Hebrew and Greek in Paratext Lite

Question

I tried to get Paratext Lite on my Samsung smartphone.
Unlike in regular (computer) Paratext, I could only find a Greek Majority type text for the NT, but nothing like the SBL among the downloadables, also the Hebrew text seems to be not the Westminster or Leningrad text, but something else.
Are the academic SBL Greek or Westminster Hebrew texts not awailable in PT lite?
Or did I just not know where to look for it?
This is particularly awkward in the NT. Only a majority text, and none of the SBL/Nestlé/UBS tradition? This could look like a bias.
Where can I get more information?
anon451883 Müller, Bangui, Central African Republic

Answer 1

This should be possible in a future Paratext Lite release (9.0.6)

Installing Paratext default HEB/GRK resources in Paratext Lite Paratext Lite

Please note this guide is for a currently unreleased verse of Paratext Lite. Paratext Lite 9.0.6 or higher is required for this guide to work. We don’t currently include Paratext’s default HEB/GRK resources in Paratext Lite as this would significantly increase the download size. Since every Paratext Lite user doesn’t require them, it’s not considered to be worth the cost. Follow these steps to add the default HEB/GRK resources to Paratext Lite. Copy the .p8z files from your Paratext install…

Comments

Now that 9.0.6 Beta has been released (it might take a few days to be approved as an app at the Google Play store). For those of you who are interested in having Greek and Hebrew texts, you might want to try this. 9.0.6 release is in part due to your request that you have made here.

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Thank you for this improved version.
anon451883 Müller

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You are welcome. We trust that this will be useful to you in your part of translating Scriptures.

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Dear friends

I was able to install PT9.0.6.20 on my phone.
I can trigger a send/receive and I do get the list of the projects
for which I am a consultant. However the (local) Internet does not
allow for the download of these projects.
(I live not on the Internet highway, but on a small small Internet
path, “out in the bush”.

  I have not been able to locate the Source texts (Hebr/Greek) to

download them either. When calling for “Install a ressource” I do
get the beginning of an looooooooooooog alphabetic list starting
with a. But it refuses to scroll.

  So I am still somewhat stuck. I hope someday being in

Internet-Highway-Land and to be able to download both the
ressources and the send/receive texts without getting stuck.

  I do not have a very fancy phone, but not a totally basic one

either. (Samsung A20e). Theoretically it should be able to handle
PT lite, shouldn’t it?

Respectfully
anon451883 Müller, Translation Consultant, Central African Republic

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anon451883:

  I have not been able to locate the Source texts (Hebr/Greek) to

download them either. When calling for “Install a ressource” I do
get the beginning of an looooooooooooog alphabetic list starting
with a. But it refuses to scroll.

It sounds like you did Get Resources from… -> Internet. (not Get Resources from… -> local)

And the long list is all the resources in the DBL. (one should be able to type in the “Filter For:” field to reduce the length)

If you have access to a Paratext (desktop) install you can get resources from “C:\My Paratext Projects 8\_Resources” (The p8z files)

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Dear hindlemail
I was indeed looking on the ressources on the internet, and I
still only the Byzantine, the Brenton, and the Greek Textus
Receptus, but not the regular source text (as in Normal Paratext
under HEB/GRK. Also for Hebrew the only text proposed on the list
is Delitzsch’s Hebrew NT, Habrit Hakhadasha (Modern Hebrew NT) and
another Hebrew NT and Heb Old Testament BSI 2017 which does not
seem to be the regular source text.

  And for the national language NTs I can go on send receive, via

Internet, I do get the list of them, but each time when I trigger
a send/receive for one of the languages, it stops after a few
seconds and says (in French): “send receive for [language name] is
not completed”. And that’s the end of it.
Yet, my internet connection is working for all other
(non-Paratext) purposes.
So I am wondering if we have just a too slow an internet
connection here in the bush and I should wait another two years
till this is upgraded on the internet provider’s side.

  Too bad. It would be handy to have Paratext on the cell phone,

but it seems that this is not yet ripe here in Central Africa.

Respectfully
anon451883 Müller,
Translation consultant

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Dear anon451883,

One of the other team members noticed your response again and brought it to my attention. It appears that we have left your queries unanswered for quite a while, sometimes correspondence slips. Sorry about that, we usually try to be more responsive.

