Discrepancies in Westminster parsing?

[Michael Hanel]

I'm less familiar with the Hebrew databases than with the Greek ones, but maybe someone else (David?) can answer this question for me.

I've assumed that Accordance and BibleWorks7 are both using the same iteration of Westminster morphology (4.4 according to Accordance's website and the same in BW documentation). I've also assumed that if I am right, their parsing info should agree. Now I could be wrong on either of those assumptions, but here are the discrepancies...

Ruth 1:22 the form: הַשָּׁ֖בָה shows up in BW as a Qal perfect, but in Accordance that same form is called a participle. (Now I understand the parsing disagreements, or the reasons why one would call it one and the other a different, but the question is shouldn't the two programs agree if they are using the same database --- here, BW appears to be correct)

Ruth 2:3 the form מִקְרֶ֔הָ shows up in BW as a common singular feminine construct noun; but in Accordance it is a common singular masculine construct noun; in this example there is some debate over which is correct, but the professor I talked to preferred Accordance's parsing

So anyway I found it odd that 1. the two databases disagreed and 2. the two parsing examples seemed to indicate that one version wasn't necessarily better than the other (since BW appeared right in the first case and Accordance in the latter).

[Dale A. Brueggemann]

Perhaps it's a case of Roy Brown, the man who programmed Accordance, making changes. From the beginning, he's been cleaning up data from Westminster and CCAT when he's seen errors.

[Michael Hanel]

Perhaps it's a case of Roy Brown, the man who programmed Accordance, making changes. From the beginning, he's been cleaning up data from Westminster and CCAT when he's seen errors.

That is possible. If true, it does undermine one of my assumptions, that both programs publish the same unaltered versions. I guess I thought BW (or Accordance) could not make changes to the database themselves by license. Perhaps I was incorrect about this.

[Dale A. Brueggemann]

I don't know; you would think the databases were untouchable except by those actually producing them. But I do know that early on Roy was cleaning up the stuff he got from Westminster (Hebrew) and CCAT (Greek), as were people at Gramcord etc., I think.

[David Kummerow]

My guess is that the Accordance documentation is actually not up-to-date. I checked the Westminster database versions I have and 4.8 and 4.10 agree with the Accordance data you list.

In both cases I agree with the Accordance data.

Regards,
David.

[Michael Hanel]

My guess is that the Accordance documentation is actually not up-to-date. I checked the Westminster database versions I have and 4.8 and 4.10 agree with the Accordance data you list.

In both cases I agree with the Accordance data.

Regards,
David.

Thanks for that confirmation on what the updated Westminster database has. I'll toss it back to the professor to see if I can get an explanation why he prefers the Qal perfect parsing vs. participle on that first verse then.

[David Kummerow]

It'll be because of the position of the accent.

Regards,
David.

[Dale A. Brueggemann]

Waltke argues,

Unfortunately, it is not always easy to distinguish participles and perfective verbs. There are forms in older books where the consonants could be read as participles but points or accents indicate perfectives, notably Niphals and hollow verb forms. However the pointing or accentuation in the Masorah is to be explained, such forms should probably be read as participles (## 7 [Ruth 1:22] –8 [Gen 21:3]); the article with the perfective is unlikely in early texts. (Waltke and O'Conner, Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 339-40).

[David Kummerow]

I guess I thought BW (or Accordance) could not make changes to the database themselves by license.

As per the license agreement, a license holder may: a) make personal alterations to the database; 2) share these alterations only with prior permission of Westminster; and 3) report database errors within 30 days of discovery.

Regards,
David.

[Michael Hanel]

The reason for the discrepancy is because the current version of Accordance is using 4.8 version of the Westminster syntax (as per Helen Brown), but BW7 has 4.4. So I don't think either company has fiddled with the databases, it was just that they were not the same version.