Countdown to the Perseus 5.0

Via James Tauber on Twitter, I just found out about the upcoming Perseus 5.0 "Scaife." He's starting a series of blog posts introducing what's ahead. Perseus is already an incredible resource, and I'm eager to see what's in store. From Tauber's initial post:

The Scaife reader builds on the existing Perseus Digital Library, the Open Greek and Latin project and the work of many digital classicists over the years committed to producing openly-licensed material. The code we are developing will, appropriately, also be released under an open source license and an important goal is to build a sustainable community around the code base for the future of philology and historical languages, not just Latin and Greek but well beyond.

LEXICITY update

lexicity

Identifying itself as "The first and only comprehensive index for ancient language resources on the internet," lexicity is now online in an updated version. (I seem to have missed the first one.) From the site:

Two years ago we launched Lexicity - a site dedicated to providing online study resources for ancient languages. We're happy to announce the second version of our site, which looks cleaner, runs more efficiently, and gets you to the resources faster.
With the second version, we're also committed to continual updates and expansion for language resources. We hope to include other languages soon as well, and we remain focused on creating an online community for learners of ancient languages.

As you can see from the graphic above, there are links to resources for: Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Church Slavonic, Coptic, Egyptian, Elamite, Ethiopic, Etruscan, Gaulish, Georgian, Gothic, Greek, Hebrew, Hittite, Latin, Mayan, Old Chinese, Old English, Old French, Old Frisian, Old High German, Old Irish, Old Norse, Old Persian, Old Turkic, Sanskrit, Sumerian, Syriac, Ugartitic.

Clicking on any of the languages will bring you to a page for subsequent links to Dictionaries, Grammars, Charts & Aids, Texts, and Other Resources.
I did a quick survey of resources connected to Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Syriac, and I think the site authors have done a great job of locating and linking available material. This is a great place to start if you are looking for resources in this ancient languages.

Latin Study Companion

Just came upon this via LinkedIn. The link will bring you to the "Learning Latin" Facebook group where Steve McCain has shared a Latin Study Companion. He says:

I just uploaded a new version of my Latin Study Companion to https://www.facebook.com/groups/LearningLatin . This is a program that I desiged, and developed, to complement Wheelock's Latin textbook, but is also very useful outside of this particular textbook. This application is a very good study aid, for those interested in learning Latin.

Below is a direct link to the XLSM file which runs out of Excel. (A very interesting application of Excel!) McCain notes:

This version of the Study Companion adds print functionality to the main forms, and "Chapter-by-Chapter" vocabulary study to complement the Wheelock textbook. This version also has the adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections that are studied in Wheelock's textbook.

The first time the application is opened, Excel will ask you to enable editing, and Macros must be enabled for this application to function. I have tested it pretty thoroughly on Excel 2010, but I am only one person. Please, drop me a line if you encounter any issues, or would like to see some functionality added to the application.

 XLSM link:  Latin Study Companion

Thanks for sharing!

Perseus in Logos

Logos has been advertising that they are making the Perseus Collections available within Logos... for FREE! But get it quickly. Right now they are taking pre-orders, but once it it ready to go live, they are going to stop taking orders for a while so that they don't get overwhelmed with downloads. I don't recall for sure, but I think it was only 70Mb or so. In any case pre-order until Friday, 30 September 2011.) Be sure to read my comments at the end of this post, but here's some basic info:

The Perseus Collections contain around 1,500 free books focused primarily on Greek and Latin classics, like Aristotle and Plato. They also cover the history, literature, philosophy, and culture of the Greco-Roman world—important contextual sources for biblical scholars. Additionally, they contain other key works of Renaissance literature, and literature from early America.