In looking at your queries, it seems like you might have had difficulty finding and installing the resources from a local USB stick in PTLite on your phone. The resources are available on your computer that you have Paratext installed. If it is a windows computer, I think you will find the resources at “C:\Paratext\Resources” or something very similar to that depending upon your installation. The resources you are looking for will have filenames like: HEB.p8z, GRK.p8z, LXX.p8z. They all end in .p8Z. If you are on a linux machine, they should be in a directory located in your home directory, something like “Paratext8Projects/_Resources”. If you copy these files that you want onto a USB stick that is compatible also with your phone, then you can install these files (they are “local” files) using the main menu on PTLite: Get Resource > Local. Select and install each of the resources you need, then you will have access to them.

We are working on getting the next release out sometime before the end of the month, but already in the Beta version that is released (9.0.8.10), there are some new features, one of which enables users to install any of these “standard” resources using the internet.

I note that you were having some trouble scrolling through the “looooooong” list. At the top of the list there is the word “Filter”, click on that and you can enter a language, or if you know the short name, such as BYZ, type that in, it will filter the number of resources you can install to include only those that match the filter that you type in.

In Christ,
anon089134 (for the team)

Answer 2

anon451883, welcome to the Paratext support community.

The source language texts are not available on Paratext Lite. They are only available on the full desktop version of Paratext.

This is in part due to the capabilities of phones/tablets (processor, memory, screen size) and the need to make the app with less features so that it will work on the devices. PT Lite is intended for reading, replying and revision. It is not intended for actual translation.

It is possible to have access to other source language texts in other apps such as Logos. If you have a license to any desired books on the desktop software on Logos, then you can get them in the app for no additional costs.

anon307241, Papua New Guinea

Comments

Dear anon307241

Thanks for letting me know.
I understand that there is an issue with the capacity of
smartphones, indeed… (we are reminded of that all too often in
the manyfold uses of those gadgets…)
Not giving the ancient source texts could therefore make sense.

  But to me it would only make sense, if there were not the Robinson

NT and some not Leningrad Hebrew OT on the list of downloadables
on Paratext Lite.
Those are questionalble texts at least among a non-neglegible
chunk of Christianity. Now those texts are available in Paratext
Lite.
I am aware of the fact that there are strong ideas about what the
original text should be, and consensus is far from being reached
among Christians.

  Now, what would you say if e.g. for English only King James were

available in Paratext Lite?
I don’t speak English, and I rarely use English Bibles, but that
fact would look quite weird to quite a number of Anglophones, and
it would be somewhat biased, wouldn’t it?
Either one have a good consensual academic textual base
(Greek/Hebrew) available, or then rather none, methinks.
To have only questionable texts looks very puzzling to me.

  Of course I know that I can have the source texts in other apps,

and I do. YouVersion is a very good example.
We can, of course, continue to swap between apps. Sure.

Respectfully
anon451883 Müller

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I see where you’re going. My guess is that the Paratext developers consider those to be resources and not source language texts.

Here’s another thread on this topic.

Source language text in Paratext Lite? Paratext Lite

Hello, Can I install a source language text in Paratext Lite? It does not appear among available Internet resources. Thanks. Giedrius

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Maybe interpreting the Leningrad Codex Hebrew text or its derivates and the Nestlé/UBS/SBL NT texts as source language texts on one side and the Byzantine Greek text as a resource is a logical distinction. That is fine with me. Maybe they are also legally accurate and reflect copyright considerations.
But for Jack Bible translator and Sally Translation Consultant, this distinction may not be readily evident. I have met people who do consider the Byzantine text as an authoritative source language text, an idea which of course does not result in best business practices in several working contexts.
To only have a Byzantine NT available in Paratext lite, and none of the derivates of the Source Greek texts is not healthy in my eyes, and it may really look biased.
The case is very different with the available Hebrew translations of the NT. Those are translations, not less not more, They cannot and must not pretend to be source texts. Those can stand alongside any other translations.
anon451883 Müller

Answer 3

Hi anon451883,

Thank you for your feedback.

The reason for not including Paratext’s default HEB + GRK texts was purely technical.
All the DBL resources were made available to download, but because the HEB and GRK aren’t in DBL it was overlooked.

