The Bible (metadata) in TiddlyWiki

#1

I’ve created a TiddlyWiki containing tiddlers representing all books and chapters in the Bible (only metadata), together with a citation/referencing macro and templates that show citations/references. This can be useful when doing bible study, taking notes during sermons etc.

https://cdaven.github.io/tiddlywiki/bible.html

It’s the first revision, and can probably be improved a lot. I looked at the Refnotes plugin by @Mohammad for inspiration (and copied some macro code), since this is more or less treating the books and chapters of the Bible as sources that can be cited/referenced.

To create all 1257 tiddlers, I wrote a small script in Julia (a language much like Python, but I think it’s better), that created JSON files with metadata for all books and chapters.

Of course, you are welcome to copy this TiddlyWiki or export the tiddlers or copy anything.

Let me know if you have ideas on how to improve this.

I must say, this was a fun experiment with TiddlyWiki, and it’s really a great and flexible tool.

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#2

It has been done a zillion times before.

But I thought you approach interesting and somewhat novel.

Best wishes, TT

#3

It would be interesting to see other solutions. I didn’t search too much before I started, since I wanted to do this anyway. Sometimes I want to just go ahead without knowing too much what’s been done before – and then learn more afterwards.

I just now found a discussion containing a 404 link from @DaveGifford in the Google Group that I should probably read. Maybe that TW has been moved? (Link)

#4

Please chat with @DaveGifford. He knows far more than me and is actually doing it.

Best wishes
TT

#5

I think it’s been done about 6 times, actually. Including a TWC version.

The main question is whether to create a verse-by-verse version, or a chapter-by-chapter version. I went with by-chapter, to avoid performance issues.

There are ironies. If I wanted a state-of-the-art word processor, I could download libre office, put together by programmers. But if wanted a modern-language version Bible, I would have to settle on a 80 year old version – before the dead sea scrolls and other important documents were discovered. The modern language versions of the Bible are heavily protected by companies like Zond…ans. So programmers, known for beer and pizza, turn out to be more generous than theologians.

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#6

I thought that a very interesting reply!, TT!

#7

Just for you, I reposted it at 1 John — a non-linear personal web notebook. I gave up on it because it slowed way down. There have been improvements in more recent versions of TiddlyWiki, so maybe this approach would not slow down so much anymore. This was a very old project and it looks like for this file I deleted most of the thematic tiddlers. But at least you can see what my approach was: a tiddler for each sentence, tags for each theme or literary element in that sentence, and the tiddlers for each tag have a list transcluding each sentence that has that topic.

Most of my Bible work is in Spanish.

This one, in English, has a tiddler for each Gospels passage, cross-referenced with parallel passages, and tagged by topic. It, too, started slowing down, because of the vast # of tags and lists. But it is a goldmine of data on the Gospels. Gospels Bubbles —

This one is a Spanish version, done in node.js with backlinks. Bienvenido: Los Evangelios — giffmex.org/html/evangelios/. The passages are all created but I have not added themes etc to every passage. I would like to get back to this project to finish it.

Not specifically a Bible project, but you may find helpful my database of lists of articles in numerous Christian dictionaries. Dictionary article organizer —

Feel free to use any of this for your own use in any way you like.

#8

Also, what you are looking for, previous versions of the Bible in TiddlyWiki, you can find here:

  1. http://worldenglishbible.tiddlyspot.com/

  2. Dropbox - kjv-bible.html - Simplify your life

#9

I just added the English links from my posts, as well as @cdaven’s link, to the TiddlyWiki toolmap. TiddlyWiki toolmap - Dynalist

If anyone lurking here adds links to the official site of TiddlyWiki links, feel free to add them there, too.

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#10

Thank you, @DaveGifford!

I think chapter-by-chapter is a good compromise, since you don’t want the whole of Psalms in one tiddler, but many sentences and paragraphs are split into multiple verses.

I thought about including the full Bible text in a private version of this, but since I often use different translations in different languages, it doesn’t make sense. Maybe I could pick a translation per chapter, I’m not sure yet. And the whole Bible is a very large document!

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#11

I actually have JSON files of New Testament and Old Testament tiddlers if you want them. They are KJV because of copyright issues.

I’m using them as I take notes. Yeah, the file is a little slow to load but being able to do things like:

Gen 1:1 {{Genesis 1:1}}

and having the text transcluded into my note is just cool. :grinning:

Maybe I’ll trow a demo out on my site if I get some time later.

-Scott

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#12

Verse-by-verse will be very slow (I’ve tried). Especially on phones.

What I’ve done instead is have chapter-by-chapter, and then excise and transclude with a special edit template any quotable sections. Then use the official comment plugin to comment on the excised passages. There are mammoth swaths of genealogies and sacrifice regulations that are not highly quotable, IMNSHO. So having the whole book broken down into verses is probably overkill.

I developed the Dynanotator plugin to make it easy to highlight and comment on passages. Ironically, I still haven’t gotten around to installing it in my own working copy. Typical.

There’s a website where you can download several chapters a day of just about any version that has ever been published. I’m sure there’s an upper limit, but I don’t know what it is. If you’re reading through the whole book, you can just download and paste the text into your working TW. Over the course of time, you’ll have it all. I might add that I’ve purchased the physical version multiple times, an official ebook version at least once, and was a charter purchaser when this particular version was released. The thing is, the ebook version is really cumbersome. The TW experience is much better. Like searches are lightning fast compared to the ebook. Note that the “we-own-a-physical-copy” thing is the basis for the operation at archive.org.

I forgot to mention the one exception is Psalm 119, which is bigger than most of the other books of the Bible. So it gets divided into 8 verse subsections.

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#13

I threw together a demo of my wiki will all the verses of the KJV here:
Bible Demo — a tiddlywiki containg each verse of the bible (techlifeweb.com)

It actually loads pretty quickly considering there are 30K+ tiddlers. I think that is because there are no dates on the bible tiddlers. Where you see slowness is during saving a tiddler.

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#14

Thank you, but no. I’m mainly reading in Swedish, but sometimes compare different Swedish and English translations, so having just one translation doesn’t work for me.

This was very interesting! I tried your plugin, but I’m not entirely sure if and how I would use it. A clever idea that opens up new possibilities nonetheless, so thank you!