Compiling a Concordance

[tfjern]

Greetings! I have asked this before, but I never got a satisfying answer, so why not try again (maybe in the interrum someone has come up with a clever workaround)?

I have BW 7.0. I need to compile a concordance that will list the words in a version (say BNM) and all -- repeat ALL -- the specific verses where this word appears (maybe too frequent words such as kai could be excluded for the time being, or done separately). A simple task, indeed, though it would undoubtedly take some time to compile.

Joe Fleener way back then gave this suggestion:

Tools - Report Generator
Version = BNM
Range = Mat-Rev
Lexicons = all unchecked
Versions = blank
Analyze = BNT
Report Options = only "Include Frequency Lists" (Grk) and "Sort Frquency List by Frequency"

Please look at this sample of the results:

φανός occurs 1 time in mat-rev and 1 time in BNT.
Φανουήλ occurs 1 time in mat-rev and 1 time in BNT.
φαντάζω occurs 1 time in mat-rev and 1 time in BNT.
φαντασία occurs 1 time in mat-rev and 1 time in BNT.

Obviously, this is not what I am looking for, and it is surprising that apparently this basic feature is not available in BW 7.0 (most text analysis programs can compile concordances without batting an eye, so to speak), unless there is, as I said, a clever workaround.

What I need is something that will look like this:

βίβλος : Gen. 2:4; 5:1; Jos. 1:8; Tob. 1:1; Tbs. 1:1; Job 37:20; Sir. 24:23; Bar. 4:1; Matt. 1:1

Or even better yet, the Greek word, plus the references and a specific Bible version, say the ESV (or the Greek AND the ESV), in a column format.

If this feature is not available (other than going through the lexicon word by word), is there any hope it will be included in BW 8, whenever that rolls out?

[Greg Ward]

So you want to use an electronic concordance and cross-linked search program to produce a print concordance? I don't think BW was designed as an electronic resource to be able to reproduce a print concordance. May I suggest that you buy a hard copy book?
What is unique that you are trying to do that has not been published? (Publishers print what they think they can sell. Thus, there are only a few exhaustive concordances in print compared to the large quantity of searchable texts in BW.)

[tfjern]

Thanks for your "help," Ward. I didn't realize such print concordances existed, living as I do on the far side of the moon. Seriously, though, I simply wanted to know if this feature was available. Whether I print it out and use it as a door stop is irrelevant to my question. To ask once again, for the last time, can this be done in BW 7.0? If it can't, so be it. As I said, other software can do this quiet easily, and can used by publishers for the purpose you mentioned -- exhaustive concordances in print.

[tfjern]

Yes, Bob, this feature surely would come in handy, but as you said,

"it doesn't appear that BW7 contains the capabilities for this."

So I guess that settles it, unless, as I asked about in the first post, there is a workaround lurking out there.

[jfidel]

Try this to see if it is acceptable:

Search for your Greek word, then in the search results window right mouse click on the first result and select copy list to editor. You now have the verses, you can simply type the or copy the word over the list and you can begin building a concordance.

Here is a brief video showing how this could work:

http://screencast.com/t/mnTNg3eN

Hope this helps.

John Fidel

[tfjern]

Thanks, John, that was very kind of you, but I'm afraid that method would take too long. It's strange why a concordance generating feature wasn't included in BW7. Maybe in future additions.

[Dale A. Brueggemann]

It's strange why a concordance generating feature wasn't included in BW7. Maybe in future additions.

Doesn't seem strange at all; indeed, producing a print concordance when you could do instant concording on any version is what seems strange. I haven't flipped pages in a paper concordance for ages, and surely don't want to go back to that.

[tfjern]

Glad to hear you don't bother flipping through the pages of print concordances any longer. By the way, the paragraph that follows is taken from the Accordance website:

• This suite of features stands relatively unmatched by the competition. In fact, the power of Accordance's concordance and statistical tools are used by professional scholars to create concordances and reference tools from primary texts, e.g., the authors of The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, published by Brill, used Accordance Bible Software to concord the primary texts.

Apparently there are still some Luddites out there who see some value in print concordances, esp. redesigned, innovative ones (I won't bother elaborating).

All I wanted to know when starting this tread was whether or not BW7 includes a concordance generating feature. Just a simple yes or no would have sufficed (or if yes, a brief explanation how it could be done). Opinions in this post regarding the irrelevance of print concordances are, well, irrelevant.

[Dale A. Brueggemann]

Opinions in this post regarding the irrelevance of print concordances are, well, irrelevant.

Sorry. Didn't mean to offend.