. We have been unable to find a clearly PD Greek text for Philo and may just have to bite the bullet and pay to have it scanned.

We plan, Lord willing, to continue our practice of not charging extra for PD works. There are still development costs though and any volunteer help we can get (for things like proofing) would be helpful. We also have some other inhouse development projects that are cool. I wish I could let let the cat out of the beg :-) (a gruesome figure of speech isn't it?).

Mike

Dear Mike and BW,

Thank you for the update on where you are with Philo. The tagging of the Apostolic Fathers will be a fantastic addition also. As work on my dissertation continues, I want to thank you for the hours saved in my exegetical gruntwork. I can only imagine when Josephus, Philo, and the pseudepigraphical literature is on board and complete.

And your mention of new things in the works (but your vow to secrecy!) only makes us all yearn with great curiosity! Keep up the great work and thank you for a very helpful product.

Warmly,

Chris Beetham

Wheaton College Graduate School