[B-Greek] Searching the Archives
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sat Feb 5 08:02:18 EST 2011
On Feb 5, 2011, at 7:01 AM, Paul D. Nitz wrote:
> I'm looking for tips as to how to search the b-greek archives.
>
> Is there a way to do a "whole text" search?
> Subject and author searches seem limiting.
>
> If I could download the whole archive, I could use my desktop search engine (Copernica) to search. But I'm afraid that would take
> a) downloading dozens of zip files, and
> b) figuring out what free program I could use to un-zip "Gzip'd" texts.
(1) I'm not sure how many B-Greekers are aware of a recently-emergent B-Greek archive, The Pro Bible Project:
http://probible.net/
It goes back to May 2010. The arrangement allows ready discovery of categories and discussions of passages in particular biblical books. Threads are arranged so that the first message in a thread appears with its original header and responses are listed as comments upon that message. While I'm not 100% comfortable with the way this works, I think that there are pros and cons for just about any possible useful arrangement of the archived messages of this list; for the months that it has covered thus far, I'm grateful for its presence.
(2) Here's the section from a draft of a revised B-Greek FAQ under consideration:
--------
15. How can I search the B-Greek Archives for older discussions of matters of interest to me?
a. Formulate the Search Terms
The question must be formulated so as to bring the most useful results. I would note that, although you can search for scripture citations (e.g. Matthew 6:34), there's such variety of citation modes (Mt 6:34, Mt. 6:34, Mt 6.34, Mt. 6.34, ...) that no particular mode chosen is likely to hit on every item in the archives that deals with the text in question. I have found that a search that uses the standard B-Greek transliteration of a key word or phrase in the passage you're looking for makes a more serviceable search term for getting most of what's useful in the archives.1. You can use the following in a Google search box:
<search-term> site:http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/
I would note that, although you can search for scripture citations (e.g. Matthew 6:34), there's such variety of citation modes (Mt 6:34, Mt. 6:34, Mt 6.34, Mt. 6.34, Matt. 6:34, ..., Matthew 6:34 ...) that no particular mode chosen is likely to hit on every item in the archives that deals with the text in question. I have found that a search that uses the standard B-Greek transliteration of a key word or phrase in the passage you're looking for makes a more serviceable search term for getting most of what's useful in the archives. At any rate, CARIN OIDA PLEISTHN TWi IWSHFWi THS BOHQEIAS hENEKA.
b. Try using the BG Search “Bookmarklet” in your web browser. See:
http://macbiblioblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/b-greek-search-bookmarklet.html
This will take you to a page in Joe Weaks’ Macintosh Biblioblog explaining how to use a bookmark that can be put in the bookmarks bar of Firefox to open up at a click a box in which you can spell out your search terms that will be applied solely to the B-Greek archives.
c. If you want to search the Older Archives, easiest means (this will not work on the pipermail/b-greek/ archives) is to go to this web page:
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/archives/index.html
Type your search term(s) in the search field at the bottom of the page and then click on the "search" button.
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(3) One more note: Greek text in Unicode (UTF-8) searches will work for more recent times, but as the archives go back to Spring of 1992 (in the older archives, accessible at http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/archives/index.html), it won't work for very far back. Note that those older archives have a search engine at the bottom of the web-page.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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