how to properly identify divisions of books?

Question

My question is USFM organizational in nature. For organizational purposes, how does one notate the levels above book/chapt/verse?

/? New Testament

/? The Gospels

/mt Matthew

/c 1

/v 1

I'm new to USFM markup. Sorry if this is a basic question. In my own way of thinking I'd call the New/Old testament writings "testament divisions" and the next level down would be "book type" divisions. Book types being, "The Pentateuch, The Historical Books, The Wisdom Books, The Major Prophets, The Minor Prophets."

So, in USFM markup, how/where exactly might one denote those divisions?  I could see a use case for wanting that as a major-major heading, etc...

Thanks so much!

Answer 1

So, +1 for a good answer from an ai bot, but I'm surprised that some sections, like "wisdom literature's don't have their own USFM markup tag?

Here are the main categories of Bible books and the associated USFM tag used to denote each category:

1. Pentateuch/Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)

- USFM tag: \ms1

2. Historical Books (Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings, etc.)

- USFM tag: \ms1

3. Wisdom Literature (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs)

- USFM tag: \ms1

4. Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel)

- USFM tag: \ms2

5. Minor Prophets (Hosea to Malachi)

- USFM tag: \ms2

6. Gospels & Acts (Matthew to Acts)  

- USFM tag: \ms4

7. Epistles (Romans to Jude)

- USFM tag: \ms5

8. Apocalyptic (Revelation)

- USFM tag: \ms6

So in the USFM standard, each Bible book category has an associated marker (\ms1 to \ms6) that allows it to be encoded and identified properly. The book name abbreviations then follow the tag to mark the specific start of each biblical book. This allows standardized grouping and processing of different Bible book genres.

Comments

In the USFM documentation (https://ubsicap.github.io/usfm/titles_headings/index.html#ms), \ms# (\ms1 \ms2 etc.) is rather used for sections within a book: it is used when the translator wishes to put titles above sections at a higher level than the standard sections, which have heading \s (or \s1). For example, one could place a \ms above the Sermon on the Mount (Mat. 5-7), while each section within this discourse gets a heading \s.

To my knowledge, there is no dedicated marker for titles above the book level. (I hope someone will correct me if this has changed.)

If \ms is not used otherwise in the translation, a team could decide to use \ms for this. Or if \ms1 is in use within books, the team could use \ms2 for higher-level titles. \ms2 could be given a custom style in the custom.sty file. And when it comes to typesetting, the team can work out an appropriate formatting for this style.

Answer 2

Paratext does not have a specific hierarchy above books. It is possible to use the project canons to identify a canon of books and it is possible on the books tab of the project properties to identify which books are included in the project plannning.

As has been stated in another response, \ms1 is used for a major section in a particular book.

Answer 3

Strictly speaking, USFM only needs book identifications, e.g. \id MAT plus chapter and verse markers for its organization. Cf. https://ubsicap.github.io/usfm/identification/index.html#index-1

If you want to show divisions like "New Testament" or "Gospels" in your publication, you could use peripherals: https://ubsicap.github.io/usfm/peripherals/index.html