Catching up - Part 1

With over 100 items saved up in my Google Reader, it's time to either get them out or declare bankruptcy. So, let me simply point to a bunch of stuff I found interesting enough to save that is related either to biblical studies or education.

Jane's E-Learning always has lots of good stuff. Here are some she has highlighted:

• Lovely Charts for making flowcharts, sitemaps, etc.
• A Guide to Social Learning now available as a "social resource."
• Academic Earth.org with "1000s of video lectures from the world's top scholars;" include Christine Hayes (Yale) OT Intro
• PhotoPeach is a free online tool to make slideshows; kind of like MS Photostory, but it allows for viewers to add comments
• exploratree " is a free web resource where you can access a library of ready-made interactive thinking guides, print them, edit them or make your own. You can share them and work on them in groups too." This one looks interesting...
• ScreenToaster: If you don't have Camtasia Studio for doing screen captures, you can use the free Jing app, but ScreenToaster which is also free might be even simpler to use. Easy signup, choose fullscreen or area recording, audio or not, webcam or not, and go. Files can be uploaded to ScreenToaster or YouTube or downloaded as AVI or SWF. Very nice.
• MixedInk: "MixedInk takes a fresh approach to collaborative writing. It's a fun, democratic and elegant way for people to weave their best ideas together. (Plus, it's free!)" I could see using something like this in developing course syllabi or defining desired outcomes. Want to give it a try? You will need to create a free account, but then come HERE and say why you think learning biblical Greek is important.

Shoot... I just cleared out 14 entries, but in the time it took to put this together, another 10 came in. Still over 100 in my reader... That's it for now.

Westminster Hebrew Syntax - More on diagramming

I have posted a number of times (HERE are all the posts) on diagramming of sentences as related to grammar, syntax, linguistics, discourse, etc. I have done so exclusively looking at the Greek New Testament, and it does appear that most work has been done with the Greek NT. (And keep an eye out for the forthcoming Lexham Discourse Greek NT.)

Poking around the web, however, I did find that at the Groves Center of Westminster Theological Seminary there is work on a Westminster Hebrew Syntax for the Old Testament. Here is an example of what their work looks like. Here is their description of the project:

Each separate sentence in the Hebrew Bible is identified and separated into its component parts (constituent analysis). In order to maximize consistency and objectivity of analysis, the computer is taught to do the analysis by giving it a complex set of grammar rules to use. The resulting database can be used for many different purposes, including Bible translation. For this reason, the Groves Center is partnering with the Asia Bible Society to build a new generation of translator tool, where the computer actually proposes translations to the translator. An essential element of this tool is a “map” between biblical Hebrew syntactic structures and the syntactic structures of the target language – in this case, Mandarin Chinese.

While this will certainly be a helpful tool for OT study, I find it particularly interesting that they are teaching a computer how to analyze the text and that this analysis can then be used to propose a translation in a new language based on syntactic structures.
This is an intriguing, albeit mechanical, approach to translation. I am imagining in the future, however, that this kind of technological could be used to generate personalized translations on the fly. Assuming that grammar rules have been defined and even given further specification according to various parameters in the target language, one could, for example, take an original language biblical text and request that a translation be generated for a speaker of American English at an 8th grade reading level.

In any case, I am looking forward to this Hebrew syntax resource showing up in my Bible software one of these days. According to the web site, they are in the "final phase" as of October 2007.

Sentence diagramming again in Logos

I had a couple previous posts on sentence diagramming (here and here and here) looking at a variety of online tools as well as the tools in BibleWorks7 and Logos to create them. There was also some discussion on the value of various types of diagramming. (There are a few people on the Logos newsgroup who have developed some sophisticated templates for working in MindManager.) Somehow in the discussion, I missed this post on sentence diagramming from 2005 by Rick Brannan at Logos. Personally, I have found this kind of block diagramming to be the most helpful without taking up a lot of time to construct. I was using Mark 6:34 as an example, and you can see my result above. I really like the ability to import multiple versions. I also like the automatic part of speech color coding option. (But I would like to apply my own color coding. I can of course do this a word at a time, but I can't figure out how to change the Logos automatic default that works with the Insert Passage tool. Anyone know how to change it?) To create the layout above took well less than a minute. Nice.

More on grammar and diagramming

I have posted previously on sentence diagramming (here and here), and still more possibilities have emerged.

Jim McDaniel, as part of a thread on the Logos newsgroup, has given me permission to post a view of how he diagrams using MindManager.

It has some limitations, but Jim has found a way that is helpful to him. As he and other have regularly noted, however, one problem with diagramming is that obscures the original word order. One simple solution I have used (and Robert Pavich on the Logos newsgroup indicates that Bill Mounce does something similar) is simply to set out the text in order, use line breaks to organize, and then indent the text to show various components. Here is the example I used earlier, Mark 6.34:

The idea is to keep subject and verb (which I bolded) to the left and indent subordinate elements. This is a quick way to see that the participle at the start is only providing a circumstance for the primary action.

Mike over at εν εφέσω has been thinking about this stuff a lot, especially from a linguistic perspective. I'm working through quite a few of his posts, but check out this one on "Working through Ephesians 4 Redux" where he deciphers a particular difficult passage, Ephesians 4.16. He offers a couple possibilities, but here is what one of them looks like. (This is a direct link to his site. Click to enlarge.)

This looks rather complicated, but there is good sense to it, and it does preserve word order.

What we may all really be hoping for is something that Steve Runge described recently on the Logos Bible Software Blog where he discusses a work in progress, the Lexham Discourse New Testament and the companion Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament. What does it do?

It catalogs and graphically identifies all occurrences of a specific set ofdevices, like backgrounding, that the biblical writers used, but which arelargely invisible without knowledge of Greek.

