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Digitizating and Annotating the Syriac Versions of the Old Testament

by Willem van Peursen | August 14, 2024 | AI, Computational Linguistics | 0 Comments

At the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Amsterdam, 29 July –1 August 2024, the Peshitta Institute Progress report was read. Part of this report was an update of our projects related to the Peshitta and Digital Humanities. That part of the...

Ethically Text-Mining social media: Bridging Innovation, Responsibility, and Collaboration

by Fan Li | November 2, 2023 | AI, events | 0 Comments

In October 2023, the Faculty of Religion and Theology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam organized two hackathon events for the Network Institute Research Visit project, titled "Live-mapping Religious Difference Online." This project explores the interaction between...

Two Hackathon events

by Willem van Peursen | September 27, 2023 | AI, Digital Approaches to Sacred Texts, events, linguistics, news, Social Media | 0 Comments

Live-mapping Religious Difference Online The interplay of Digital Society, religious texts mediated online, and live-mapping What is the feasibility of live-mapping the differential use of religious texts in social media to identify religious issues present across...

Could robots be religious?

by Willem van Peursen | December 15, 2022 | AI, Bible, Digital Approaches to Sacred Texts, events, news, Open Science | 0 Comments

On 12 December 2022 the Faculty of Religion and Theology of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the research institute and CLUE+ organized a workshop centered around the provocative question: could robots be religious? The timing couldn’t be more appropriate: about...

Applying Log-likelihood Computations to Pattern Recognition Results of Colibri-Core.

by Mathias Coeckelbergs | September 29, 2022 | AI, Bible, Digital Approaches to Sacred Texts, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, Peshitta, semantics, text linguistics | 0 Comments

In this third and final blogpost for the PaTraCoSy project (for the previous blogposts, click here or here), we delve deeper into the possibilities of the Colibri Core (CC) infrastructure to study the translation patterns between Hebrew and Syriac versions of the...

Morphological Parser for Inflectional Languages Using Deep Learning (Part I)

by Willem van Peursen | July 4, 2022 | AI, Computational Linguistics, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, methodology | 0 Comments

Willem van Peursen, Martijn Naaijer, Constantijn Sikkel, Mathias Coeckelbergs[1] “How can we make a Machine Learning (ML) based parser for the morphology of inflectional languages?” This question was the starting point for the project “Morphological Parser for...

Tracing Patterns across Translations. Applying Colibri Core Techniques to the Peshitta.

by Mathias Coeckelbergs | January 21, 2022 | AI, Bible, Computational Linguistics, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, methodology, Open Science, Peshitta, semantics, Syriac, text linguistics | 0 Comments

This second blogpost for the PaTraCoSy project brings us to a first discussion of the translation patterns from the Hebrew Bible into the Peshitta. Before we can address the results, we briefly describe how we constructed the model. After installation of Colibri Core,...

Aligning Hebrew and Syriac Genesis. Initial Results of the PaTraCoSy Project.

by Mathias Coeckelbergs | September 20, 2021 | AI, Bible, Computational Linguistics, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, Open Science, Peshitta, semantics, Syriac, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

This very first blogpost seeks to report on our advancements in the PaTraCoSy (PAtterns in TRAnslation: Using COlibriCore for the Hebrew Bible corpus and its SYriac translation) project, which is funded by CLARIAH. The overall goal of this project is to use the...

International Interest in the Course Digital Hermeneutics and the Reception of the Hebrew Bible

by Mark Klooster | October 26, 2020 | AI, Computational Linguistics, Database, Education, linguistics, Studies | 0 Comments

Tuesday morning (Amsterdam time), September 1st, was the start of the course Digital Hermeneutics and the Reception of the Hebrew Bible at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Because of the coronavirus, all lectures took place online via Zoom meetings. Although it...

Using a Neural Network to Parse Phrase Atoms in the DSS

by Mark Klooster | October 2, 2020 | AI, Bible, Computational Linguistics, Database, Hebrew Bible, Text-Fabric | 2 Comments

Programme online ETCBC meetings Fall semester 2020

by Willem van Peursen | September 1, 2020 | AI, Bible, Computational Linguistics, Database, events, Text-Fabric | 0 Comments

We are happy to announce the ETCBC meetings for the Fall semester. All meetings will be online through Zoom. Tuesday 22 September 2020, 11.00 am CET Text Features and Text Display in Text Fabric Dirk Roorda Text-Fabric, the Python package that...