Of these 'libraries' within the collection, the ones of primary interest to Bible folks are:

• Perseus Classics Collection (1,114 vols.)
• Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri (256 vols.)
• Perseus Arabic Collection (39 vols.)
• Other collections include: Perseus Civil War and 19th Century American Collection (340 vols.), Perseus Renaissance Collection (22 vols.), Richmond Times-Dispatch (6 vols.), and Beowulf 

This Logos video gives you a good idea of what can be accomplished:

Comments:

• It has been possible for some time now to go directly to access the Perseus information at the Perseus Project web site. (And if you haven't been there in a while, it works quite well now compared to the 'glitchiness' of the site in the early days.) Logos itself has for some time provided an external link to the Perseus web site where one can gain access to Liddell-Scott-Jones (even the Great Scott edition). Having the text within Logos, however, is much faster and much handier.
• Note that this Logos integration only includes the classical texts, not the reference works. If you want the Great Scott you will still have to go online or buy it from Logos. (Also note that the classical references in BDAG are not linked.)
  UPDATE: Dave in the comments notes that the issue of linking to BDAG was addressed in the Logos forum. It's coming eventually!
• The Greek is all morphologically tagged. If the word is one that occurs in a biblical text (LXX or NT), you will be able to access those lexicons directly.
• Unless you know the classical work that you want to read, I suspect that the way most people wanting to access the texts when starting from a biblical passage are going to want to: A) Right-click, use lemma, do a Bible Word Study; B) Under the "Textual Searches" category, look for "Classics" usage. C) Click on that Classics to initiate a Word Search - NOTE: When working in the Classics, be sure you are using "Logos Greek Morphology"; D) When your listing of occurrences appears [and it could take a while if there a lot], you will be able to click to call up the text. - NOTE: Here's a little trick. If you click on the "Resource" link, it will bring up the original language text. If you hover your mouse over the "Reference" link, you will be able to see if there is an accompanying English translation. Click on that link to call it up.
• I don't want to complain about a great, free resource, but one of the more frustrating aspects is trying to find English translations to accompany the Latin or Greek texts. I used the trick in the preceding bullet to show one way of getting at it. You can find English texts directly by creating your own collection, but it's still some work. (And why, for example, are there none of the English translations of Aristophanes?) You still may need to end up going to archive.org and searching the Loeb collection or to Project Gutenberg to find some English translations. (For example, Lucian's De Syria dea.)
  UPDATE: Be sure to read Mark Barnes' comment about creating a Perseus collection with parallel resources enabled. That is a great way to find when English translations are available.

All in all, this is really nice, and you can't beat the price! Thank you, Logos! Get it right away, but if you miss the pre-order offer, my understanding is that Logos will offer it again after things settle down.

Accordance8, BibleWorks7, Logos3, VulSearch4, LaParola: Latin Bible Texts Available

I've previously posted about Latin versions of the Bible available in various Bible software packages. Now that BibleWorks8 is out and in light of some recent user-created additions (way to go, Pasquale!) as well as other developments with Logos, I've updated the charts.

Here is the table available either as an XLS spreadsheet or a PDF file.

Latin-English Lexicons: WORDS and Perseus and more (including Accordance, BibleWorks, Logos)

If you work with Latin, there are a number of Latin-English lexical resources available, most for free.Whitaker's WORDS has about 39,000 entries and provides analysis and gloss. You can use it online HERE at this NotreDame site. You can download a version (for DOS, Win, Mac, Linux) HERE. Even better, download the WORDS version from that link, then get the Latin Assistant 2.0 from HERE. As the screenshot above shows, it provides a much more user-friendly interface and note that you can enter forms of words and have the morphological data provided as well as the meanings.. [HT: the amazing Pasquale]
Another site to check for an implementation of WORDS is the Classics Technology Center which has both a Latin to English and English to Latin option.Perseus provides both Charlton T. Lewis', An Elementary Latin Dictionary (search page) and the more comprehensive Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (search page). Perseus has all sorts of ways of linking the Latin to primary texts, as you can see in the graphic, but it can run slow. It is also able to search on forms in addition to the lexical entries.
(UPDATE) The best way to access Lewis and Short (as I should have noted originally since I highlighted it before!) is by using the free Diogenes program that runs on your computer. It's a 64Mb download that expands to over 500Mb, but it is an excellent resource.

