Apocrypha Support

Ideas and suggestions about new features
DrMiKEY
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Post by DrMiKEY »

That's not a problem, I have them in zefania format also.

Hope the converter is fixed soon! :D

MiKEY
csterg
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Post by csterg »

DrMiKEY wrote:That's not a problem, I have them in zefania format also.

Hope the converter is fixed soon! :D

MiKEY
Will do my best!
johannes
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Post by johannes »

Check out the following post for KJV and Luther1912 apocrypha:
http://forum.theword.gr/viewtopic.php?t=530
MsLile
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Post by MsLile »

For a last note: i know that there are many dear brothers that disagree with this position, and I am sure that we will all know better when we meet in heaven.
In Christ,
Costas

You will find this sister-in-Christ, in full agreement, having a husband and myself being in the ministry for 45 years in the evangelical church movement here in the USA. Thanks for all the work that you do of getting out the "pure" Word of GOD. There are so many devirsions going around and the attack upon GOD's Word is unbelievable at times, but it is going on, sometimes "shock and awe" ( mostly "shock" )
:shock:
MsLile
DrMiKEY
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Post by DrMiKEY »

MsLile wrote: ... There are so many devirsions going around and the attack upon GOD's Word is unbelievable at times, but it is going on, sometimes "shock and awe" ( mostly "shock" ) ...
Can't agree with you more:
Rev 22:18,19 wrote:If any man shall add to these things, God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from these things that are written in this book.
For those interested, I have posted Catholic Deuterocanonical Books from Douay Rheims and Vulgate to Aarons share site in the Shared folder:
http://www.4shared.com/dir/7906210/c141 ... aring.html

Enjoy
Gratias
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Post by Gratias »

I have been waiting for 2 years just to be able to read the deutero-canonical scriptures in the word, so I will have to stick to e-sword. The word so far ignores the Bible as the largest group of Christians read it, very sorry to say. Nice software for protestants.
csterg
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Post by csterg »

Gratias wrote:I have been waiting for 2 years just to be able to read the deutero-canonical scriptures in the word, so I will have to stick to e-sword. The word so far ignores the Bible as the largest group of Christians read it, very sorry to say. Nice software for protestants.
Hello Gratias,
I believe that the issue for deutero-canonical scriptures has been addressed in detail in other threads. I do not ignore the issue at all, as i do not ignore anyone who is asking for a feature.

What i don't understand is why you expected that they would be included now?
I never said anything like that, on the contrary i made clear my position on this issue enough times.
I did say that they will be included as general books though, and this will be done. If this is what you are referring to, then the answer is that it's not my priority for now: anyone is very welcome to undertake this, since i have purposefully provided all the tools and information to do this.

Please, don't forget that the last 2 years that you were waiting, i have been working hard with absolutely no compensation on TW. Don't you think it's a bit hard to express yourself like that?

Also, I am not trying to compete with anyone nor make TW a software to make everyone happy. I think this is obvious or else it would have been on the same track as many other freeware apps that aim in 'getting popular fast'.

I am really sad for this comment,
Costas
Douglas
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Post by Douglas »

csterg wrote:
Gratias wrote:I have been waiting for 2 years just to be able to read the deutero-canonical scriptures in the word, so I will have to stick to e-sword. The word so far ignores the Bible as the largest group of Christians read it, very sorry to say. Nice software for protestants.
Hello Gratias,
I believe that the issue for deutero-canonical scriptures has been addressed in detail in other threads. I do not ignore the issue at all, as i do not ignore anyone who is asking for a feature.

What i don't understand is why you expected that they would be included now?
I never said anything like that, on the contrary i made clear my position on this issue enough times.
I did say that they will be included as general books though, and this will be done. If this is what you are referring to, then the answer is that it's not my priority for now: anyone is very welcome to undertake this, since i have purposefully provided all the tools and information to do this.

Please, don't forget that the last 2 years that you were waiting, i have been working hard with absolutely no compensation on TW. Don't you think it's a bit hard to express yourself like that?

Also, I am not trying to compete with anyone nor make TW a software to make everyone happy. I think this is obvious or else it would have been on the same track as many other freeware apps that aim in 'getting popular fast'.

