[bt-devel] [ bibletime-Bugs-1295883 ] Long personal comments truncated

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Bugs item #1295883, was opened at 2005-09-20 02:07
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by mgruner
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Category: Frontend / Commentary display window
Group: new bug
Status: Open
Resolution: None
>Priority: 8
Submitted By: John A. Sullivan III (jsulliva)
>Assigned to: Gabriel M. Beddingfield (gabrbedd)
Summary: Long personal comments truncated

Initial Comment:
I am using Bibletime 1.5.1 on fully patched fedora core
4 with KDE 3.4.2.  

If I create a very long comment in the personal
commentary using plain text, the comment is truncated
in the display window.  The edit window retains the
full comment so the data is intact.  It appears to be
simply a display problem.  I will paste my comment from
Ps 1:1 which highlighted this problem.  As always,
thanks for all you do - John Sullivan

PS - this comment can also be used to demonstrate
another bug where the paragraphs present in the edit
window are eliminated in the display window.

Hebrew - Sefer Tehillim – book of praises (tehillah –
praise), Tillim is the common, shortened form.
Greek - Psalmos – a twanging of a harp string – thus an
accompanied song, Psalmoi - plural

The Psalms are like the hymnal of the Bible.  As such
they are more literary than doctrinal and are dangerous
to interpret for doctrinal positions.  It is a
collection of thoughts and feelings, not dogma however
they are extensively used by the new testament writers.
 Of the 283 direct quotations from the old testament in
the new, 116 are from the Psalms.

There are five divisions in the book of Psalms, 1-41,
42-72, 73-89, 90-106, 106-150.  Rabbinic literature
says Moses gave us the five books of the Torah while
David gave us the five books of Psalms.  It should be
pointed out that David is not the author of all the
psalms.  In fact, the Hebrew for "a psalm of David"
does not imply composed by; it could also be about or
pertinent to.  Each book ends with “Amen and Amen” - Ps
41, 72, 89, 106, 150 (no Amen).  The books appear to be
edited from earlier collections.  For example, there
are psalms of David after 72 (which says the psalms of
David are ended) and there is duplication, sometimes
exact (e.g., 14 & 53) and sometimes with slight
theological changes, (e.g, 40:14-18 & 70).  For
example, books 1, 4, 5 appear Yahwist, book 2 appears
Elohist, and book 3 has characteristics of both.

Some of these earlier collections may have been:
Psalms of David
Korahite Psalms: 42 – 49 
Asaph Psalms: 73 – 83
Songs of Ascents – Gradual Psalms: 120 – 134 - Possibly
sung on the way to Feasts or on 14 steps of the temple
Hallel Psalms – Hymns of Praise: 111 – 118 - Possibly
sung during the Feasts

There are several problems in translation:
Many superscription words are unknown: Maskil, Miktam,
Nehiloth,Shiggaion, Muthlabben, Gittith.  Were these
musical instruction, instrumentation, melody titles,
usage instructions? We do not know.  The word Selah is
found throughout the Psalms and in Hab 3:19 yet we do
not know what it means.  It seems to have something to
do with raising up but does that mean the music gets
louder, higher, that the people stand; we do not know.
 Interestingly, these words were a problem for LXX
translators and so must be very early in origin.  We
should also realize that Hebrew is much more literal
and practical than English.  English connotations of
words like love and hate are very abstract (what one
feels).  The Hebrew words are very practical and real
(what one does - thus God "hates" Edom because they
were destroyed).

There are significant differences in the numbering of
the psalms:
LXX and Syriac versions have Ps 151
LXX divides Psalms as in DV
MT divides Psalms as in AV
LXX 9 = MT 9 & 10
LXX 113 = MT 144 & 115
MT 116 = LXX 114 & 115
MT 147 = LXX 146 & 147
Textual criticism sometimes favors LXX, MT or neither
(e.g., pss. 42 and 43 (41 and 42 in LXX) were probably
originally one psalm).

There are a variety of authors, e.g., Ps 90 – Moses,
David, Solomon, Asaph, Korah, and a wide variety of
Dates of composition ranging from Moses to the exile.

Unlike English poetry, Hebrew poetry uses neither rhyme
nor meter.  Its sense of beauty is more coneptual,
e.g., acrostic and, most characteristically,
parallelisms.  Parallelism may have been an outgrowth
of antiphonal singing.  There are three types of
parallelism in Hebrew poetry:
Synonymous – Ps 15:1 – same thought
Antithetic – Ps 1:6 – contrasts 
Synthetic – Ps 1:1 – cumulative effect

We do not have any examples of the type of music used
to accompany the psalms.  It was not like contemporary
Jewish music of the synagogue.  It was probably not
western.  It may have been pentatonic.  It may sound
more like the Islamic calls to prayer of today.

There are many possible ways to categorize the psalms.
 One way is:
Praise
Elegy - a mournful song
Ethics - didactic teaching such as Ps 15
Messianic

Although the messianic overtones of the psalms were
mitigated in the Masoretic text, it is clear that there
were messianic understanding of the psalms in Jesus'
day from his statement about Ps 110 where his
discussion with the Pharisees in Matt 22:41-45.

The new testament authors seem to use the psalms in a
highly accommodated sense.  However, unlike our
contemporary use of accommodated senses which must not
be held as inspired but only conjectural, we may have
faith that their accommodated understanding was
inspired as it was Jesus himself who opened their minds
to the full meaning of the old testament including the
psalms - q.v. Luke 24:25-27, 32, 44-45.

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>Comment By: Martin Gruner (mgruner)
Date: 2006-06-15 12:20

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=169722

Gabriel, since you are already dealing with the Personal Commentary, can I assign this bug to you as well? Please let me know if this is not ok.

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Comment By: John A. Sullivan III (jsulliva)
Date: 2006-03-30 16:14

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=489673

Reopened at Joachim's request.

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Comment By: Martin Gruner (mgruner)
Date: 2006-02-25 11:55

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=169722

Works in CVS, and perhaps in 1.5.3 already. Thanks for the 
report.

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