[sword-devel] The Dutch Annotations upon the Whole Bible 1657

[Teus Benschop]

Hi Jonathan,

On Mon, 2010-12-27 at 16:22 +1100, Jonathan Morgan wrote:
> Hi Teus,
> 
> After some prompting, I had a look at the SWORD module.  A few
> comments:
> 1. I was expecting this to be a commentary rather than a Bible (though
> this might be a gray area, as it seems to have the complete Biblical
> text with annotations).  A similar one is the Geneva Bible Translation
> Notes, which includes the Biblical text as well as the notes, but is
> packaged as a commentary.

Thinking about this, you are correct. It is a commentary, rather than a
Bible. The SWORD module was created through Bibledit-Gtk. It only knows
about creating SWORD Bibles, not commentaries. If the official module is
going to be a Commentary, I'd be happy.

> 
> 2. If it were to be a Bible, I would expect the annotations to be
> hidden away in translation notes.

Yes, that is what one would expect. Clearly, another sign that this is a
commentary. The original book reads like a commentary too, because the
notes are scattered throughout the text, not in footnotes.

> 
> 3. Making the section headings pre-verse headings (e.g. Genesis 1:0)
> would probably be a good thing, as they really come before the chapter
> rather than being dropped into verse 1.

Yes, your are right. Bibledit-Gtk does not know about such things, that
is why these were put into verse 1. Hope that the official module places
the various bits in the correct places.

> 
> 4. Having scripture references linked would be good too, though I
> realise this isn't straightforward as they are just loose in the text.

Indeed, that would be so helpful.

> 5. Almost all the verses seem to start with a ".".  Is this what is
> expected?  [I do see it in the original text, but that is a display
> style, with verses shown as "22.".  This display style isn't going to
> carry over nicely when verse numbers are formatted differently, or
> even not shown at all].

The dots came in because the typists put a dot after each verse, like in
the original. When converting to USFM, a space got inserted. But really,
there is no need for a dot to be there. It might as well go out.

> 
> 6. Quite a few letters seem to be doubled in Matthew where they
> shouldn't be (e.g. thhe, bringgg, anotherr).  This seems to be in the
> USFM source, and seems to apply to John as well, but not to Mark and
> only occasionally to Luke (I haven't checked any of the others).

There were several typists involved who typed it all. Some were more
accurate than the others. This is the reason that there are some
spelling mistakes here and there. One laptop had bouncing keys, I
remember. This could have been a cause of the doubled letters. Clearly,
though the text is good as it is, it can do with some improvements.

> 
> 7. Spacing around punctuation seems sometimes to be suspect (e.g. in
> John 11:50, "Christs death ,for thhe reconciliation" rather than
> "Christ's death, for the reconciliation" - here the spacing around the
> punctuation differs from the original, but the original does not have
> an apostrophe: I would still say it would be better with an apostrophe
> for use now, but it may not be considered accurate to the original
> text).

Yes, there are those spelling errors left in the text. As for the
apostrophe, yes, I would agree that updating the text would be helpful,
so that it follows modern conventions.

> 
> Not wishing to find fault with what must have been a large job, just
> to note problems as I see them so it can be improved.

Thanks for looking at this.

The idea of entering this Commentary into the computer was so that it
could be used during our revision of some Bibles in Bantu languages. For
that reason I focused on speed of entry, rather than on accuracy. We
wanted to have something that would assist us, even if it contained some
errors. We have reached our goal: The commentary has been typed, and we
can display it in Xiphos or other front-ends, and we can use it during
the translation work. I therefore consider this project to have been
completed.

The text has been released under a free license, not only to allow
various packages to display it, but also so that others can pick up the
work where we left it. I'd encourage people to clone the text, host it
somewhere else as well, improve it, spread it, and so on. If crosswire
would like to host it, and make it one of their projects, I'd be glad.

Teus