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Sunday, November 03, 2002 |
On of the items that has puzzled me most about using XML as the storage mechanism for the Bible is that sometimes items overlap. For example, the words of Jesus begin in the middle of one verse and end in the middle of another and notes that may be made on a passage will often cross verse boundaries. So what you might ask. Well, XML doesn't support this. One tag cannot cross another tag. To deal with this issue you need Concurrent Markup which is not natively supported in XML.
One workaround can be found at Implementing Concurrent Markup in XML which links to a more detailed write-up by Patrick Durusau and Matthew Brook O'Donnell (I don't know these guys I am just pulling their info from the paper.) Unfortunately, based on my cursory read of this article, the solution is rather complicated to say the least. Presumably there is not anything better. My approach was to add a begin attribute at the beginning of a verse and specify how many words into the verse before the note/quote began. The end tag would work the same way. Not much of a solution I know but it wouldn't be that difficult to process either. I will have to investigate the specified concurrent markup solution further assuming that the OSIS schema doesn't handle it inherently.
10:16:14 PM
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Yesterday, I came across an article entitled Color Me Meaningful: A fresh approach to studying the Bible that appeared in the February 1986 of HIS Magazine. I am very excited to have found this because I used to have the original but after lending it to someone I never got it back. I think it is a great resource for introducing folks to the Manuscript Bible Study method taught by InterVarsity. Information about obtaining manuscripts is available here. A PDF description of the method is also available.
While coming across the Color Me Meaningful article, I also bumped in to information on the Inductive Bible Study Method or what appears to be now known as the "Communal Discovery Bible Study Method" (yucky name IMHO). Anyway, when I do an in-depth Bible study I combine these two methods together and it is by far the most insightful means of Bible study I have come across and it is great to have resources that I can direct people to for more information.
6:32:58 AM
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After many searches on several different search sites I failed to identify a website that had a Standard Bible XML schema defined. Today, however, Corey pointed out one out the Open Scriptural Information Standard (OSIS). On this site you can download both the 1.1 schema as well as a sample KJV Bible that uses the schema. Thanks Corey! This is a very exciting find for me. I only wish I could go to the conferences that are mentioned. There is clearly a ton of stuff here and I have lots to learn.
By the way, I came across a site that reviews Bible Study software today. Based on a cursory perusal, it is not very detailed but it at least lists the major parties involved.
6:28:21 AM
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© Copyright 2004 Mark Michaelis.
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