I am really sad for this comment,
Costas
Costas, keep up the great work!
Douglas Hamp
Glory to God in the highest!
mathetes
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Post by mathetes »

Costas, you're doing a great job! Most of us appreciate very much what you're doing. It would be hard to know exactly how much of the apochrypha to support if it was used as a Bible text. Would you use the books included in the 1611 KJV, the Catholic apochrypha or the Orthodox apochrypha? It probably is best to have them available as books.
DrMiKEY
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Post by DrMiKEY »

@Gratias:
I don't see where the problem is when you can have the deuterocanonical scriptures as books!
I have uploaded the catholic deuterocanonical books from the Douay-Rhiems, Vulgate, and the KJV (apocrypha)
They are in the shared folder at this site: http://www.4shared.com/dir/7906210/c141 ... aring.html
These have been available since the starting of September.

Where is the problem? I am Catholic and I have no problem with the software since their is a possibility to add books i.e. the deuterocanoical books.

You can search through these books the same way you would the rest of the scripture.

Also, _david_ made a good point. Different books are used by different denominations.
Not even all orthodox use the same books, for example the Ethiopian Orthodoxy include the Book of Enoch which as far as I know is apocryphal to all others.
The possibility to add books allows others to add the books that they need.

As to the scriptures included in TW, as far as I know (correct me if I am wrong) all denominations uses these.
Gratias, are their any books that you do not use in the present TW?
That wouldn't be the case for the protestants if the DC where included.


Keep up the great work Costas
PastorDave
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Post by PastorDave »

csterg wrote:
DrMiKEY wrote:I don't know, just a thought...

Presently the converter recognizes these books, for example in the Zefania DRB, as apocryphal.
Would it be dificult to make an option in the converter to include these.

In the bible view, their is a list of Books, either OT or NT.
If a bible version doesnt contain either, these are not displayed, like with the Septuagint

Would it be posible to enable this also for these books that are parts of the bible versions?

Like with the mentioned Septuagint:
Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus Sirach, Baruch, Epistle of Jeremy (which later became chapter 6 of Baruch in the Vulgate), additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, Sosanna and Bel and the Dragon), additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes, including the Prayer of Manasses, and Psalm 151

...are all parts of the original Septuagint, so shouldn't they be included so that the Septuagint (as well as the Vulgate, DRB, ...) are in their "original" form, at least according to the originals they were transcribed from. I have found the the Zefania contain these books.

I am not saying that all of these books are deuterocanonical by all, but it would be nteresting to see also what others read.

I feel that some apocrypha, for example Enoch, could be included in the book view, even though they are considered apocrypheal by all christans except Ethiopian Orthodox.


So in sort I am wondering, is it problematic to make it part of the Bible view? Programming? Referencing to other versions that don't contain these books? I am willing to donate when such possabilities are capable.

PS: love this program how easy it is to use and all the functions.

MiKEY
Hello MiKEY,
the program was designed from the beginning to conform to the Masoretic OT. Technically, this means that it is really difficult to support the apocrypha. The LXX does not contain the apocrypha and there have been some verse adjustments (where the original verse number is included in parenthesis) to make it usable with the program.

But this was not a random decision, the reason was that i don't believe that the apocrypha or deuterocanonical are part of the Bible. I know there are differing opinions out there (for which i don't want to engage in a discussion in this forum), but i had to make a choice according to what I believe is God's Word.
I think that these books have historical value and they should be included as reference books. The 'General book' functionallity serves this purpose very well in 2 perspectives:
1. It can support random hierachical books (so no problem with any versification)
2. It implicitly makes clear that these are reference books, not books of the Bible (i do argue from my point of view).

"The Word" is not just a tool to accommodate any 'holy book'. I could probably make it easy enough to put the Koran in the Bible view and have an even broader user base, but this is not my purpose. "The Word" is a program to study the Bible, primarily. This is why it's internal structure is designed in a way to do exactly this and nothing more.

I believe that the design of the program is according to the purpose of the whole effort, e.g. to bring a quality program for free to study the Word of God; it's not to make money or be 'stretched' to included things outside it's original purpose. I wouldn't know what i would have to answer to God otherwise.

For a last note: i know that there are many dear brothers that disagree with this position, and I am sure that we will all know better when we meet in heaven.
In Christ,
Costas
Costas, may I make a comment here, please?

I completely understand your view about the Apocrypha not being part of God's word, of course. :)

However, in that decision, I think you are also deciding what has and has not been printed already and in doing so, are making an erroneous judgment. Allow me to explain.