NOTE: Accordance, BibleWorks, and Logos allow for hooks into the internet, so you could set up links from Latin texts in those programs into the NotreDame or Perseus sites. If someone knows how to set links or run scripts from the Bible software to either Latin Assistant or Diogenes, that would be very nice.

Note the Latin lexical resources available in a number of Bible software packages (and check this post for links):

• Accordance offers a morphologically tagged version of the Vulgate along with a simple Latin-English dictionary.
• Logos includes in a number of its libraries The Dictionary of the Vulgate New Testament by J. M. Harden, but the Latin Vulgate texts in Logos are not morphologically analyzed, so there is no direct link from the Latin to the dictionary. You can link to NotreDame or Perseus mentioned above.
• BibleWorks has a number of Vulgate and other Latin texts but does not include a lexicon. You will have to link out to NotreDame or Perseus mentioned above. (Or wait for something nice from Pasquale...) UPDATE (2013): BibleWorks9 does include the VULM version which is linked to Whitaker's Words so that any Latin word in a verse has morphological and lexical info available in the analysis window.
• VulSearch and LaParola both have morphologically tagged Vulgate versions and include Whitaker's Words within the programs.

VulSearch4: Free Vulgate Search Program

IMPORTANT UPDATE (2008.08.29): Be sure to read the comments to this post.

One thing always leads to another... When I was pulling together the lists of Latin biblical texts available in the leading software programs, I came across VulSearch 4. According to the web site:

VulSearch is a program for Windows 98 and later.
* View the Clementine Vulgate Bible with the Douay–Rheims translation side-by-side
* Fast full-text searching of both bibles
* Create bookmarks, cross-references and annotations
* Integrated with the Latin dictionary program Words
VulSearch is free software.

In addition:

VulSearch 4 comes with the Clementine Vulgate and Douay–Rheims Bibles. If you wish, you can also download the following additional texts to use with VulSearch:
* the Glossa Ordinaria (courtesy of Steven Killings) (4.1 Mb)
* Weber's Stuttgart Vulgate (3.0 Mb)
* French Crampon (freely available at www.jesusmarie.com) (3.3 Mb)
* French Louis Segond (3.1 Mb)
* the Nova Vulgata (3.1 Mb). NOTE: There are copyright issues with this text, and it is unclear whether it is being shared legally. UPDATE (2013): This text is no longer available.

But wait, there's more! The Latin texts are tagged and, as noted above, Whitaker's Latin-English Dictionary "Words" program is integrated as well. Furthermore, the program also includes the ability to create cross references, notes, and bookmarks, and it comes with a full set of bookmark for the Missale Romanum.
So, how does VulSearch compare with Accordance8, BibleWorks7, and Logos3?

• All the texts in VulSearch are fully tagged. Only Accordance has an addon tagged text, but it's only the Biblia Sacra Vulgata and only tagged for the NT at this time. BW7 does allow for an external link to the online version of Words.
• Whitaker's Latin-English Words program is integrated in the VulSearch interface. Accordance has its own glosses which are not as full as Whitaker's. Again, BW7 links to Whitaker, but it is a link that is external to the online version. Logos has the Harden Dictionary of the Vulgate NT, but since the Latin texts are not tagged, there is no direct linkage between the words in the biblical text in the dictionary.
• VulSearch includes the Douay-Rheims (DRA) English translation. With Accordance, the DRA has to be obtained as part of a bundle. The DRA is included with BW7, and one can also add the user-created Wycliffe translation. DRA is only available as a PBB download for Logos.
• One disadvantage of VulSearch is that only two windows can be viewed/scrolled at a time. It is also not able to handle Greek and Hebrew, so you can't compare the Latin to the original languages. Here is where Accordance, BW, and Logos have the advantage. Finally, it's a Windows only program.