Internally we had a Paratext Lite version that included it by we didn’t roll it out to the full version. Partly because we didn’t know increasing the install size was worth it.
From my perspective having the HEB + GRK files in the DBL would be better.

one can see the development card here:
https://trello.com/c/tx9c7sJu/499-access-the-lxx-grk-resource

Thanks
hindlemail

Comments

Thanks for sharing the Trello, @hindlemail. It is interesting to see the progress on various features/bugs/issues in the development of PT . It is easy for us end users to forget all the work that went into getting us where we are and will still be done as the app continues to develop.

Answer 4

There is a Paratext Lite section on this site. There was a previous discussion about the source language text. Info is probably dated

Source language text in Paratext Lite? Paratext Lite

Hello, Can I install a source language text in Paratext Lite? It does not appear among available Internet resources. Thanks. Giedrius

Answer 5

I was given a version of PLite to evaluate, and my assessment was that without an Alexandrian Greek text, it is useless to me. I’m never content to read the English NT alone without the Greek, and when I’m reading the NT in a project, I for sure want a standard NT text. Unlike the UBS text, the SBL text is in the public domain. It is widely used by scholars and on internet Bible sites. It is also in the DBL. Having the Byzantine only communicates the wrong message to our partners, to other scholars, and to many others who might use PLite. It is hard to imagine any technical reason why PLite can handle a Byzantine resource text but not an Alexandrian resource text like the SBL text. It does not need to be a Paratext “source” text; a resource is enough. I do hope the SBL will be added to PLite. Until then, I cannot use PLite, not even for devotional reading or to follow a sermon. During sermons I always want to see how the passage is worded in the (Alexandrian) Greek text. So on my smartphone I use PocketBible, which lets me see the SBL text, synchronized with an English text of my choice. Unfortunately, it does not have a Hebrew text. And unlike PLite, I cannot add a project translation.

Comments

anon042033,
you are describing exactly my problem, my feelings and my
desiderata.
With respectfull greetings
anon451883 Müller, Bangui, Central African Republic

Answer 6

Hello anon451883,
First off, I can’t believe we have left you hanging for this long without an answer. Somehow both of us on the team missed answering your query.

When I read your question, it seems there may have been some things that were not very clear in how to install the source texts on PTLite. Before I answer your question though, the team has recently done some work to make it easier to install the standard resources, that is the resources that are automatically installed on a machine that has Paratext installed. Our new mechanism treats these standard files as an additional download that you can choose to install resources from the internet. This is now available in the latest Beta, 9.0.8.10. We are aiming to release the 9.0.8.x sometime later this month, so it should also have all the other goodies as well.

Now, the above may not help you so much if you don’t have such a great opportunity for connecting to the internet.

So, back to the resources and installing them with out the internet. If you have already installed Paratext on a computer, and you have a USB stick that you can use with your phone, you have all you need to install the resources on PTLite on your phone. Here is how:

1. Locate your Paratext Projects folder on your computer … it is most likely on your C:/ drive folder named “Paratext8P”, or “Paratext”; the resources you need are in the “Resources” folder. If you are running linux, it will be in your home directory at “Paratext8P”; the resources are in the “_Resources” folder. You will know you have the resources folder or directory when you see the following contents: BYZ.p8z, GRK.p8z, HEB.p8z . . .
2. Copy all the .p8Z files, or at least the ones you need, onto your USB stick.
3. Safely remove the USB stick from your computer
4. Use this USB stick on your phone
5. In the PTLite main menu, select “Get Resource > Local”
6. Navigate to where the p8Z files are and select what you want to install, continue installing until you have what you need
7. Safely remove the USB stick

As for installing resources from the “long” list, you can type into the filter box the resource you want so that you don’t have to scroll through the long list.

I hope these tips will help you.

In Christ,
anon089134

Comments

Dear anon089134

Some unwelcome gossipper said: “If you let a problem sit long enough on your desk, it resolves itself just by itself” (Bad English translation of a German saying…)
I have left the country of iffy and sketchy internet despite myself in June 2020, and now I am sitting in the “paradise” of extremely swift internet access in Switzerland.
With that I have been able to download all I needed from the internet into my Paratext lite.

