[sword-devel] Apocrypha?

[sword-devel@crosswire.org]

On Sat, 5 Aug 2000 roz@one.net wrote:

> i see that the GBF spec allows for them.  How would someone go about adding
> these for use in Bibletime?  Is there a file to create the necessary .vss file,
> like gbfidx for the nt and ot files (or is there a secret option for gbfidx,
> like "gbfidx apoc apoc")?

SWORD doesn't really comply fully with the GBF spec, just the markup
aspects of it.  Adding Apocrypha support should be fairly trivial, it's
just that none of SWORD's contributors seem to have made it a priority
yet--though we certainly seem to get a lot of requests.
 
> Also, isn't the Book of Enoch considered to be part of the Apocrypha
> (especially since it's quoted in Jude)?  Why isn't it listed in the GBF spec? 
> I'd especially like to get that book in a readable form for Bibletime, so I can
> search for passages, etc.

As MPJ mentioned, the Apocrypha generally only includes the Catholic
Deuterocanonical books.  Ethiopic Enoch is usually classified among the
Pseudepigrapha.

Whether we would handle such works like we do Bibles or as General Books
is kind of a toss up.   Perhaps, ideally we could make a General Book
class where modules carried their own indexing formats with them.  For
example, some books might just support lookups by chapter--like your
average novel.  A collection of Pseudepigrapha might support lookups in
the book "chapter:verse format" like biblical lookups.  And (something I'd
be quite interested in seeing) the works of Josephus could be queried by
their standard "work book.chapter.verse" (e.g. Antiquities 1.2.3) format.


--Chris Little