Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Divinity

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Master of Divinity, MDiv

First Advisor

Oliver Glanz

Second Advisor

Cedric Vine

Third Advisor

Wagner Kuhn

Abstract

Problem

Over the centuries, the Bible has been reproduced in various forms, from scrolls to codex, handwritten codex to printed books, and, more recently, the digital Bible. However, proprietary software tools lack in providing a more rigorous approach to advanced research in data-driven linguistic and exegetical studies.

Method

I report the final implementation of a data conversion project to convert an existing open source Nestle 1904 Greek New Testament encoded in XML format through Text-Fabric software (N1904-TF). The data was converted using Python packages and made available in a GitHub repository for programmers and non-programmers. Also, I developed over 60 Text-Fabric features that can be grouped into warp, sectional, orthographic, lexical, text-critical markers, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and relational features. In addition, a syntactic view side-by-side of the encoded data display, calculated parent and sibling features, features for critical text, and variants in the word lemma and its characters.

Results

The resulting annotated text can be used for morphological and syntactical linguistic research. The N1904-TF features can be manipulated offline using a Text-Fabric browser or a Jupyter Notebook, and a demonstration is made of exegetical questions that can be addressed using the developed dataset.

Conclusions

This work additionally evidences how one can use an open source code and data that targets the general user rather than only the specific needs of linguistic research, developing an end-user comprehensive documentation, how linguistic concepts should have the end user in mind, and the importance of a participative project in the humanities.

Subject Area

Bible. New Testament. Greek--Data processing; Text-Fabric (Computer software); Open source software; Bible. New Testament. Greek--Criticism, Textual

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