Statistics for Biblical Scholars

From: Jonathan Robie (74144.2360@compuserve.com)
Date: Fri Jul 26 1996 - 13:04:06 EDT


> For instance: suppose that in 1 Cor. 8-10 the average sentence length is
> 15 (bypassing the problem: 'what is a sentence'??...). Is it then
> statistically crorrect to say that a sentence of e.g., 45 words is
> something special? 35? 25? 5? I recall there were some pretty simple rules
> about that.

You need more information than this. The key term is "distribution". You have to
know how the data are distributed, not just the average. (I think you really do
need to do some reading on statistics, or bring in someone who is up on this).

For instance, suppose our data looks like this:

average length: 15
Total sentences: 100
Total words: 1500
Sentences with 45 words: 30
Sentences with 2 words: 60
Sentences with 1 word: 10

I didn't fudge the numbers completely enough to make this work exactly, but you
get the idea. In this scenario, a sentence with 45 words is no big deal, even if
it differs significantly from average. You simply have to know the distribution
of your data.

Jonathan



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