Mormon Documentation Project LDS Scriptures Steve Dibb _________________________________________________________ Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1.1. About 2. The Scriptures 2.1. The Printed Word and Imported Text 2.2. Omitted Texts 2.3. Formatting Styles 2.4. Naming Standards 3. The Database 3.1. lds_scriptures_volumes 3.2. lds_scriptures_books 3.3. lds_scriptures_verses _________________________________________________________ Chapter 1. Introduction 1.1. About The goal is fairly simple: import the Latter-day Saint canon of scriptures as published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into database format. Also, to provide scripts for easy access of the database. The project is part of a larger one, called the Mormon Documentation Project (or MDP for short) which is a group of projects meant to gather, document, index, archive, and make accessible works in the public domain that have been published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and release those texts and tools back into the public's under non-restrictive free software licenses for general use. $Id: mdp.xml,v 1.7 2004/11/28 22:25:58 steve Exp steve $ _________________________________________________________ Chapter 2. The Scriptures 2.1. The Printed Word and Imported Text In converting the Scriptures from one format to another, there has been a few instances where I would have to decide how to format or include certain parts of the printed text. The differences between the printed word and the imported text can be categorized in three areas: ommitted text, formatting styles and naming standards. While some changes are necessary, it's worth noting that the actual text of the scriptures have themselves been unchanged, and in fact, every effort has been made to standardize everything based on the formatting and style of the printed works. _________________________________________________________ 2.2. Omitted Texts The main reasons for excluding text from these packages are generally either copyrights, or it isn't feasible or justified to put them in database format. However, they may be included in future versions. Study Guides In the LDS Scriptures, a lot of study guides have been added to the text to help readers. Since they are copyrighted, they are not included. These are the study guides that were left out: book and chapter headers, footnotes, Topical Guide, Bible Dictionary, Joseph Smith Translation, Gazetteer, Maps, Pronunciation Guide and Index (Book of Mormon). Title Pages, Dedications and Explanations Even though the Church's official scriptures website includes them, these packages don't because they a scriptural numbering sequence doesn't apply. Excluded texts: Book of Mormon: Title Page (written by Moroni), Introduction, The Testimony of the Three Witnesses, The Testimony of Eight Witnesses, Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and A Brief Explanation About the Book of Mormon. Doctrine and Covenants: Official Declaration 1 and 2. Pearl of Great Price: Introductory Note, Oliver Cowdery's account[1] Bible: Epistle Dedicatory _________________________________________________________ 2.3. Formatting Styles The Changelog is the best place to see the details of the changes. The Pilcrow The Pilcrow is seen throughout all the books of the Old Testament, in the Four Gospels, and in The Acts. It hasn't been removed from the imported text, and in the database fields, is stored as its HTML display value -- ¶ Capitalization In all the standard works, the first word in the first verse in each chapter is capitalized. The imported text is no different. Regarding the capitilazation of "LORD" and "GOD" in the Bible, the Bible Dictionary explains. "In the KJV, the Jewish custom has been followed, and the name is generally denoted by Lord or God, printed in small capitals." One of the original exports actually had every instance enclosed in tags, but they were removed, since there is no real universal way to tag them (XML aside). Dashes A lot of scriptures have double dashes in them, and though there is an HTML character you can use to display them, they were replaced with two dashes instead to keep the mix between text and formatting minimal. Volume Order In previous releases, the Book of Mormon was the first volume listed, and was also the first volume in the other tables as well. Since v2.2.0, the Old and New Testaments took the lead instead, following the same order used in the printed works. _________________________________________________________ 2.4. Naming Standards When referencing the scriptures, one verse can have many titles. Do you use John 3:16, St. John 3:16, Saint John 3:16 or St John 3:16? While you may have your own preference, these packages standardize on a format that the Church has provided in their standard works. I call it the ADFI, and it's used in all their footnotes and scripturual references. Abbreviations and Designations in Footnotes and Index If you look at the front of your Book of Mormon you'll see a page with that title. Instead of trying to dream up a naming scheme, the project uses the same as the standard works. So in the case of our example, the verse would be referenced as "John 3:16" in the indexes and footnotes. In the rest of the documenation, I refer to this reference as the ADFI. _________________________________________________________ Chapter 3. The Database Volumes, Chapters, Books and Verses This chapter outlines the table structure of the databases. _________________________________________________________ 3.1. lds_scriptures_volumes This table provides the text of the volumes. Table Structure volume_id The primary key volume_title Volume titles from the ADFI. volume_title_long "The" prepended to volume_title volume_subtitle Appended to volume_title_long, could be used as a formal title. lds_org The directory structure that the Church uses on their Scriptures website. num_books Number of books in the volume. num_chapters Number of chapters in the volume. num_verses Number of verses in the volume. _________________________________________________________ 3.2. lds_scriptures_books When accessing this table, the fields you will probably be most interested in using are: volume_id, book_title and book_title_short. The other fields are included for documentation and reference. Except for one field in the table, volume_id, all the fields are references which the table lds_scriptures_verses relates to. Table Structure book_id The primary key volume_id The relational field to lds_scriptures_volumes.volume_id. For example, the volume_id of Hebrews is 2. The volume_title of volume_id 2 is New Testament. Therefore, the book of Hebrews is in the New Testament. book_title The book titles from the ADFI. In some previous releases, it used to be the book titles that were used as the page headers for references, but those are not always the same (ex: "Articles of Faith" in ADFI, "The Articles of Faith" in header. [2]). Examples: Genesis, Exodus, Matthew, Mark, 1 Nephi, 2 Nephi, Doctrine and Covenants, Articles of Faith book_title_long The (sometimes) extended title printed at the beginning of the book of scriptures. Not every book has an extended title. For those that don't, the field value is the same as book_title. Examples: The First Book of Moses called Genesis, The Second Book of Moses called Exodus, The Gospel According to St Matthew, The Gospel According to St Mark, The First Book of Nephi, The Second Book of Nephi, The Doctrine and Covenants, The Articles of Faith book_title_short The book abbreviations from the ADFI. Examples: Gen., Ex., Matt., Mark, 1 Ne., 2 Ne., D&C, A of F book_title_jst The Joseph Smith Translation [3] of book_title_long. Every field is null except the entries for the Four Gospels, where "The Gospel According to" is replaced with "The Testimony of". These are the only JST references included in the database. book_subtitle Subtitles appended to book_title_long. lds_org The directory structure that the Church uses on their Scriptures website. num_chapters Number of chapters in the book. num_verses Number of verses in the book. _________________________________________________________ 3.3. lds_scriptures_verses Table Structure verse_id The primary key volume_id The relational key to lds_scriptures_volumes.volume_id book_id The relational key to lds_scriptures_books.book_id chapter The chapter number in the book Example: For Helaman 3:29, the field value is "3" verse The verse number in the chapter Example: For Helaman 3:29, the field value is "29" verse_scripture The text of the scripture. "Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked--" verse_title The value for lds_scriptures_books.book_title, chapter and verse. Example: For Helaman 3:29, the field value is "Helaman 3:29" Both this field and verse_title_short are redundant in a relational database, but they do come in handy. verse_title_short The value for lds_scriptures_books.book_title_short, chapter and verse. Example: For Helaman 3:29, the field value is "Hel. 3:29" Notes [1] pp. 58-59 [2] The Pearl of Great Price, pp. 60-61 [3] Bible Dictionary, "Joseph Smith Translation (JST)", p. 717