It will be very interesting to see what this looks like.

More on sentence diagramming and visualizing sentences

I've been gathering feedback from my previous post on sentence diagramming as well as monitoring some comments on the Logos newsgroup. As you might imagine, it appears that people have a variety of approaches to diagramming. Some never do, and some are carefully working their way through the texts. Most people, however, are doing it in their head and perhaps occasionally, if the sentence is complicated, actually writing it out or using one of the pre-diagrammed resources. One issue that recurred is that before you can diagram Greek sentences, you really need to know how to diagram English sentences, and to do that, you need to understand English grammar... and that is sometimes a problem. In my Greek classes, I know that students are eager to jump into the Greek, and I do so as much as possible, but I spend a lot of time near the start and throughout the course teaching English grammar. Actually, I have found it helpful for really all students to first talk about, e.g., participles in English and give examples of all the ways English speakers use them, and then talk about the similar (and other) ways they function in Greek.
One more thing: in that previous post I had reviewed some of the strengths / weaknesses / abilities of the diagramming modules in BibleWorks7 and Logos. Jim McDaniel on the Logos newsgroup suggested another interesting option. He doesn't follow strict diagramming rules but is more interested in seeing the logical structure. To do this he uses a mind-mapping visualization program, a resource often used in organizing concepts, work flows, prioritizing, etc. He uses MindManager which is a highly regarded and expensive program, but they are other options. A slightly less capable but free, downloadable program is FreeMind. I tried Mark 6.34 as an experiment, and without spending a lot of time, this is the best I could do.
Not so great...
There are some other neat and free online options. You might want to check out MindMeister which looks to be like an online implementation of MindMapper or FreeMind.
Finally, I found bubbl.us to be very quick to pick up and even easier to use. Here is Mark 6.34 which I did in just a few minutes.
That's not bad for a quick view of the verse. It would be easy to develop one's own color scheme to make this work even better. It was very easy to move elements around and choose how I wanted to order and subordinate them.
Hmmm... I was just thinking that was a fairly clever way of doing things... and then I thought it looks exactly like something I could easily do in PowerPoint. Here's my 3 minute rendering of Mark 6.34:
That was probably the easiest of the bunch to do, because it was easiest to import and then move around the Greek text. If one committed to this kind of thing, it would probably be a fairly efficient process.
Bottom line: You probably already know how helpful or not diagramming is for you. If I am to use it or ask my students to do so, I would ask them either to use the pre-diagrammed resources or else do simple diagramming which is possible with bubbl.us or good, old PowerPoint.

Diagramming Greek Sentences

Okay, I'll admit that when I was taught Greek, none of my teachers ever made us diagram sentences. We had to find subjects and verbs and in/direct objects and such, but we never had to draw those layouts like I did have to do when I was in grade school. (Remember? Here is a great refresher on diagramming English sentences.) So, I am wondering: Is it really important to have my students diagram sentences?
I raise this question, because I happened to read in the Logos newsgroup about a Koineworks Diagramming program you can buy, and some people look like they got pretty excited about it. Now if I should be so moved to diagram, I thought I would check and see what I can do in the software I already have. I will use 1 Corinthians 13.13 as an example. (BTW, did you see that I used Sean Boisen's BibleRef citation mentioned in a previous post?)

First, here is the Sentence Diagramming tool in BibleWorks7. It was easy to import the verse, and then it was a matter of dragging/dropping the sentence elements which were nicely described on the left panel (only partially displayed above), and then dragging/dropping the words down onto the diagram. I found it rather difficult placing items precisely, and it was hard to resize the diagram elements.
Second, here is the Sentence Diagramming Tool in Logos3. Text imported very nicely, and as an additional bonus, it came in with sentence parts of speech color-coded. There is not as big of a collection of diagram elements as compared to BW7, and you have to hover over an element to see what it is. I suppose if I did this regularly and became familiar with the elements that might not be so important.
So, great, I diagram the sentence, and maybe it makes me think a bit longer about the appositional phrase ("these three things"). I also note the contrast between the diagram order which emphasizes the linear order of subject > verb as compared to the actual word order where αγαπη has the dramatic position at the end. I also realize that I have to add the verb of being, and it is at least interesting to consider, given the now/future contrasts Paul has been using in verses 8-12, that the verb supplied should maybe a "will be" instead of "be." I say maybe the diagramming makes me think more about these things...
BUT, did I need to bother to do the diagramming myself anyway? BibleWorks7 has a complete set of diagrams already included. (Right click on the Greek text in the browse window and choose "Open NT diagram at this word.") It looks like this:
That looks better than my diagram!
Logos3 offers two or three pre-diagrammed options. Here is what the Lexham Clausal Outlines of the Greek New Testament looks like:

Logos3 also has the Lexham Syntactic Greek New Testament (though it is not yet complete for the whole NT) which looks like this:
(I'm not sure just how helpful that one is...)
Additionally, Logos3 also includes the OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek NT:
This really provides a deep level of sentence analysis, and I need to study it more to understand and utilize it.
You can also go to the OpenText.org site itself and find two additional visual analyses of the text. Here is the clause one:
And here is the word group one:
That makes a total of 7 pre-diagrammed visualizations before us. Which of these is most helpful? I kind of think that the Lexham Clausal Outlines of the Greek New Testament gives the overall structure of the sentence most quickly. If I wanted a little more detail, the 'old school' layout used in BW7 helps me most. The greatest advantage of the syntactic diagrams offered in Logos3 is the ability to do sophisticated syntax searches on them. SO, back to my originating questions.

• How helpful do you find diagramming Greek sentences?
  
• Is it really best to diagram them yourself? Or should one use one of the many diagramming possibilities already available?
  
• Which of the pre-diagrammed possibilities looks most helpful to you?