TT Updates

Coincident to this blog going out we have updated the TT. This includes bug fixes, an update to the Lots Calculator and textual changes dealing with Joshua's house in Capernaum. Read on for more.

Verse Identifiers

We recently added detailed paragraphing. This to follow standard English conventions for paragraph breaks when speaker voice changes. This is great for reading and is great as a detailed target for paragraph lots.

But, this created many small paragraphs inside of verses. The code had always assumed no more than 1 paragraph per verse, which no longer holds. This caused trouble in the history as the cite for these small paragraphs would get lost.

To fix this, verse identifiers can now have a small lower case letter added. This is only used when there are more than 1 paragraph in a verse. You will see this change in paragraph cites and in the history.

Search

We recently added a more extensive system of quote links. Check the Quotes pop up in the upper right menu of the TT app for the full list. These insert citations and hot links that can be followed to make speeding around on these links easy.

The code for this mistakenly added book names into the running text. These cites do show up when reading, but those same citations got caught in the word search system, which was a bug.

So searches on words like 'Peter' or 'First' would see these terms from book names in the search results. And, to make this worse, those words would be invisible in the search results since they are not part of the text. This strange bug is now fixed. Searches for words like 'Peter' now correctly return the places were Peter actually occurs in the running text.

Lots

By far the most liked feature of the TT app is the lots calculator. We know many people who use it regularly.

With today's release the Lots Calculator popup has been updated. There are now 6 buttons instead of 3.

The target of a lot can be either a book, a story, or a paragraph. For each of the targets the lot can now be determined either by numbers entered into the Lots pop up OR by a software simulation of stopping pages fanned by the wind. So there are now 6 buttons for these 6 choices.

The new interface should be pretty clear. Mess around with it next time you are in the Lots popup.

Most of the time the Paragraph style of lot is what will be used. Book lots are intended for devotional reading. 'What Book should I read today?' Is the sort of prayer question for this case.

The new Story lot works in the same way. 'What Story should I read today?' is the sort of question where the story button is the right button.

Paragraph lots record the target by cite, not by paragraph number, so they normally remain stable in the history.

Note that the Book and Story buttons in lots generate a target of the lot fixed to a structural position in the TT. Content at these locations will shift with time. So for now these are best used devotionally.

All 3 forms of lots will highlight something in the running text. For paragraph lots a paragraph is highlighted. For story lots a story heading is highlighted. For book lots a book heading is highlighted.

Reconciling The Gospels

Over the past few weeks Ryan has been focusing on reconciling the Gospels. We have come to see duplication in the Gospels as a sign of editing. Duplication is not expected in text that is god breathed by individual witnesses.

So the first step to work through the highly duplicated Gospels is to figure out how many unique stories are in those books. This means to pair up duplicate accounts and consider them as single stories.

Turns out around 150 stories can be identified this way. About 1/3 of those fall by filter rules, leaving around 100 likely inspired stories. This is what our understanding of the structure would want us to find.

Then, once those stories are identified, Ryan selects which version is likely inspired. Rules of additions from Acts 15 help with this. Understanding Ananias' motives in making changes also helps with this. In particular Ananias wanted to turn Joshua into some sort of rebel Rabbi, rather than the complete outsider which he was.

The last step is to place those 100 stories into the first 4 rows of the NT part of the Table of 400. This is a mostly chronological study, with 4 distinct sections, each section at a different prophetic time pace.

Joshua's House At Capernaum

As part of this work we have become pretty convinced that some of the NT material fills in between Joshua's age 12 encounter with teachers and his age 30 baptism.

In particular, he appears to have setup a house in Capernaum. At what age we don't know for sure, but likely by the time he is an adult. Maybe around age 20, maybe around age 25.

For the next 5 or 10 years there are events in and around that house that are recorded in the text. These stories fill out the first row of the NT section in the table of 400. We think these were recorded in a single work. Here is the link into the TT app itself for the early life of Joshua. The bottom half of this linked page is where we are currently looking if you want to read for yourself Ryan's current thinking.

The Life Of Joshua

This house at Capernaum was severely hidden by Ananias' editing because Joshua was showing by example a place and practice of public meetings.

Basically Joshua set up again the type of meeting house that Moses and Joshua son of Nun had once run.

The weekly Synagogue system, now called Church, is a counterfeit.

All of the important apostles are called to this place long before John's baptismal ministry at the Jordan. This is where and when they know him well.

Eventually word gets out in the Capernaum area. Eventually he heads out on the traveling ministry that fills his last year and becomes the basis for the next book in the inspired NT canon.

We are still piecing together what this means in terms of actual practices and what might be going on in other parts of the NT.

Peter was probably the heir to that house. Remember Peter's concern when Joshua tells Peter that Joshua will be killed? Peter may see this as a natural end to anyone running such a place. If so, his concern is more concrete than in the standard text.

Word Level Edits

This may also suggest more word-level edits by Ananias because this was such a threat to the systems based at Jerusalem.

An inspired version of Acts 15 might say we wait for Moses' fallen tent to be recovered. A point Ananias would not allow to stand because in his mind it was recovered and running at Jerusalem.

It may also be that the Jerusalem council of Acts 15 itself might have taken place in Capernaum. Again, the place would have been edited because that house represented such a threat to the Jerusalem based Synagogue system.

All of these points will get more study in weeks to come as we piece together the inspired bits of the Gospels.

More Later,

Phil