Studying Syriac manuscripts in Minnesota

by Willem van Peursen | May 30, 2023 | Bible, manuscripts, Syriac | 0 Comments

By Geert Jan Veldman MA, Zwolle It happened often in conversations in the more southern parts of the United States of America, that a conversation partner asked me something like “Why on earth you want to visit one of the coldest parts of mainland USA?”, when I...

In Memoriam: James K. Aitken (1968-2023)

by Willem van Peursen | April 17, 2023 | Bible, Septuagint | 0 Comments

By Srecko Koralija It was with great sadness that I received the news that on Friday the 7th of April my PhD supervisor and professor James Aitken passed away after his second major heart attack. He was widely recognized as an outstanding scholar. He studied at the...

Could robots be religious?

by Willem van Peursen | December 15, 2022 | AI, Bible, Digital Approaches to Sacred Texts, events, news, Open Science | 0 Comments

Impressions of the Tenth Meeting of the International Organization for Targumic Studies

by Willem van Peursen | October 21, 2022 | Bible, events, manuscripts, Targum | 0 Comments

By Eveline van Staalduine-Sulman In July 2022 the International Organization for Targum Studies (IOTS) held its tenth meeting in Salzburg. There were, of course, some of the usual participants, but also surprisingly many new ones. We especially welcomed those from the...

Applying Log-likelihood Computations to Pattern Recognition Results of Colibri-Core.

by Mathias Coeckelbergs | September 29, 2022 | AI, Bible, Digital Approaches to Sacred Texts, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, Peshitta, semantics, text linguistics | 0 Comments

Tracing Patterns across Translations. Applying Colibri Core Techniques to the Peshitta.

by Mathias Coeckelbergs | January 21, 2022 | AI, Bible, Computational Linguistics, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, methodology, Open Science, Peshitta, semantics, Syriac, text linguistics | 0 Comments

Aligning Hebrew and Syriac Genesis. Initial Results of the PaTraCoSy Project.

by Mathias Coeckelbergs | September 20, 2021 | AI, Bible, Computational Linguistics, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, Open Science, Peshitta, semantics, Syriac, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

Using the ETCBC database for exploring social networks in Biblical law

by Christian Canu Højgaard | July 7, 2021 | Bible, Computational Linguistics, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, methodology, semantics, Social Network Analysis, Text-Fabric | 1 Comment

The Mosaic laws of the Torah are quite unusual, embedded as they are in the narrative of the Torah. Thus, they are not only commands and prohibitions but relate intrinsically to the grand storyline of Torah extending from creation to the impending conquest of...

The Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database – A New Start

by Klaas Spronk | March 9, 2021 | Bible, Database, Hebrew Bible, linguistics | 0 Comments

The Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database (SAHD) is a semantic thesaurus of classical Hebrew with the ambitious goal to collect and present as much relevant information as possible. This information includes a complete survey of the occurrences of the...

Digital Approaches to the Old Testament and Other Sacred Texts — Research Meetings Spring 2021

by Willem van Peursen | January 27, 2021 | Bible, Computational Linguistics, events, Hebrew Bible, Open Science, Text-Fabric, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

In the next months we will have an exciting schedule of research meetings and presentations. All will meetings will be online. For Zoom meetings send a request Prof. Wido van Peursen Thursday 4 Feb 2021 11.00–13.00 CET Wido van Peursen Digital Approaches to the Old...

The Brill Peshitta Portal Project

by Willem van Peursen | October 8, 2020 | Bible, Database, manuscripts, Peshitta, Syriac | 0 Comments

In cooperation with Brill publishers, the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (ETCBC) and the Peshitta Foundation have prepared an electronic version of Leiden Peshitta edition, Vetus Testamentum Syriace. With the recent publication of the volume containing...

Using a Neural Network to Parse Phrase Atoms in the DSS

by Mark Klooster | October 2, 2020 | AI, Bible, Computational Linguistics, Database, Hebrew Bible, Text-Fabric | 2 Comments

Programme online ETCBC meetings Fall semester 2020

by Willem van Peursen | September 1, 2020 | AI, Bible, Computational Linguistics, Database, events, Text-Fabric | 0 Comments

“Dark I am and/but lovely”

by Willem van Peursen | July 2, 2020 | Bible, Computational Linguistics, Database, events, Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Learning, linguistics, Translation | 0 Comments

(And why you should follow the new online minor programme in Bible Translation at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) By Lourens de Vries The Hebrew conjunction we in The Song of Solomon (1:5) can be rendered by “and” or “but” and translations have gone both ways. What’s a...

