[sword-devel] Versification/Encoding Issues

[Chris Little]

Mike Hart wrote:
> I'm working on several bibles to get them into Sword Format (ultimately into public domain, or as close to  PD as possible), and I've got a few unresolved issues.
> 
> Can someone point me to the how-to that covers these topics? 
> 
> Issue number 1 - Versification standards
> 
> One Bible I'm working on is The Jewish School & Family Bible, Abraham Benisch, ~1852 
> 
> http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3ABenisch%2C%20A
> 
> This bible has Jewish versification. For example Hosea Chapter 1 has only 9 verses. JSFB Hos 2:1,2 are similar in content to the KJV Hos 1:10-11 . What to do about that?  Change the versification? How do I make this sword compatible?

Versification should be left as it is in the original. The import tools 
will adjust the verses so that they all fit into KJV versification for 
now, and when we have alternative versification support completed and 
released such Bibles will benefit from not having been altered.

> Issue number 2 - Book Order
> 
> For the text mentioned above, when I'm working on bibles with book order that doesn't match the KJV, Can I leave the order as they are in order to encode into VPL? into OSIS? That is, will sword front ends pick up a nonstandard order and reorder it for parallel display, or is it up to me?

Likewise, book order should be left as it is in the original. The 
current tools will ignore book order and every Bible will come out with 
KJV book ordering. The only problem would come if you used VPL without 
prepended verse refs, which you should really avoid.

> Issue number 3 - Missing Verses
> 
> If I get to a verse That simply isn't present in the translation I'm working on, do I need to leave an empty verse row in VPL? in OSIS?

Missing verses can simply be omitted.

> Issue number 4 - Spelling mistakes in the text
> 
> In a circa 1950 U.S. English Bible (*), I came accross spelling that is just wrong for English : "spirts blood" instead of "spurts blood" in the original text and in the OCR copy, is correcting such a spelling mistake encouraged or discouraged? In this case, the spelling "S P I R T"  is used 3 times: twice in Lev 6:27 and in Isa 63:3--in place of "sprinkle" in the KJV, so it appears intentionally  spelled that way. However, I don't see any theological reason for it, just the translator's quirky spelling.  Is it OK to do minor spelling corrections like this when encoding? 

If you find a genuine mistake, you should go ahead and correct that. But 
I would generally err on the side of assuming the author & printer were 
correct. In this case, I don't think "spirt" is an error. It's listed in 
plenty of dictionaries.

--Chris