What I mean is; It isn't about whether or not it's part of God's real, true word. It's about what was been printed in an actual book with paper pages and a cover, etc..

In other words, if I can go and pick up off the shelf; "The King James Version w/Apocrypha" and someone makes a module of this exact Bible, then "The Word" should display everything that's in that Bible and not exclude certain parts of it.

Costas, there are a lot of translations out there that are not all "God's word". I mean just look at the perversions of the texts out there! Gender sensitive Bibles and Bibles that take out parts, even Christ's Lordship in many places, homo friendly Bibles, feminist Bibles, etc., etc.!

And yet, all of these can be put into "The Word" just fine as modules and all of their text will display. So your censorship of Bible mods is not consistent. <laugh> :)

And please don't take this next statement as being mean, because it's only meant as a statement of logic, but if you're going to take the approach of "It's not God's word", then shouldn't you be consistent and not allow these perverted translations to load into "The Word"?

Do you see what I mean, Costas???

And as a side note, although I know your intent was pure, I don't really think that your comment about the Koran is a fair comparison. :)

Now as for me, I have these other Bible translations and use them mainly for laughs. :) But all seriousness aside, I also use them to show others how badly the word of God has been and does get perverted and so, I would not want you taking away from my ability to do that. Of course, I'm not saying that you are trying to do that.

But my point is, let the Bible modules display what came with the Bibles in print. No more, no less. Because THAT is what the Bible view window is about and not any one man's opinion about what is and isn't okay to read for a Bible, as these other mods displaying prove. Nor does letting them display mean that you do not care about God's word. Some people just want to look at them and don't want to have to install two different modules, nor have to go to two different book views to do it.

Costas, I am saying that it is simply about displaying different Bible versions/translations and some we will agree with and some we won't agree with, but the program should just display it, not judge it, amen? :)

I.e, If it says it's displaying the "King James Version w/Apocrypha" then IMO, it should be doing that and it doesn't make sense for the Apocrypha not to be in it when one loads that specific module that someone created, or converted over from an e-Sword module, amen? :)

After all, if the program will judge our modules for us and censor out some stuff, how can we really trust it? We'll always wonder if something that's in the module is being held back from being displayed, since you did say that you made that decision with regard to the Apocrypha and I know that I don't want to be questioning my Bible software, nor what judgments the programmer of it is making about what I can view.

Would you want the programmer of "M$ Word" to do that? What if Billy himself said that M$ Office won't display any documents from Apple corp, because they're not "M$ friendly"?

I know we're talking about the word of God here, but again, if that's what someone would answer, saying that doesn't compare, then I would have to go back to what I was saying above about the perverted translations/versions displaying just fine in The Word, amen?

Anyway, that's my 1.5 cents worth. :)
csterg
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Post by csterg »

Hi Dave,
you have made good points and I appreciate them, really.
The issue with apocrypha is not that simple to explain, although it is clear in my mind. If i was creating a software just to make money, i would have thought differently. But I didn't invest all these years in TW for money!

I feel I have a responsibility towards God about it. I hear your arguments, and to be honest i have thought EXACTLY the same things when i decided what to do. I decided to go with what i read and understand in God's word and with my conscience.

Some quick answers to the points you say:
1. I don't have any "KJV with apocrypha" module. I will have a KJV Bible, and i will have a "KJV-apocrypha book comanion". I am sure you get the difference here.
2. Any text split in 31102 lines can be displayed in the Bible view, be that the Koran or the 'best recipes of Greece'. This means nothing. The reason that the program is setup like this, does not mean it censors something. It is just a technical division that is based on the fact of what I believe to be God's word.
3. Did you know that Excel (until version 2003) only supported 65535 rows? Do you know that this means you cannot put in the Excel the whole Bible where each word takes 1 line? Does this mean that MS censors the Bible? Of course not ... (you get the idea)
4. You well said that you want the apocrypha as an add-on to read (for historical reasons or whatever). At the same time, we all know that we use the text of the Bible to count words, find references, etc. If the Apocrypha were part of the Bible, wouldn't that confuse so many people who try to find how the word 'God' is used? Because the results would include texts that are not part of it! Do you see why the Bible view should only contain the Bible?

Please, let NOT this expand to any type of theological discussion. I am only explaining here the technical decisions i took concerning TW, which (of course) are based on my theological 'bias', as anybody's decisions are.

