RE: [Synoptic-L] Re: Synoptic Concordance?

From: Stephen C. Carlson (scarlson@mindspring.com)
Date: Sat Sep 18 1999 - 16:59:58 EDT


At 08:04 AM 9/17/99 -0400, Thomas R. W. Longstaff wrote:
>I strongly agree with Wieland and have not used a printed concordance in
>years. It seems to me that electronic resources (such as Gramcord,
>Accordance, Bibleworks, and others) give us a range of options and
>capabilities that far exceed those of printed concordances. I would be
>interested to hear from any participants who have found ways in which
>printed concordances provide information important for our studies that we
>cannot get with the electronic versions. Indeed, I even believe that
>synopses will evolve in the direction of electronic rather than print
>media - although we are at the early stages of that evolution.

I'm not aware of electronic resources that will match up the synoptic
parallels for you (though I hope to discover some at the booths at
SBL), but even so, I feel that, aside from the searching and look up,
many paper resources are simply more practicable and easier on the
eyes to read. (There are exceptions: e.g. UBS4!)

I think that paper currently has the following advantages over
electronic:

1. Greek text is displayed better on paper. A lot the Greek
    electronic fonts in my experience are clunky and ugly at
    the resolutions commonly supported by monitors.

2. I like to have a lot of different books open and spread out
    over my work area to facilitate checking each resources. On
    the other hand, multiple windows clutter my screen and dog my
    computer's performance.

3. While it is easier to search for a particular word in an
    electronic resource, it is easier to browse for no word
    in particular in a paper resource.

4. Jim West pointed out the low-tech advantages when power
    goes out. (Advantageous only in the day though.)

At any rate, synoptic concordances, whether paper or electronic,
suffer from many of the same problems as "neutral" synopses that
were identified by Dungan.

Stephen Carlson

--
Stephen C. Carlson                        mailto:scarlson@mindspring.com
Synoptic Problem Home Page   http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35

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