Executive summary: I do not believe that alternate versification is useful without mapping between versifications, and I am not convinced that it is useful doing alternate versification with Genbooks.
All of the work and discussion that I have seen on alternate versification to date has been concerned with individual Bibles and representing all the foibles and quirks of individual Bibles correctly without the limitations of the KJV versification. I am somehow better off accessing /Gen/3/2 in the KJV than I am accessing Genesis 3:2, since I can then access /1Mac/2/2 as well. As a software developer I have to accept the limitation that I now need to have references for one particular Bible and keys for that Bible rather than generic references. However, I think all of this discussion ignores one thing: In general, I (and probably the "average user") am not interested in Bible specific references. I am interested in Genesis 3:2, not "Genesis 3:2 in this version". A few examples: 1. My cross-references in the TSK or a Bible dictionary are references to the entity "Genesis 3:5", not "Genesis 3:5 in a particular version". 2. If I want to produce a list of references on a particular topic, that list is almost always version independent. 3. I want to be able to view multiple Bibles in parallel. This is not possible if I cannot get version independent references (doing such a display with a considerably different versification is a hard problem that requires thought, but the need is there). I believe an important aim of Bible software should be, where possible, to allow users to read the Bible in their own language (and for me that includes not reading it in the KJV or DRC, since that is not my language). This is why I don't really like version specific references, and this is why I don't like an alternate versification that requires me to have module specific keys without a proper mapping between them. Producing a proper mapping is not an easy problem, since even versions close to the standard versification can reorder verses, and that needs to be considered when showing in parallel or displaying a reference (e.g. if my English commentary refers to Romans 4:13, I want it to display Romans 4:16 in the Telugu OV, since that is the equivalent verse - this is a problem that is likely not solved by the current system). However, without such a mapping I believe that we are worse off with alternate versification than without it. I am also concerned about the choice of using Genbooks to represent books, just based (as far as I can tell) on the fact that we already have Genbook support. Is there any technical reason that makes the Genbook reference "/Gen/3/2" superior? Remember that this is not being displayed to the user at all, so we are at liberty to choose any representation we like. The Genbook representation allows all sorts of invalid data - I could have /Gen/2, or /Gen/something or other/some random text/2/3. How I would represent it is (in broad sketch) as follows: 1. Use the current Bible representation of one entry per verse, but only have as many entries as there are verses in the versification and have a mapping table at the start mapping from verses to indices. 2. Have a master versification scheme (probably based on augmented KJV versification, since that is probably the most influential and standard). Have VerseKeys using that master scheme, getting book name, chapter number, verse number, etc. out of there, and then mapping to the particular versification necessary. [not 100% sure of this, because of the reordering problem - if I'm in Telugu OV and type in Romans 4:16, does the user mean master Romans 4:16 or Telugu Romans 4:16 - probably wiser to go for Telugu Romans 4:16, master Romans 4:13]. 3. Allow versifications and mappings to be done statically by a module author rather than dynamically as has currently been suggested, preferably expressed as differences from a standard versification. Also allow generation of this versification from a source text? 4. Bible references from commentaries, etc. use this master versification. I'm not sure such a scheme will handle every possible versification, but that is not really important, IMHO. It should be able to support all kinds of oddities as things in the master versification that have no equivalent in most Bibles (e.g. Book: Daniel, Chapter: 3, Verse: 90). Then the particular Bible concerned has a mapping from there and everyone is happy - if it is really a version specific oddity no-one will mind too much that there is no mapping to other versions, so long as it can be represented. I think we also need to consider very carefully how we encode Bibles that have Aprocryphal additions in the main text (in Esther, Daniel, etc.). I personally think that it is just as silly having a KJV with apocrypha and one without as it is to have a KJV with strong's numbers and one with WoC in red and one without (e-Sword, anyone?). Therefore, I think we should consider having display options to turn on or off apocryphal additions (at least ones in the main, canonical text) in the same way as we have display options to turn on or off WoC or strong's numbers. I have no idea whether this is supported by OSIS, but I seem to remember there is a canonical attribute that might support this kind of action. Jon _______________________________________________ sword-devel mailing list: sword-devel@crosswire.org http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page