Bottom line: Not only is VulSearch a tremendous program that surpasses what is available in the big programs, but it is free! If you want to work with the Vulgate, this is a great resource.

Again, check the comments...

Accordance8, BibleWorks7, Logos3, VulSearch4, LaParola: Latin Bible Texts Available

The history of the Latin text of the Bible--and especially of the Latin Psalter--is rather complicated. (Check out the charts I supply here.) I've compiled a table that shows which Latin texts (basically the Clementine, Biblica Sacra Vulgata, and Novo Vulgata) are included in the three big Bible software programs of Accordance8, BibleWorks7, and Logos3 with their shortcut abbreviations and availability. Links are provided to online resources, and I have also included the specifically Vulgate translations of Wycliffe and the Douay-Rheims.
Here is the table available either as an XLS spreadsheet or a PDF file.
UPDATE 2008.08.26: As Pasquale notes in the comments, Vulgata Clementina is available for BW7. I found a PBB of the Douay-Rheims for Logos. I added a column for VulSearch. Files have been updated.
UPDATE: 2008.09.05: Added the fine LaParola program (free) which includes Stuttgart Vulgate fully tagged and linked to Latin Words. Files updated.

Apostles' Creed Question: Suffering or Crucified Under Pontius Pilate

A bit off the focus of this blog on biblical studies and technology, but this question was recently addressed to me, and it caught me off guard. (To keep an attribution trail, I heard this from someone who thinks he heard it initially from the author and theologian, Marva Dawn.) Not quite sure where else to get some help on the matter, and I'm hoping someone of you might know more.
QUESTION:
In the 4th article of the Apostles' Creed, all the traditional English versions [a number of English versions posted on Wikipedia] state that Jesus "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried." >>> Isn't the point that Jesus suffered and was crucified under Pontius Pilate? (NOT that he suffered under Pilate and was crucified)
>>> This kind of phrasing question makes me wonder about underlying punctuation that may or may not be present in original manuscripts and word order matters that are different for Greek/Latin as compared to English.
SO:
Here are the original Latin and subsequent Greek of the phrase in question (texts from CCEL):

• passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus;
• παθόντα ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου, σταυρωθέντα, θανόντα, καὶ ταφέντα

Both of these have punctuation supplied, but I don't know if any such indicators were provided in the original mss. Some things I do note:

• Are the verbs "to suffer" or "to crucify" regularly used with sub / epi?

Answering this question would provide some guide to which verb the prepositional phrase most likely attached. Perhaps the use of the Greek epi to translate the Latin sub is a clue? >> I can't find much in the way of other texts to support a claim one way or the other. (I am better at working with the Greek than the Latin, however...) Since Pilate did not take direct action in crucifying Jesus, I suspect that the use of sub/epi here indicates something like suffered/crucified under the authority of Pilate.

The best indicator of usage I can find in the Latin is the Nicene Creed! (Text and parallel table here):

• crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est
• and crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried

I suppose this could be taken as "crucified for us, under Pontius Pilate suffered and...," but I think it would indeed more naturally suggest that "crucified for us under Pontius Pilate" is the point of emphasis.

Another relevant indicator I found for understanding these phrases is involved in the complicated history of the Apostles' Creed. For convenience, here is a clip from the helpful parallel tables provided at CCEL.
This chart appears to indicate that the earlier formulations focused on "crucified under Pontius Pilate." The sub Pontio Pilato phrase does appear before crucifixus. The passus was added later. I suspect, therefore, that it is only in these later editions that the phrasing became "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified..."

Note that I am not proposing to change the Apostles' Creed! Since Jesus did indeed both suffer and was crucified under Pilate's authority, it is not really a big deal, and perhaps the location of the prepositional phrase between the two verbs even suggests this concept.
What I might suggest is a relocation of the comma in the English versions >>>

• ... suffered , under Pontius Pilate was crucified, died, and was buried...