Building an Amharic lens to the languages of the Bible

by Willem van Peursen | December 3, 2019 | Bible, Hebrew Classroom, Hebrew Learning, linguistics, news, Open Science, Translation | 0 Comments

A new project We are excited to announce the start of a new project for the development of an Amharic version of the Bible Online Learner that will be a unique cooperation between the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (ETCBC), the Ethiopian Graduate School of...

Integrating BHSA Data with Wider Biblical Resources on Desktop and Mobile Platforms

by Eliran Wong | October 30, 2019 | Bible, Database, Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Learning, Open Science, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

It was my pleasure to give a brief overview of BibleBento.com on the 40th anniversary of the ETCBC. I would like to share a little bit more here, including progress of the development since the presentation. I am a full-time church minister. I like collecting Bible...

Phrase and Syntax Search for the Layperson

by Stephen Ku | August 30, 2019 | Bible, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, Open Science, Text-Fabric | 0 Comments

eRhema’s primary goal is to provide a free tool that enables the layperson to explore the Bible in its original languages. While Bible translations are indispensable, meanings are inevitably lost even in the finest translations. Ideally, every serious student of the...

Word Games For Learning Biblical Languages

by Daniel Semler | May 17, 2019 | Bible, Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Classroom, Hebrew Learning | 0 Comments

When I was young I used to do wordsearch puzzles all the time. They were of course in my native language, English. But they helped me learn to recognise many words very quickly and to pick them out of a page. In learning the languages of the bible one thing that is...

Linguistic Dating and the Tiberias Stylistic Classifier for the Hebrew Bible

by Joshua Berman | May 7, 2019 | Bible, Hebrew Bible, methodology, Stylistics | 0 Comments

This past January my Bar-Ilan University colleague, the computational linguist Moshe Koppel and I launched the Tiberias Stylistic Classifier for the Hebrew Bible (https://tiberias.dicta.org.il/#/ ). Tiberias marshals cutting edge advances in the field of machine...

Digital Tools for the Study of Biblical Hebrew

by Camil Staps | November 5, 2018 | Bible, Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Classroom, Hebrew Learning | 0 Comments

Having more and more texts available digitally enables us to create simple but effective study tools. While the value of traditional learning techniques and a great deal of practice must not be underestimated, some digital tools can reinforce such a learning style. As...

Bootcamp: NLP tools for Syriac, 17–18 January 2019

by Willem van Peursen | September 11, 2018 | Bible, events, linguistics | 0 Comments

In the CLARIAH funded project “LinkSyr: Linking Syriac Data”, the Eep...

The Value of Open Data: An Explanation and an Exhortation

by James Cuénod | August 28, 2018 | Bible, Hebrew Learning | 1 Comment

As August 2018 approaches, I enter my eighth year of full-time biblical/theological research. Even before that, a trove of the scholarly world had been available to me as I flipped open James Strong's 1894 Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. In this formidable...

Hebrew in Mexico with the Bible Online Learner

by Willem van Peursen | July 10, 2018 | Bible, Hebrew Classroom, Hebrew Learning, news, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

By Janet Dyk Several years ago, after deciding that what I missed here in Holland was white water and after being unable to book a suitable rafting expedition in Belgium (in the summer the water in the rivers is too low for rafting and in the fall when there is enough...

Text-hierarchic trees in the ETCBC database

by Dirk Bakker | January 11, 2018 | Bible | 0 Comments

Textual hierarchy The topmost linguistic level in the ETCBC analysis deals with textual hierarchy: decoding the linguistic cohesion of a written text. The point of departure is the assumption that a text is not just a linear arrangement of clauses, but that these...

Digitizating and Annotating the Syriac Versions of the Old Testament

by Willem van Peursen | August 14, 2024 | AI, Computational Linguistics | 0 Comments

When Religion Meets Technology: A Dive into Day 2 of the Hackathon “Live-mapping Religious Difference Online”

by Johannes Froeh | November 3, 2023 | Computational Linguistics, Digital Approaches to Sacred Texts, events, Social Media, Social Network Analysis | 0 Comments

Picture this: a room buzzing with energy, pizza boxes stacked high, soft drinks at every table, rapid Wi-Fi connectivity, and scholars engrossed in their laptops, training AI models. It might not be the first image that springs to mind when you think of theologians...

