@DickHarfield Are they more of a free agent when guided by church teaching than when guided by Jesus's teaching or by the influence of the Holy Spirit? It's just i found myself agreeing with both your declarations: inerrant word of God, written by fallible man inspired by God. I don't think the dichotomy you present is true.

Or rather, I don't think the two are nearly so mutually exclusive. And yes, that's largely based on interpretation of scripture, so it's eventually circular. But I prefer to think of it as a spiral :)

There's a decent amount of philosophy that would confirm the idea that determined vs free choice is not nearly so black and white. So I conclude that I can know a bit of what the man was thinking and that if that was inspired then I am getting a peek into the mind of God on whatever is being written.

"Church teaching" is a little anachronistic, eh?

Hi @Joshua and @Susan - looks like I've started something here.

Let me say I accept the possibility that texts are divinely inspired and therefore are to some extent or other outside the understanding of man. If so, it is better to use a hermeneutic such as casnonical exegesis.

IMHO if I use historical-critical method, I make the assumption I am reading something written in a historical situation by a fallible person who may do some things that God would never do - such as write pseudepigraphically, alter or elaborate sources and so on. Just a couple of the issues that critical scholars deal with.

^^^ Working on my phone but ... that's not the case with my tablet.

Perhaps the application looks in another directory.

@DickHarfield Sorry, Dick, but this is just plain confused. It seems to me you've got a reasonable handle on some historical-critical matters, but your grasp of theological concepts is woefully inadequate. If you're sufficiently interested, I made some suggestions for reading already: add to those Berkouwer, Bloesch, and/or Webster. I'll be interested to know how you get on. ;)

@PaulVargas Really weird. Just tried making sure file locations, case in file names, etc., all good -- and noticed that I get the SBL Hebrew setumah marker! (In addition to verse numbers.) So why (oh, why!) isn't it getting picked up for the main biblical text??????? :/

@PaulVargas And petuchah and .fontSizeAdjustment are also recognized:

@DickHarfield Oh, and btw - "canonical exegesis" (by which I take it you're invoking the approach of B.S. Childs) depends and builds on "historical critical" exegesis: it asserts, however, that hist-crit results are only preliminary for theological interpretation. This is much discussed, I know, but worth clarifying that basic point.

@Davïd The phone's version is 4.4.2

^^^ That's on my tablet with the same settings. BTW, the version is 4.2.2

Do you see something strange in the generated HTML? I think it's OK.

Humm ... See this.

@PaulVargas Thanks for all of that, Paul. I think I'm doing everything "right" -- but that last link explains a lot. Especially that the samekh and pe should display, but not the pointed Hebrew text. :(

OTOH, this ("...displays the unicode characters using a webpage...") maybe suggests that CSS + .woff might work? When I use, e.g., biblewebapp.com in a browser, it displays pointed Ezra SIL no problem. I used FontSquirrel to generate a .woff file ... now if I could only figure out how to use it. Maybe that would work for your tablet, too?

@Davïd I tested something like this:

WLC.cssClass=@font-face {font-family:'Ezra SIL', url('http://shebanq.ancient-data.org/shebanq/static/fonts/SILEOT.woff') format('woff');} body {font-family: 'Ezra SIL';'Droid Serif' !important; } .please

@PaulVargas Was the .please supposed to coax it into action? ;)

... using a remote woff. Previously, I had tested some woff (with the SBL font).

@Davïd Yup. :'(

@PaulVargas Maybe it should have been: .please !important; =/

@Davïd Let me try using a local woff of Ezra SIL.

@PaulVargas A guy posted his use of custom font + css in the google group. I'll see what I can manage, too.

@Davïd Neither SILEOT.ttf nor SILEOT.woff worked (Ezra SIL).

@PaulVargas :( I'm digging through docs - will let you know my result. If you use @font-face, then I'll need to restrict Unicode range. Just found what I needed to know on MDN.

@Davïd I think that the browser is using its own component. And the app is using the "native" browser.

@Davïd Little trick in that .cssClass :D

@Davïd What happens with the first ALEF (בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית) in Gen 1:1? ... pointed?

@PaulVargas Yes, pointed.

@PaulVargas OK. My experiment isn't working either. And slow typing "code" on this phone! I should be ftp'ing more.

@PaulVargas You want a comma after "Ezra SIL", yes?

@Davïd Yes! But... it didn't work.

@Davïd I’m sure this is a dumb question but how would it be an unpointed ALEF? ;)

@PaulVargas I think by being outside the text's <span>...</span>, like the פ and ס in your generated html.

<span class='verse' id='5'><span class='verseNo'>5</span>&#160;<span class='noteRef'>e</span>  וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ לָאוֹר֙ י֔וֹם וְלַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ קָ֣רָא לָ֑יְלָה וַֽיְהִי־ עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־ בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם אֶחָֽד׃ <span class='hi hi_bold'>פ</span><br /> </span>

@PaulVargas Or not.

:)

@PaulVargas Nor mine. :'( I've tried .ttf and .woff, with and without "WLC.cssClass" and always the same. I fear this is a 4.2.2 limitation. >.<

@Davïd You have a sense of humor!

@Davïd I am very sorry. :/

There is hope! See this:

^^^ If the Logos app can do it, And Bible also might do it.

Although this would be working in the source code.

(I don't have WLC because there is no Leningrad Codex free in that app!)

@PaulVargas And is that with 4.2.2? or 4.4.2? (It looks lovely!)

@PaulVargas (:-o Shocking!)

@Davïd That is from my tablet (4.2.2).

@PaulVargas Nifty.

@Davïd This app works, although the description does not mention the text that it is using.

Search is affordable feature. It should be free!

:) And Davka - well known for their over-the-top locking down text-based software over many years. Good to know about all the same.

Hi @Davïd Thank you for those links. Before I comment, as you requested, I'd like to recap. Remember that our conversation started because the OP said he could not accept my conclusion, because the Bible is inspired. He may not have realised it, but effectively he was saying that it is invalid to use the historical-critical method for biblical exegesis. In reply, I said the converse: that in order to use the h-c method, I have to assume the text is not divinely inspired.

Our discussion (also @Joshua and @Susan led on from there. You assumed I was a novice in using h-c method, but I gater you now believe I have a handle on some basics.

You said that my knowledge of theological concepts is inadequate, and because of the context, I assume you are talking about the specifics of divine inspiration of scripture.

I looked at the Berkouwer and went straight to The God-Breathed Charater of Holy Scripture. Although it is incomplete, I saw nothing challenging - or new - here.

@Davïd Webster is a brief extract, from which I take (in particular) that i) he talks of divine origin, divine self-communication; then ii) the range of the term 'inspiration' has been broadened "in some modern theology" to become equivalent to a supposed intuitive awareness of the divine (I think he does not agree); iii) revelation is a mystery.

@Davïd The Bloesch extract is even briefer, so I can not really se what his views are on biblical inspiration or whether it is appropriate to use h-c method.

@Davïd I can work with Webster's " intuitive awareness of the divine" because under that term, the Bible is not God-breathed, and authors can make mistakes, contradict themselves and each other, gloss and elaborate, etc.