Again, not a big deal, but it does bring emphasis to Jesus' crucifixion more than his suffering which I think really is the most important aspect.

Any other suggestions, comments, evidence, corrections...?

UPDATE (2009.02.01): Thanks for the comments which largely are supporting a broader reading of suffering in general (including crucifixion) and understanding the "under" as "in the time of." One more comparison to consider is the Nicene Creed. The 325 version just uses suffering which must include Jesus' crucifixion. The 381 version reads, σταυρωθέντα τε ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου, καὶ παθόντα, καὶ ταφέντα, = "having been crucified for us 'under' Pontius Pilate, and having suffered, and having been buried..."
a) Here is a clear statement that the "under Pilate" goes with the "having been crucified."
b) The 'having been crucified' and 'having suffered' are clearly taken together. (In contrast to the Apostles' Creed which could be read as suffered 'then' crucified.)

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Great Scott! Perseus (full LSJ and Lewis-Short) on your computer!

In the previous post, Jeremy linked to a notice regarding the Diogenes program which reported (in October 2007; am I among the last to find this?):

Announcing the release of version 3.1 of Diogenes, a free program for reading the databases of Latin and Greek texts published on CD-Rom by the Packard Humanities Institute and the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.

The major new feature in this version is that, thanks to the generosity of the Perseus project, morphological data and dictionaries for Latin (Lewis-Short) and Greek (LSJ) and are built-in.

After checking with Jeremy and installing the program, I can confirm that you don't need the PHI / TLG CD-Rom to make this work. What it does do is put the full Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon on your computer along with the Lewis & Short Latin lexicon. Not having purchased either of these, I have in the past resorted to using the wonderful Perseus website (I have created external links from within BibleWorks7 and Logos; not sure if Accordance can do that), but users of the site know that it does not always work and can be painfully slow sometimes. As the graphic below shows, Diogenes certainly doesn't provide all the linked information available on the Perseus site. If all you need are dictionary entries and parsing information, though, Diogenes is an incredible tool... and free!
Some notes and things to keep in mind:

• The installation program is a 64Mb download, and after installation, it will take up slightly more than 500Mb on your harddrive.
• There are versions for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.
  
• Diogenes is very fast and opens in its own browser type of window.
• If you are not using the PHI/TLG CD, you can choose one of two "Actions" (see the top graphic):
  "Look up a word in a dictionary" or
  "Parse the inflection of a Greek or Latin word."
• Just leave the "Corpus" at "TLG Texts."
• In the "Query," you will need to use Unicode input for the Greek. Diogenes is smart enough to know whether to search the Greek or Latin depending on your input language.
• When your results appear, you can click on other Greek/Latin words that are linked in the lexicons, but you won't be able to click on the links to items on the TLG/PHI disk.
• One little bug: it looks like Diogenes omits section number headings on the lexical entries.
  

Now, if someone can figure out how to pass parameters from the Bible software into this program...
Thanks for pointing out this resource, Jeremy. To learn about this resource is one of the reasons why I blog.

UPDATE: Check this blog post by SFJohnson for more info on Diogenes and its LSJ implementation in relation to the text and implementation in Logos.

More language learning resources

Check out this blog posting by Curt Bonk that references a NYTimes article describing online language learning. In his post, Bonk links to ten online language learning sites (most of them free, at least for a basic level) that serve to connect language learners with native speakers or tutors in a collaborative arrangement. (Try checking FriendsAbroad first for an idea of how it works.) Exchanges can work in a penpal type of arrangement, but it is also possible with some of them to communicate orally using Skype or other recorders. I think this would work out pretty well if you are trying to learn Hebrew or Latin. It doesn't work as well for learning Koine Greek, but learning modern Greek certainly couldn't hurt!
UPDATE (2008.02.25): Just found another language tool through Jane's E-Learning. It is called Learn It Lists. Basically it helps you learn 10 words each day in another language. (For now, the only languages are: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese & Czech.) The neat thing about it is that it can be embedded in MySpace, Facebook, Orkut, or Hi5. I use it as a Google Gadget in my Google home page.