Morphological Parser for Inflectional Languages Using Deep Learning (Part I)

by Willem van Peursen | July 4, 2022 | AI, Computational Linguistics, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, methodology | 0 Comments

Tracing Patterns across Translations. Applying Colibri Core Techniques to the Peshitta.

by Mathias Coeckelbergs | January 21, 2022 | AI, Bible, Computational Linguistics, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, methodology, Open Science, Peshitta, semantics, Syriac, text linguistics | 0 Comments

Aligning Hebrew and Syriac Genesis. Initial Results of the PaTraCoSy Project.

by Mathias Coeckelbergs | September 20, 2021 | AI, Bible, Computational Linguistics, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, Open Science, Peshitta, semantics, Syriac, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

Using the ETCBC database for exploring social networks in Biblical law

by Christian Canu Højgaard | July 7, 2021 | Bible, Computational Linguistics, Hebrew Bible, linguistics, methodology, semantics, Social Network Analysis, Text-Fabric | 1 Comment

Translating the Bible with the help of SHEBANQ

by Bas Meeuse | March 15, 2021 | Computational Linguistics, Database, Education, Hebrew Bible, SHEBANQ, Translation | 0 Comments

Data analysis is very important in the translation and research of the source text of the Hebrew Bible. With data analysis, translation choices can be better supported if you know how to use the tools available. Understanding the syntactical structures of the source...

Digital Approaches to the Old Testament and Other Sacred Texts — Research Meetings Spring 2021

by Willem van Peursen | January 27, 2021 | Bible, Computational Linguistics, events, Hebrew Bible, Open Science, Text-Fabric, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

International Interest in the Course Digital Hermeneutics and the Reception of the Hebrew Bible

by Mark Klooster | October 26, 2020 | AI, Computational Linguistics, Database, Education, linguistics, Studies | 0 Comments

Using a Neural Network to Parse Phrase Atoms in the DSS

by Mark Klooster | October 2, 2020 | AI, Bible, Computational Linguistics, Database, Hebrew Bible, Text-Fabric | 2 Comments

Programme online ETCBC meetings Fall semester 2020

by Willem van Peursen | September 1, 2020 | AI, Bible, Computational Linguistics, Database, events, Text-Fabric | 0 Comments

“Dark I am and/but lovely”

by Willem van Peursen | July 2, 2020 | Bible, Computational Linguistics, Database, events, Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Learning, linguistics, Translation | 0 Comments

Lorentz Workshop 2020: Processing Ancient Text Corpora

by Alba de Ridder | March 13, 2020 | Computational Linguistics, events, linguistics, manuscripts, methodology, news, Text-Fabric | 0 Comments

From 14-21 February of 2020, the Lorentz-workshop “Processing Ancient Text Corpora”, organized by Cody Kingham, Wido van Peursen, Dirk Roorda and Nicolai Winther-Nielsen, in collaboration with the NIAS, took place. It was organized in the very comfortable...

The Conversion of Features of the Biblical DSS to ETCBC Encoding

by Martijn Naaijer | March 3, 2020 | Computational Linguistics, Hebrew Bible, Text-Fabric | 0 Comments

New Text-Fabric module: The Dead Sea Scrolls

by Martijn Naaijer | May 14, 2019 | Computational Linguistics, Database, Hebrew Bible, Text-Fabric | 0 Comments

Bootcamp on NLP tools for Syriac

by Constantijn Sikkel | January 23, 2019 | Computational Linguistics, Text-Fabric | 0 Comments

On 17-18 January, the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (ETCBC) organised a 'boot camp' on NLP tools for Syriac. The response was a bit overwhelming; we had to close the registration well before the deadline, because the limit of twenty-five participants was...

(Re)fuelling Text-Fabric: Updating ETCBC’s Public Data Sources

by Christiaan Erwich | September 21, 2018 | Computational Linguistics, Database, linguistics, methodology, Open Science, SHEBANQ, text linguistics, Text-Fabric | 1 Comment

The research data developed at the ETCBC is live data. The researchers at the ETCBC continuously develop new (theoretical) insights about the research data of the Hebrew Bible and other ancient corpora (e.g. inscriptions from Qumran), review encoding mistakes, and...

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