BRiefs

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Westminster Scholars Complete Computerized Hebrew Bible Project

A team of Old Testament scholars at Westminster Theological Seminary, headed by assistant professor J. Alan Groves, has completed work on a computerized version of the Hebrew Bible.

Groves notes that while computer-assisted research on the Hebrew Bible has been in progress for a number of years, study has been hindered by the thousands of errors within each of the computer-coded texts available to scholars for study.

The Westminster group, composed largely of doctoral students enrolled in the seminary’s Ph. D. program, spent more than two years correcting a computer-coded text of the Leningrad Codex, the oldest complete Hebrew manuscript in existence.

The Leningrad Codex dates to 1009 A.D. Discovered in Leningrad in the early part of this century, the codex was first published in the late 1930s by the German Bible Society. The most recent edition is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), published in 1977. The Westminster project proofread and corrected the computer-readable BHS encoded by a joint team from the University of Michigan and the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, in Claremont, California.

The Westminster project is part of a larger, international effort known as Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint Study (CATSS). A project that has spanned nearly a decade, CATSS is a cooperative venture between Westminster, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Pennsylvania to produce a database for electronic research in the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Old Testament Westminster assumed responsibility for the Hebrew Bible text while Hebrew University and the University of Pennsylvania completed work on the third/second-century B.C. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint.

The next phase of Westminster’s work will be morphological analysis of the Hebrew text. The resulting data will reduce the time required to gather grammatical information on the Hebrew Old Testament from hours and weeks to a few minutes. Scholars will be able to do computer-assisted studies of the Hebrew text and, in conjunction with the CATSS database, will be able to study translation techniques and text used by the translators of the Septuagint. Future plans for the Westminster project include coding the Hebrew text for syntactic analysis.

O’Connell Selected as Le Moyne College President

Rev. Kevin G. O’Connell, S. J., chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland and a member of BR’s Editorial Advisory Board, has been chosen to be the eighth president of Le Moyne College, a liberal arts college in Syracuse, New York. His term as president will begin in January 1988.

Ordained a Jesuit priest in 1969, O’Connell, 48, has a doctorate in Near Eastern languages and Old Testament from Harvard University and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Boston College. A Boston native, he holds numerous professional positions including trustee at John Carroll University and board chairman of the Joint Archaeological Expedition to Tell el-Hesi. He taught for ten years at the Weston School of Theology, has played an active role in the American Schools of Oriental Research and has done research in Jerusalem.

Bible and Computers Conference in Jerusalem

The Bible entered the computer age about 20 years ago, when computerized analysis of biblical texts began. This union has even spawned its own association, the International Association on the Bible and Computer Science, which will hold its second international conference in Jerusalem, June 9–13, 1988. The conference will focus attention on the methods, tools and results of computer research applied to biblical studies. Four different aspects of this theme will be covered: current projects; classical research patterns versus computer research patterns in textual criticism, in linguistic and syntactical research, etc.; hardware and software problems; and methodological synthesis. The conference language will be English.

Immediately preceding the conference, the Association for Literary and linguistic Computing will hold its 15th annual meeting (June 5–9) in Jerusalem. Joint memberships are available for persons who wish to attend both conferences. Conference fees will be about $100–120 (U. S.) for joint registration and $70–80 for one. Definite fees and accommodation prices are yet to be set. For more information, write to 2nd International Colloquium, Association International Bible et Informatique, c/o Centre: Informatique et Bible, N-5198 Denee, Belgium.

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New Review Journal on Religion to Appear

Although Critical Review of Books in Religion will not be available until October 1988, the forthcoming annual is already receiving praise from scholars. In a 400-to-500-page hardcover format, Critical Review will evaluate scholarly works and books on religion and will include an extensive book-list of newly published second editions, reprints, translations and paperback editions. A complete author-index will provide valuable research information for the religious scholar.

Edited by Beverly Roberts Gaventa of the Columbia Theological Seminary, Critical Review will be published by Scholars Press P. O. Box 1608, Decatur, GA 30031–1608. As a special pre-publication offer, members of the American Academy of Religion and the Society for Biblical Literature may reserve a copy of Critical Review for only $10. After February 1, 1988, it will be offered to members for $15.

Westminster Scholars Complete Computerized Hebrew Bible Project

A team of Old Testament scholars at Westminster Theological Seminary, headed by assistant professor J. Alan Groves, has completed work on a computerized version of the Hebrew Bible.