Status of the biblical-names-database (BNDB) group

[Weston Ruter]

Hello all,
I'm new here. What is the status of the BNDB? I'm really passionate
about the stated mission of this group, to "enable sharing data about
Biblical content", and also about "standardizing identifiers for Bible
data." I assume that a lot of the ideas behind this group are going to
be promoted in Sean Boisen's talk on "Organizing the People, Places,
and Things in the Bible": http://bibletechconference.com/speakers.htm#SeanBoisen-2009
I think that Sean's desire to develop in the spirit of Tim Berners-
Lee’s Linked Data ideas is so absolutely fundamental.

So many applications today are prevented because there is no uniform
interface for accessing scriptural data. While standard identifiers
are a huge part of enabling data interchange, even more so I think we
need open APIs that allow data providers to talk to each other and for
end-users to mash up this data into new applications: we need data
integration. What if there was an effort for scriptural data analogous
to the OpenSocial effort for social data? What if the various
scripture-related web services were abstracted away into an open API
for scriptural data?

I'm looking forward to discussing these things with any of you who are
attending BibleTech this year. Stephen Smith at Zondervan is speaking
on "The Need for a Universal Bible Annotation Format" which I think
will be a key part of this effort: http://bibletechconference.com/speakers.htm#StephenSmith-2009

I think that this group is primarily focused on the data derived from
the Bible, such as people, places, and things, or thoughts people have
about the Bible. I've been giving a lot of thought to the actual texts
of the Bible itself. I'm presenting my thoughts at the conference at
the talk called "Open Scriptures: Picking Up the Mantle of the
Re:Greek – Open Source Initiative": http://bibletechconference.com/speakers.htm#WestonRuter-2009

My abstract: """Open Scriptures http://openscriptures.org/ seeks to be
a comprehensive open-source Web repository for integrated scriptural
data and a general application framework for building
internationalized social applications of scripture. An abundance of
scriptural resources are now available online–manuscripts,
translations, and annotations are all being made available by students
and scholars alike at an ever-increasing rate. These diverse
scriptural resources, however, are isolated from each other and
fragmented across the Internet. Thus mashing up the available data
into new scriptural applications is not currently possible for the
community at large because the resources' interrelationships are not
systematically documented. Open Scriptures aims to establish a
scriptural database for interlinked textual resources such as merged
manuscripts, the differences among them, and the links between their
semantic units and the semantic units of their translations. With such
a foundation in place, derived scriptural data like cross-references
may be stored in a translation-neutral and internationalized manner so
as to be accessible to the community no matter what language they
speak or version they prefer."""

I put together a proof of concept that demonstrates interlinked
manuscript data; it's called the Manuscript Comparator:
http://openscriptures.org/prototypes/manuscript-comparator/ So much
more is possible than this one application, for example if any one
resource depends on one manuscript, then the resource can then be
applied to any other manuscript because the manuscripts are
interlinked. So much more will be possible when the translations are
interlinked as well.

Honestly I'm new to the Bible tech community, so I know I have a lot
to learn from all of you. I am eager for your advice and thoughts on
what I'm proposing. I'd really like to be involved with what you are
doing as well. I most definitely do not want to duplicate any work
that is already going on; I want to affirm and support anything
related to open scriptural data interchange.

With appreciation,
Weston Ruter
Open Scriptures

[Weston Ruter]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: jonathon <jonatho...@gmail.com>
Date: 2009/3/3
Subject: Re: Status of the biblical-names-database (BNDB) group
To: open-sc...@googlegroups.com



On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 05:05, SeanB  wrote:

> * yes, the intended focus of the Biblical Names Database Group is really meta-data about Biblical content, not the texts themselves or APIs.

By "meta data about Biblical content" which of the following do you mean:

* "Jude" in Jude 1:1, Acts 1:13.  Mark 6:3, and Matthew 13:55 are all
the same individual;

* "Jude" in Jude 1:1 is the son of Joseph (1), brother of James (1),
brother of Simon(1), brother of Joset(1), and son of Mary (1), where
the number in parenthesis refers to a specific individual.
Mary (1) would be the mother of Jesus.
Mary (2) would be Mary Magdalene;
etc;

* The person who is speaking in Jude 1:1 - 13 is Jude;
The person who is speaking in Jude 1:14 is Enoch;
The person who is speaking in Jude 1;15 is somebody else;
( IOW, cover who is speaking, and who is listening, for every verse.);

* Something else;

jonathon

- Show quoted text -

[Sean Boisen]

These are all examples of meta-data in my view, and all of potential interest. Logos has data of the first two kinds, but we still determining what we may be able to share. We don’t currently have data of the third kind, though most of the speakers are also individuals mentioned in the text.

 

There are also place names and other kinds of names that are of interest.

 

Sean

 

---

[Leo Sauermann]

For the integration of the different data, I recommend to reuse the approach of the
open linking data project:
opendata.org

once persons or places of interest are identified, the identifiers can be mapped
using rdfs:seeAlso links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_Data

I know the guys who did the project
and I may help out once we are at this stage of integration

best
Leo

It was Sean Boisen who said at the right time 04.03.2009 06:58 the following words:

-- 
____________________________________________________
Leo Sauermann                 http://www.leobard.net 
                           http://leobard.twoday.net
How to remember things?
  http://gnowsis.opendfki.de
  http://dev.nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org
How to get data as RDF?
  http://aperture.sf.net
What is the meaning of life?
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_of_God
____________________________________________________