The Hebrew bible, the Tanach, is presented in a form which
facilitates machine analysis, allows rapid access
to any verse, and can be displayed in large fonts for the visually-impaired.
Hebrew text may be highlighted, copied, and pasted into UTF-8 compatible applications.
The license of use is very generous.
Installation
A high-quality Hebrew font such as
SBL Hebrew
(SBL_Hbrw.ttf) or
EZRA SIL
(SILEOT.ttf)
should be installed. SBL_Hbrw.ttf and its associated license agreement,
SBL_Hebrew_readme.txt, are included
in Tanach.zip.
At present the Netscape 7.1, Mozilla 1.6, or Mozilla Firefox 0.8 browsers provide
the best rendering of the Hebrew characters. Internet Explorer 6+ can be used if
necessary, however.
For any browser running on Microsoft operating systems the quality of the display for either font
depends on an elusive "Unicode Script Processor" file,
usp10.dll.
Obsolete versions of this file render accents on top of each other and
produce very ugly text. One version of this file is provided by Microsoft with its systems,
however, the file is not updated by "Service Packs" or "Hotfix" updates.
With much work, an up-to-date version can be obtained by joining the
Microsoft "MSVolt" workgroup.
Install the usp10.dll file
by placing it in the same directory as your browser's executable file, i.e. firefox.exe,
IEXPLORE.EXE, mozilla.exe, or Netscp.exe.
Occasionally, a combination of Unicode characters will not be rendered properly. When this happens,
a dotted circle is drawn. This is not necessarily an error in the XML file.
Technical format
The technical format of the Tanach is XML with
Unicode coding of
the Hebrew characters. The XML files are
Tanach.xml, the index file,
and 39 book files, Genesis.xml
... Chronicles 2.xml.
The XML files are the result of processing the WLC text with a Java application,
WLC2XML. The sources, class files, and instructions for WLC2XML are contained
in the Java Archive file WLC2XML.jar. A detailed table of the coding
can be obtained by clicking on the "Coding" link of the index page. Books are accessed either
by clicking on the links on the
Tanach.xml index file or by directly accessing
the book file (i.e. Genesis.xml).
Although
the XML texts are viewable by themselves, a far more useful display
of the text is obtained with the XSL file
Tanach.xsl.xml.
Tanach.xsl.xml loads a JavaScript file,
Sarissa.js, to provide compatibility
among browsers and Sarissa.js must be in the same directory as Tanach.xsl.xml.
Users can create their own displays by carefully modifying Tanach.xsl.xml.
Also provided is an XML-Schema file,
Tanach.xsd, which precisely defines
the format of the Tanach for computer analyses and alternative displays of the text.
All XML files are validated XML files.
Changes are documented in
Tanach.Version.html. Page counts at this site are given in
Tanach.Counts.html.
The license of use is in
Tanach.License.html
which is accompanied by the Creative Commons logo
CC.somerights.gif.
The contents of the site and the Tanach.zip file are given in
Tanach.Contents.html. The Westminister Hebrew Institute banner is
included in the distribution.
For efficient off-line viewing all
52 files can be downloaded from a WinZIP file,
Tanach.zip, of about 2 megabytes.
When fully expanded (and including Tanach.zip) the site occupies about 12.5 MB.
Acknowledgements
Many people have provided pro gratis support for this transcription. Their invaluable help
is gratefully acknowledged in alphabetical order.
| Emmanuil Batsis | Netsmart S.A., Greece |
| Renier de Blois | United Bible Societies |
| John Hudson | Tiro Typeworks, Canada |
| Peter Kirk | Qaya.org, UK |
| Kirk Lowery | Westminister Theological Seminary, USA |
| Giuseppe Regalzi | Rome, Italy |
| Andrew Sperlin | Portland, Oregon, USA |
Their contribution does not constitute an endorsement of the transcription.
|
This transcription is dedicated to my Hebrew teachers.
|
|
