[sword-devel] apocrypha

[Martin Gruner]

> 1) Should it be added now?  I would just be the addition of another
> testament to our current canon.  It couldn't be turned off easily.  We
> could just wait until we start working on 1.7.

That depends on how easy this would be.

> 2) Where should the additional testament be placed? Before or after the
> New Testament?  Logically it would go before, but that would cause many
> extraneous books to show up in those translations without
> intertestamentals.  

There should be a way to query which books are available. At the Moment BT 
uses a workaround (checks for nt and ot files and displays / hides the 
corresponding books). As we are in the 1.5.x tree api changes are possible, 
right?

> It would also require that all the locale files be
> remade to reflect that Matthew-Revelation are no longer books numbered
> 40-66.

Yes! Once this is done the locale config files should also be transferred to 
the (almost ;) almighty UTF-8 to enable exotic locales in future, which is 
definitely what we want. However I don't know how complicated this would be...
BTW we should have a latin locale, might be useful for somke theologians and 
for parsing references in older books...
Also the Lexicon Entries and any other strings in Sword except those in the 
.conf files should be transferred to UTF-8.
Maybe the locale files can include translations for the filters' names and 
values, as Joachim addressed? Or additional locale files for the filters?

> 3) Which books go into the apocryphal canon and which versification do
> we choose as our standard?  Since the KJV is our OT/NT standard, it
> would make sense to use the KJV apocrypha as our standard.  But that
> doesn't address books not included in the KJV apocrypha such as 3 & 4
> Maccabees (included in the LXX).  And what about Laodiceans, which is
> properly a New Testament apocryphon, so it doesn't really fit with the
> other OT apocrypha.  Yet it is included in the Vulgate and should be
> addressed somehow in order that we produce an accurate and complete
> Vulgate.

That is why I'm not sure about when this should be done. Once we decide to do 
it, it should be a thorough thing. Therefore support for Apocrypha and 
support for different versification schemes should be done in one step. This 
will require work in the frontends also (e.g. showing passages with different 
versification schemes in parallel[ by content]).
Let's not take half steps here.

> 4) What about the additions to Esther & Daniel?  Should they be included
> in the apocrypha as alternates to the canonical books or should their
> additions be added as additional books (AddEsther, Bel & the Dragon,
> Susanna, Pr. Azariah, and Pr. Manasses)?

We should definitely not include them into the CANONICAL books. There must be 
a distinction. And users must be able to turn off apocrypha completely, as 
many won't accept them.

> There's a lot to think about, even if we decide to just wait until
> 1.7/2.0 development before we tackle this problem.

The changes in the frontends are not the problem, but imo in sword. I am not 
sure if somebody could code all this stuff in a short time so that it would 
go into 1.5.x. 
Maybe it is better to prepare this well and wait until the 1.7.x branch is 
started?


Martin