BibleWorks7: Hints on using the new Nova Vulgata

BibleWorks recently announced:

The Nova Vulgata is now available! The Nova Vulgata is the official Latin version of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church has declared that the Nova Vulgata is "an auxilliary tool . . . to maintain the tradition of interpretation that is proper to the Latin Liturgy."

This is a free download for BibleWorks 7 users. To obtain the database, simply start BibleWorks and select
Help | BibleWorks on the Internet | Check for updates

In their tradition of providing free new databases, this is a nice addition. There are some errors (follow the thread link above) in this first release that the incredible Pasquale has documented, primarily instances where spaces break up words. If you want to add a file manually to your BW database, he has provided an unofficial release that fixes the problems.

Now, what are you going to do with this version, especially if you know little or no Latin? I will highlight some features in the screen capture below to indicates some of the possibilities.

• First, note that I have included the VUL=Vulgate along with the new NOV=Nova Vulgata and the DRA version in my browse window. (On the command line: d nov vul dra) The DRA is the Douay-Rheims (1899) version which is a very literal translation of the Latin Vulgate, so you have a good starting point for making some sense of the Latin.
  Don't have BW7? This online site provides the Vulgate and Douay-Rheims in parallel. Also note that BW7 also includes a VUO version. This is basically the same as the VUL version except that in Psalms it uses Jerome's translation based on the Hebrew.
  

• Need more help with the Latin? Remember that with the ability in BW7 to create external links, you can look up a word in the Latin text at the online Perseus web site. As you can see in the screen capture, I have right clicked on "dives" and by clicking on "Lookup Latin Morphology at Perseus," it will open the dictionary entry for the word in my internet browser.
  You probably already have the link to Perseus. If not, you can download Joe Fleener's shellexec.txt file here. There is an updated edition of Perseus known as Perseus4 that provides a lot more information, but sometimes the site is a bit flaky. The graphic below shows what you should enter in the External Link Manager. In the executable line, enter: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph.jsp?l=&la=la

• Also check this BW Forum thread that provides to download the Lewis Latin Dictionary and link a version of it into BW7.
  
• Next, note in my first screen capture that some of the words in the VUL and NOV are highlighted in yellow. These two Latin versions provide a good opportunity to use the "Text Comparison Settings" in BW7. Click on the icon near the top left of the buttonbar (circled on the graphic; otherwise use Tools > Text Comparison Settings), and the dialogue box opens. You will see where I have used one of the lines to compare the VUL and NOV and then checked "Enable" to highlight the differences in yellow. In the case of Luke 16.22 which I am using, we can see that different words for "poor" are used: mendicus / pauper. You can always turn off the highlighting by unchecking "Enable" and applying it.
  
• With this highlighting, we can also see that the VUL adds a clause at the end (in inferno) which shows up as an additional phrase in the DRA ("in hell") that does not appear in other English translations. This should alert you to the probability of a text critical issue. In this case, the phrase εν τω αδῃ does appear in the original Sinaiticus, but it was corrected and does not show up in other Greek mss.
  
• Okay, big finish! What was the name of the rich man in this parable about the poor man who is explicitly identified as Lazarus? The rich man is never named, but traditionally he has been known as Dives... which is simply the Latin word for "rich."

So, awareness of the Latin versions can help in a number of ways:

• The translators of the King James Version worked with the Greek and Hebrew and were consciously distinguishing their English translation from the Latin Vulgate, but the Vulgate doubtless influenced some of the English renderings. We see the influence of the Latin/English overlap in matters like the name of Dives. Another notable example is "Calvary" in Matthew 27.33 // Luke 23.33. "Calvary" is simply the Latin word for "skull." (You won't find "Calvary" in just about any of the modern English translations.)
  
• The Latin can often alert us to text critical issues in the Greek texts.