Comparing Psalms 1:1-3 with Joshua 1:6-8 in a crosstab

I didn't note this in my first book on the psalms, because that book was written before I had constructed my translation engine. I expect that when I came to Joshua much later on, my algorithms noted the similarity with Psalms 1 and just translated, and I pressed confirm several years ago without thinking much about it. (Always a possibility.)

	ihowy		Joshua
	a		1
k	la-imuw spr htorh hzh mpiç vhgit bo iomm vlilh lmyn twmor lywot ccl-hctub bo, ci-az txlik at-drciç vaz twcil.	8	The record of this instruction will not deviate from your mouth, but you will mutter on it day and night so that you keep and do according to all the writing in it, for then you will thrive in your way, and then you will have insight.
't	hloa xivvitiç kzq vamx al-tyrox val-tikt, ci yimç ihvh alohiç bcol awr tlç. {p}	9	Have not I commanded you? Be encouraged and be assured. Do not panic, and do not be in disarray, for Yahweh is with you, your God, everywhere that you walk. P

Once you select the verses and experiment with which common words to omit for clarity, the picture emerges. These tables are instances of what is known as a crosstab. Most programmers who have worked with databases will understand how to get a selection of data into this sort of form. Eight words in a row in the Psalm are shared with these verses of Joshua, six of them in the same sequence, so the cross-tab shows parallel lines. It is very likely that the author of one knew or wrote the other. Two sections of Scripture in different genres both intended as instruction, one as a direct speech to Joshua from Yahweh, the other in the third person as a poem. 

Word / Gloss	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Vs	Stem
לא not					░				JOS 1:8	la
התורה instruction	░								JOS 1:8	tvrh
והגית but you will mutter		░							JOS 1:8	hgh
יומם day			░						JOS 1:8	ivm
ולילה and night				░					JOS 1:8	lil
לעשות and do							░		JOS 1:8	ywh
ככל according to all						░			JOS 1:8	cl
תצליח you will thrive in								░	JOS 1:8	xlk
בתורת in the instruction of	░								PSA 1:2	tvrh
ובתורתו and in his instruction	░								PSA 1:2	tvrh
יהגה he mutters		░							PSA 1:2	hgh
יומם day			░						PSA 1:2	ivm
ולילה and night				░					PSA 1:2	lil
לא does not					░				PSA 1:3	la
וכל and all						░			PSA 1:3	cl
יעשה it does							░		PSA 1:3	ywh
יצליח it thrives in								░	PSA 1:3	xlk

I retained verse 9 above since it is germane to the afterthoughts of this post. Did Joshua know everywhere that he was going when he started?

Afterthoughts (1)

Given that a translator has to start from almost total ignorance and only after many years begins to have an inkling as to what he or she has done, I have been meditating on why anyone would translate the Bible, and particularly me - since I have done it with my very limited knowledge and capacity. I suppose I have forgotten now the reasons I started!

Is this a multiple choice question? Here are some possible answers that have been occurring to me.

1. for understanding?
2. to avoid being taken in?
3. for power?
4. to preserve humanity?
5. to be embarrassed?
6. to be unassailable?

Understanding? I think not. I am very suspicious of some words, among them explanation, understanding, and meaning. In reverse order, there is never only one meaning to a word, or a passage, even if the passage is unique. So instead of meaning, which tends to take a set of numbers, and declare a mean value, I would chose the word sense. And I would allow that multiple senses can be drawn out of a passage and that sense engages more than our understanding. It engages and demands a response. It is not easily explained.

Avoid being taken in? Probably. I am somewhat independently minded and I wonder about the sphere of religious power. I have been 'taken in' in both the positive (for refuge and shelter) and negative (by my own credulity) senses of that word. And like most people of an intellectual bent, whether well or poorly trained or a bit of both, I like to believe things that are reliable. Who can you trust? What can you trust? 

Power? We all have power. How do we exercise it? This needs some real informing of our motives and our actions. In the society in which I grew up, the basic things that I remember from what I was taught like the Lord's prayer and the ten commandments really demanded a positive response from me eventually. What are these words and what power do they exercise in society, where did they come from, what is their modern impact. Etc. I ask myself also what words are we teaching to our children? It's a very hard problem. 

Purpose - to preserve humanity? It's hardly up to me! But out of my work, I have provided some unique features, like producing in modern notation the music scores that are embedded in the text. And music is a preservative. People did translate to preserve social structure and culture. I don't think that's why I did it. I was brought up in a social structure that I would not preserve and it has not been preserved by our society. They used the Bible. It was tradition. Is that all it is? (But something we are very slow to learn.)

Embarrassment?  (God forgive) It's a byproduct of the process of doing anything. I make mistakes. Some of them are quite funny. I have always had a thing about doing something rather than waiting for the perfect training to do it. Waiting for the perfect will sometimes mean you never get to do it at all. (And it is mean because it reduces you to 0.) 'Be encouraged and be assured.'

Unassailable?  (God forbid) Obviously I am not. Should one have an argument for a particular rendition over another? Is such an argument final? Never - we should have alternatives so that no one is brought under a rule of words alone.

When you write anything for the public, you are vulnerable. I hope people enjoy reading and learning and questioning, and are able to see clearly through what I have exposed of the verbal and musical structures in the text. One learns a lot from translating. Hopefully it leads to some maturing both for the translator and for the reader.

Afterthoughts (2)

How to organize a crosstab showing recurring roots from Biblical Data.

1. Give the user some default exclusions and allow them to change them. I start with [yl.,yhvh.,alvh.,ci.,al.,at.] You may need a delimiter to prevent selection of smaller roots. 
2. Let the user choose the passage(s), 1 or 2 for which separate routines may be advisable depending on your abstraction strategies, and let the user narrow down the verse ranges (including for circular structures or excluding for frames) since it is not easy to see a big pile of data. 
3. Select from your base data the following elements (whatever they are called in your data): word, reference, word form, column, gloss, any display parameters (I generate the colour from the gematria of the root) based on the user's selection criteria.
4. Do the crosstab. I limit myself to 40 columns and remove trailing blank columns from the result. The crosstab is achieved by selecting the fields in the order above: word/gloss, then the presence or absence of a mark for each column (verse selected in its sequence), then the remaining populated fields, the root, and the reference.

My results are in about 150 lines of code. So I have eliminated the specifics from this afterthought. And I have eliminated the tables and displays because they would be too specific to my implementation.