a complex search

[Placyd]

Hallo,
In Mark 6:3, we read: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?"

Jesus is called here “the son of Mary”. Let’s say, I would like to check if in the entire Bible there is another case where somebody is called „a son of “x”. (The “x” represents the name of this man’s mother). Does the BibleWorks 9 make it possible? If so, does anybody know how can I handle it?

[Michael Hanel]

Hallo,
In Mark 6:3, we read: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?"

Jesus is called here “the son of Mary”. Let’s say, I would like to check if in the entire Bible there is another case where somebody is called „a son of “x”. (The “x” represents the name of this man’s mother). Does the BibleWorks 9 make it possible? If so, does anybody know how can I handle it?

It's actually not that complex of a search if all you want is what you described. You don't even need BibleWorks 9 to do it. What you are asking for is a phrase search, specifically searching for the phrase "son of"

If you have BibleWorks, the exact string you would type in at the command line is 'the son of

If you do that search for the ESV, you will get 1222 hits for that string. If you searched for "a son of" you will get substantially less (only 15).

[Michael Hanel]

Ah, I think I figured out you wanted to be a bit more complex if part of the search requirement was to include the mother's name. That kind of a search should still be possible, but it will take a bit more work. But you'd probably want to work from the Greek. Essentially you would do the same kind of phrase search, but search the BGT for 'υι?? της

Some of those hits will not be what you wanted to see, but the number of hits returned is pretty manageable, so that it's not really that big of a deal to cull it to what you wanted.

There are more complicated ways to search for this string, e.g. using a feminine proper noun string or even using the Louw-Nida lexicon to search only proper names, but it would take you more time to set up that list than the simple phrase search I used above.

[Lee]

Ah, I think I figured out you wanted to be a bit more complex if part of the search requirement was to include the mother's name. That kind of a search should still be possible, but it will take a bit more work. But you'd probably want to work from the Greek. Essentially you would do the same kind of phrase search, but search the BGT for 'υι?? της

And you would need to search for 'υι?? *@ngfsp to include feminine names without the article.

[Michael Hanel]

And you would need to search for 'υι?? *@ngfsp to include feminine names without the article.

Although you are correct in the sense that that search would find those, I think a NT search anyway shows that the definite article is almost mandatory in this construction. The LXX doesn't look like it quite conforms to this same pattern, probably by analogy of the nominal construct chain in Hebrew which also wouldn't require it.

[Michael Hanel]

Actually, now that I have had more time to think, I should probably just retract my initial idea. The silly thing about computer searches is that they search exactly what you ask for, so you have to realize what you're asking for.

The reason my initial idea (searching BGT w 'υι?? της) is a bad idea is because the dative singular of υἱός will not show up in the search (nor would the dative or accusative plural, but that wasn't what you wanted to search for anyway). So it's probably best just to search using the BGM for 'υιος@n* ο@dgfs

As it turns out there doesn't happen to be any occurrences of υἱῷ in the search results, but I wouldn't have known that without the actual search.

[Placyd]

Thank you. I am a beginner in BibleWorks and was able to learn from you. I did search as you proposed it. But either of your commands is perfect. For example: There is at least one sentence where “hios” stays in Dative:
Ρεβεκκα ἐξεπορεύετο ἡ τεχθεῖσα Βαθουηλ υἱῷ Μελχας τῆς γυναικὸς Ναχωρ ἀδελφοῦ δὲ Αβρααμ (Gen 24:15 BGT)
It stys for: לִבְתוּאֵ֣ל בֶּן־מִלְכָּ֔ה (Gen 24:15 WTT)

I studied the issue and now I think this is a better command: 'υι*@n?msc *@ngfsp
But even using this command, you will not be able to find this verse:
καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ θυγάτηρ Βαθουηλ εἰμὶ ἐγὼ τοῦ Μελχας ὃν ἔτεκεν τῷ Ναχωρ (Gen 24:24 BGT) The word “son” is omitted in LXX, although it is in Hebrew original: (בֶּן־מִלְכָּ֕ה).
So, I think that to do this kind of search in OT you have to use the WTM.

[Placyd]

Thank you. I am a beginner in BibleWorks and was able to learn from you. I did search as you proposed it. But either of your commands is perfect. For example: There is at least one sentence where “hios” stays in Dative:
ΡεβεκκαἐξεπορεύετοἡτεχθεῖσαΒαθουηλυἱῷΜελχαςτῆςγυναικὸςΝαχωρἀδελφοῦδὲΑβρααμ (Gen 24:15 BGT)
It stys for: לִבְתוּאֵ֣ל בֶּן־מִלְכָּ֔ה(Gen 24:15 WTT)

I studied the issue and now I think this is a better command: 'υι*@n?msc *@ngfsp

But even using this command, you will not be able to find this verse:
καὶεἶπεναὐτῷθυγάτηρΒαθουηλεἰμὶἐγὼτοῦΜελχαςὃνἔτεκεντῷΝαχωρ (Gen 24:24 BGT) The word “son” is omitted in LXX, although it is in Hebrew original: (בֶּן־מִלְכָּ֕ה).
So, I think that to do this kind of search in OT you have to use the WTM.

[MGVH]

I really think the search you want is this:
Use the BGM

'υιος *1 *@ngfsp

What this will find is every phrase in which there is an instance of υιος (doesn't matter what case) followed by up to 1 word (i.e., either 0 or 1 words; note that this could either be an article or a δε) followed by any feminine proper noun in the genitive case.

I get 87 hits, and it does include the Gen 24.15 verse.

Note that if you increase that *1 to *2, you will get 121 hits, some of which may be ones you want.