However I am still quite sure that if (God willing) I will return eventually to the country of drip-drop internet, it will be impossible again to download any new translations/versions.
For the time being I do now have what I want.
And when returning to “the IT desert”, I am aware that I do not only renounce willingly to Spas, movie theaters, well equipped shops and good car mechanics, but also to the nice-ities of a swift internet.
My great-grand mother lived without electricity and reached a high age, my grandfather never heard of internet in his life and lived happily up to his 90s, my dad never used e-mail and lived up to 102. So I, too, may survive the iffy internet and its unpleasant consequences which have become quite frequent nowadays within SIL.

With respectful greetings

anon451883 G. Müller
SIL, Central African Republic - and Switzerland

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Hi anon451883,
nice to hear from you. I loved everything I experienced while I was in Switzerland. Absolutely beautiful country and people. We have a few Swiss here at the Wycliffe office in Calgary. In fact, a daughter of one of the families came over to our house the other night to watch “Die Deutscher II” the second part of a history of Germany. It was because we were going to watch something “auf Deutsche” as my son is continuing to learn German after returning from volunteering for six months at the WEC centre in Germany. I also am learning German in case he marries Jana. My wife already knows German as she studied in Frieburg where she actually became a believer.

I trust that you and your family are well, and that in His time you continue to find yourself exactly where God wants you to be, in the centre of His will!

Wir sprechen uns später!

anon089134

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Dear anon089134
Thank you so much for this personal mail.
It’s good to know someone out there in this unknown world of the “ParaTExt guys (and gals)”.
For me ParaTEXT has a long history. We did an OT with older versions of PT. I don’t remember when we began with it, but it must have been Paratext Version 4.
Things were still quite simple at these times. Now the development has become such a race, I barely understand a version and boom! The next one is smashed on my desk.
(Not to tell about the African translators, who have not been really familiar with all the nice features of the the last version, battle to get to know the current one, and so often I say… Gentlemen, leave it there! It’s hard enough now, just to keep going. Not every few month a new thing.

Yes, there are the nice videos one could download (if there were a decent internet), but the African colleagues learn better a) by personal interaction and b) by doing and being mentored on the job.

Yes, I am getting old and close to retirement age. You may have felt that before.
Maybe it’s just “old man’s talk”. I try not to close my shutters and still run after the developments, patting and puffing, my tongue out, and not really catching up with the race.

But some times I am a bit tired of this race.
I will have to leave the race for the younger.

By the way, German is also a foreign tongue for me. I had all my schooling in it, I read most of my lectures in it in young years, I can speak it fluently, albeit with a typical accent and some typical local special ways of expression.
However, my mother tongue is Alemannic (or “Swiss German”) a language close to German, but with a different grammar (no genitive, only two tenses) and a similiar but distinct vocabulary from standard German, and a very different form for many words. German: ich gehe /Swiss German: Ch gang or ch gohne. The vowel i of “Ich” is dropped, and only used of there is a stress on the word.

Other example: German: Ich sehe / Swiss German “ch gsehne” or “ch gseh”. /
We don’t have the future tense nor the preteritum in Swiss German, but we have the subjunctive.

So it was my first foreign language I had to learn when I went to 1st grade. We don’t particularly love it, but it’s the language of most written things in our country, so are the news at the radio and the sermons in many churches. But we don’t usually speak it lest we must.

French was worse: I hated it at school, it was compulsory. but now in the last 30+ it has become my language of work for probably more than 50% of all my work.

With brotherly greetings
anon451883

Answer 7

Dear anon451883,
Thank you for sharing so deeply and personally about your experiences in your work, and with various versions of Paratext. I too have some experience with earlier versions of Paratext, as my wife and I were first assigned as linguists / translators in West Asia.

I realise that the way I wrote my message made it seem like I assumed that German was your mother tongue - I suppose because you wrote something about German in an earlier message. I have learnt that there are four national languages in Switzerland, and I knew something of the different varieties of Swiss German in various Cantons. But didn’t realise how different Swiss German was to hochdeutsch, which is basically what I’m learning, and I guess what is taught in schools.

May you run and not grow weary as you wait upon the Lord. Today, my reading was in Psalm 135, and 136, and I tried to read it in German too. I think for me, Psalm 136 was easier because there is the repeated line >Seine Liebe hört niemals auf! < and each line before this phrase is short. Still a whole lot to learn!

Blessings to you and family!

In Christ,
anon089134