Costas
PastorDave
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Post by PastorDave »

csterg wrote:Hi Dave,
you have made good points and I appreciate them, really.
The issue with apocrypha is not that simple to explain, although it is clear in my mind. If i was creating a software just to make money, i would have thought differently. But I didn't invest all these years in TW for money!

I feel I have a responsibility towards God about it. I hear your arguments, and to be honest i have thought EXACTLY the same things when i decided what to do. I decided to go with what i read and understand in God's word and with my conscience.

Some quick answers to the points you say:
1. I don't have any "KJV with apocrypha" module. I will have a KJV Bible, and i will have a "KJV-apocrypha book comanion". I am sure you get the difference here.
2. Any text split in 31102 lines can be displayed in the Bible view, be that the Koran or the 'best recipes of Greece'. This means nothing. The reason that the program is setup like this, does not mean it censors something. It is just a technical division that is based on the fact of what I believe to be God's word.
3. Did you know that Excel (until version 2003) only supported 65535 rows? Do you know that this means you cannot put in the Excel the whole Bible where each word takes 1 line? Does this mean that MS censors the Bible? Of course not ... (you get the idea)
4. You well said that you want the apocrypha as an add-on to read (for historical reasons or whatever). At the same time, we all know that we use the text of the Bible to count words, find references, etc. If the Apocrypha were part of the Bible, wouldn't that confuse so many people who try to find how the word 'God' is used? Because the results would include texts that are not part of it! Do you see why the Bible view should only contain the Bible?

Please, let NOT this expand to any type of theological discussion. I am only explaining here the technical decisions i took concerning TW, which (of course) are based on my theological 'bias', as anybody's decisions are.

Costas
Okay. Let's just say I'm right and your wrong and leave it that then, okay? <lol> :)

Btw, did you really expect Billy Gate$$$ to support the Bible in his software? <laugh!> :)
Skip_a_roo
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Don't want to get my nose snipped but.......................

Post by Skip_a_roo »

Dave,

I sent you a pm. Did you get it? If so, please respond.

Thanks!

Here is my comment on the whole thing. Remember, this opinion and $5 will get you a real nice cup of coffee at Starbucks, of course, almost everything is $5 there! ;)

If The Word doesn't offer a module, or a Bible or whatever, because the author decides not to, why do we try to change them to honor our request when we pay nothing for the product? That seems just absurd to me. I understand if I buy a car and it is supposed to have a certain function and doesn't that I have a case for my feelings. If someone was to give me the car, fuel it so I could get to work, and pay my insurance for me, would I complain that the color was wrong? Only if I was an ungrateful ignoramus.

Costas, thanks for the car, the fuel and the insurance, I'm going to use it no matter what color it is! If I find I don't like something about it, I'll choose to use a different car that I may have to pay for all of those things myself! ;)

p.s. esword has a module like you describe, it's free too! I would suggest you use it, Dave.
PastorDave
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Re: Don't want to get my nose snipped but...................

Post by PastorDave »

Skip_a_roo wrote:Dave,

I sent you a pm. Did you get it? If so, please respond.

Thanks!

Here is my comment on the whole thing. Remember, this opinion and $5 will get you a real nice cup of coffee at Starbucks, of course, almost everything is $5 there! ;)

If The Word doesn't offer a module, or a Bible or whatever, because the author decides not to, why do we try to change them to honor our request when we pay nothing for the product? That seems just absurd to me. I understand if I buy a car and it is supposed to have a certain function and doesn't that I have a case for my feelings. If someone was to give me the car, fuel it so I could get to work, and pay my insurance for me, would I complain that the color was wrong? Only if I was an ungrateful ignoramus.

Costas, thanks for the car, the fuel and the insurance, I'm going to use it no matter what color it is! If I find I don't like something about it, I'll choose to use a different car that I may have to pay for all of those things myself! ;)

p.s. esword has a module like you describe, it's free too! I would suggest you use it, Dave.
I don't remember who sent me the last PM I received, but it was rude, so I deleted it.

As for the program, people can make suggestions, even if you don't think they should be able to. In fact, that's one of the sections of the forum here.

And as for people talking about colors, that is why there are skin choices in "The Word". SO you can have that different color. See? :)

I made a request. Costas said no. I disagree with him, but I accepted what Costas said, as it is his program and my last comment was said in humor and I'm sure he knew that.

You do know what smiley's mean, right? :)
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