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Bible API

bible-api.com

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Re: Bible API

#72
post #58

One of the most interesting things to happen to the scriptures is their balkanization into verses. We generally don't atomize other writings that way, and when folks read the scriptures as a series of disconnected logical propositions all sorts of wackiness ensues. What would it look like to have an API for the collected works of Jane Austen that returned snippets (some of which are not even complete sentences)? How…

> That hermeneutic - texts are collections of independent logical propositions - was essentially unknown in the ancient world, and cedes immense epistemological ground to the project of the enlightenment that is diametrically opposed to a Christian reading of the Scriptures, which emphasizes their unity and their role in liturgical worship.

I just had to quote that sentence construction without comment.

But to reply to it more coarsely: who are you to define what a "Christian reading" of the bible is? As I see it, watching from outside the community, the piecewise selective quoting is very much a fundamental part of the practice of Christianity in the modern world -- especially of the evangelical Christianity that dominates in the USA.

I mean, I agree it's dumb. I just don't see why it's not "Christian". Christians are what Christians do.

Re: Bible API

#73
post #69
post #5

Nice API. Still, it's a little like a Shakespeare API that supports only Portuguese and Chinese. It would be great to include the original languages.

The problem (which Shakespeare also has[1]) is that there are numerous versions of the texts in their original languages, with no particularly definitive or even consistent editions of the Old Testament in Hebrew or the New Testament in Greek AFAIK. Not to mention, the original Mosaic writings have been completely lost to time, having been written in Ugaritic and not Hebrew. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_te…

> Not to mention, the original Mosaic writings have been completely lost to time, having been written in Ugaritic and not Hebrew.

Where did you get the bit about the Torah originally being written in Ugaritic? What scholarly sources say that?

Re: Bible API

#74
post #69
post #5

Nice API. Still, it's a little like a Shakespeare API that supports only Portuguese and Chinese. It would be great to include the original languages.

The problem (which Shakespeare also has[1]) is that there are numerous versions of the texts in their original languages, with no particularly definitive or even consistent editions of the Old Testament in Hebrew or the New Testament in Greek AFAIK. Not to mention, the original Mosaic writings have been completely lost to time, having been written in Ugaritic and not Hebrew. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_te…

The gold standard for the Greek text of the New Testament is the critical edition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Testamentum_Graece) published by Nestle-Aland.

Re: Bible API

#75
post #56
post #42

Edit: my bad, I literally clicked on an example link provided in the page, which clearly shows the same URL format I used in my post, and edited the URL to have the strings for the Luke passage. I see that's the wrong syntax. Safari must be doing something funny… nope, that wasn't it. It was me, not noticing that %20 was an encoded + since it was mashed together with another number which threw me off. Earlier questio…

I have the impression you purposefully messed the URL so you could leave that snarky comment.

For the record, that's not what happened, but I can see how you might suspect that. Updated the comment with an explanation.

Re: Bible API

#76
post #53
post #42

Edit: my bad, I literally clicked on an example link provided in the page, which clearly shows the same URL format I used in my post, and edited the URL to have the strings for the Luke passage. I see that's the wrong syntax. Safari must be doing something funny… nope, that wasn't it. It was me, not noticing that %20 was an encoded + since it was mashed together with another number which threw me off. Earlier questio…

[deleted]

Thanks!

Re: Bible API

#77
So absurd how people are really reading this.

How can you take so much time on this Text while ignoring all issues this Text contains? All the contradictions? All the advise which is either sexist, rassist, homophobe, non homophobe etc.?

I really really want to know, what other people think, when they read the bible every week like in a bible study, just to either: - Following it - Not following it but finding an excuse why certain things are ignored - Don't follow it and don't bring up any excuse.

How many Christians do you know, who are dicks?

How many people here are reading the Bible, believe in this stuff and don't get out and help others?

Fuck you all hypocrites reading the bible, believing in god and doing shit for society because of a comfortable / easy living and shitty excuses.

Re: Bible API

#78
post #58

One of the most interesting things to happen to the scriptures is their balkanization into verses. We generally don't atomize other writings that way, and when folks read the scriptures as a series of disconnected logical propositions all sorts of wackiness ensues. What would it look like to have an API for the collected works of Jane Austen that returned snippets (some of which are not even complete sentences)? How…

The Bible was not written as single work the way novels like Persuasion are though. It is really a collection of books of very different origins and genre. Some books are laws where individual rules can be examined and there are collections of proverbs. But there are also parts which are longer narratives.

Re: Bible API

#79
post #58

One of the most interesting things to happen to the scriptures is their balkanization into verses. We generally don't atomize other writings that way, and when folks read the scriptures as a series of disconnected logical propositions all sorts of wackiness ensues. What would it look like to have an API for the collected works of Jane Austen that returned snippets (some of which are not even complete sentences)? How…

Is "balkanization" really a general term for "dividing into parts" ? I think some sort of both internal and geopolitical strife needs to be involved.

And verses are not disconnected logical propositions, they are a structure between a sentence and a chapter aka. a paragraph. If anything - the grouping of verses into chapters is far more arbitrary than that of sentences into verses.

Re: Bible API

#80
post #58

One of the most interesting things to happen to the scriptures is their balkanization into verses. We generally don't atomize other writings that way, and when folks read the scriptures as a series of disconnected logical propositions all sorts of wackiness ensues. What would it look like to have an API for the collected works of Jane Austen that returned snippets (some of which are not even complete sentences)? How…

> That hermeneutic - texts are collections of independent logical propositions - was essentially unknown in the ancient world, and cedes immense epistemological ground to the project of the enlightenment that is diametrically opposed to a Christian reading of the Scriptures, which emphasizes their unity and their role in liturgical worship. I just had to quote that sentence construction without comment. But to reply…

Sure - by "Christian reading", I mean something like the practice of the ancient church that canonized the scriptures. That there should be normative Christian practice and reading is, perhaps, controversial, but a claim I'm happy to make. Modern American evangelicals who read the scriptures that way are doing it wrong and should knock it off.

The scriptures weren't atomized into verses until scholars of the 15th century wanted to work on them. The practice you see today is an outgrowth of that epistemology, and greatly to the detriment of Christian witness, theology, and practice.

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