text:
Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts
While ancient Hebrew underwent linguistic change, as do languages in general, the biblical texts seem not to reflect this chronology in a way that makes any kind of linguistic dating of the texts possible – in contrast to the consensus prevailing among Hebrew linguists until about a decade ago.
Essay based on Linguistic Dating of biblical Texts. Volume 1: An Introduction to Approaches and Problems. Volume 2: A Survey of Scholarship, a New Synthesis and a Comprehensive Bibliography. BibleWorld. London: Equinox Publishing, 2008.
By Ian Young
Associate Professor, Department of Hebrew,
Biblical and Jewish Studies,
By Robert Rezetko
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Religious Studies,
Honorary Research Associate,
Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies,
By Martin Ehrensvärd
Part-time Lecturer, Department for the Study of Religion,
University of Aarhus
Lecturer, Department of Biblical Exegesis,
The University of Copenhagen
In the last few years, a challenge has been mounted to the consensus view that Biblical Hebrew (BH) can be divided into two discrete historical periods: Early Biblical Hebrew (EBH) and Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH), or early Hebrew and late Hebrew. The starting point for this challenge was the publication of a volume Young edited with―in the words of one reviewer―the "yawn-invoking title" of Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology (2003).
EBH, according to the traditional view, is the language of the preexilic or monarchic period, down to the fall of the kingdom of Judah to the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The exile in the sixth century BCE marks a transitional period, the great watershed in the history of BH. After the return from exile in the late sixth century BCE, we have the era of LBH. Thus, EBH developed into LBH. Hebrew biblical texts can, therefore, be dated on linguistic grounds because LBH was not written early, nor did EBH continue to be written after the transition to LBH.
We suggest that following through the logic of this chronological approach to BH actually leads inevitably to the conclusion that all the biblical texts were composed in the postexilic period, which is exactly the opposite of what its proponents have claimed. Now, this may in fact be a conclusion which is congenial to some. But others will not find this agreeable, so we will offer a way out of this conclusion by arguing that the presuppositions of the chronological approach are undermined by the evidence. On the contrary we will argue that the best model for comprehending the evidence is that "Early" BH and "Late" BH, so-called, represent co-existing styles of Hebrew throughout the biblical period. Then we will deal with the objection that Persian loanwords are an irrefutable proof that the chronological approach is correct. Finally we will step back and ask some hard questions about the presuppositions involved in the dating―by linguistic or other means―of the books of the Hebrew Bible.
2. Standard Chronological Hypothesis Leads to Late Dating of Entire Hebrew Bible
It is the work of the great Israeli scholar Avi Hurvitz that has established sounder methodological principles and therefore decisively advanced the study of LBH in recent decades. One of his many important advances is to put to rest older scholars' insistence that "Aramaisms"―or Aramaic-like forms―are necessarily evidence of a late date. Contrast, for example, Otto Eissfeldt's argument regarding Song of Songs―Aramaisms and a Persian word equals lateness―with John Collins, who only mentions the Persian word. It is, therefore, not inappropriate if we concentrate on Hurvitz's methodology and presuppositions here. We illustrate these first of all by several quotes from his early work on the Prose Tale of Job.
Hurvitz argues in his article on the Prose Tale of Job, as he does elsewhere, that the late elements in the text "betray their actual background; and if they are not few or sporadic ― in which case their occurrence may be regarded as purely incidental ― they effectively date a given text." Later, he mentions "the existence of a considerable number of such [late] elements in the Prose Tale..." and concludes: "As far as can be judged from the linguistic data at our disposal, these non-classical idioms ought to be explained as post-classical ― namely, as imprints of late Hebrew ― thus making the final shaping of the extant Prose Tale incompatible with a date prior to the Exile." Thus: "It would appear that in spite of his efforts to write pure classical Hebrew and to mark his story with "Patriarchal coloring," the author of the Prose Tale could not avoid certain phrases which are unmistakably characteristic of post-exilic Hebrew, thus betraying his actual late date."
Thus, according to Hurvitz, despite his best efforts, it was not possible for the author of the Prose Tale of Job to avoid using LBH linguistic features. Here, however, we note a striking fact about the argument. Even demonstrating, using Hurvitz's careful methodology of distribution-opposition-external attestation (as discussed below), that a particular linguistic feature is LBH does not lead to the classification of the text in which it is found as LBH. As Hurvitz admits, LBH linguistic elements are found in EBH texts. Thus, as Hurvitz emphasizes in the quote above, it requires a "considerable number" of such LBH elements in a text before that text can be considered LBH. This is the criterion of accumulation.
In his article on the Prose Tale of Job, Hurvitz identifies seven linguistic features in the 749 words of the Prose Tale as LBH elements and considers this enough evidence to date the work late. Now at this point the uninitiated might be a bit puzzled by the argument. Why, it might be asked, did Hurvitz need to decide that seven linguistic features were enough to date the Prose Tale late? Why, in the first quote, did he need to emphasize that the LBH forms need to be more than few or sporadic? Surely, if these are really "late" linguistic items, the appearance of any one of them should indicate a late date for the passage in which it appears. But this is not the way it works in attempts to date BH writings linguistically.
One of Hurvitz's most important contributions to scholarship is his insistence on a careful methodology. For an individual linguistic item to be considered characteristic of LBH, it must have a distribution among the core LBH books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. Thus, for example, 78 out of 91 occurrences of malkut for "kingdom" are in core LBH books. Hurvitz's basic starting point, which we think is uncontroversial, is that these books are postexilic and therefore their language represents samples of postexilic Hebrew. The other key element in Hurvitz's methodology is that not only must the linguistic element be evidenced in the LBH books, it must exhibit a linguistic opposition; in other words, it must be used in similar contexts as other forms in the core EBH books, especially the Pentateuch and Former Prophets. This crucial step ensures that we really do have variant language, not just linguistic forms that had no opportunity to appear in EBH books. Thus malkut contrasts with other BH words for "kingdom" like mamlakah. Hurvitz has a third criterion, external attestation, which tries to demonstrate that the form really is late by finding whether it occurs in late, mostly post-biblical Hebrew and Aramaic. Thus malkut is used widely in later Aramaic dialects and in Tannaitic literature like the Mishnah. This last criterion, however, promises more than it delivers. Given that the overwhelming majority of extra-biblical Hebrew and Aramaic dates to the postexilic period or later it is virtually inevitable that BH linguistic forms―whether early or late―will be attested in "late" extra-biblical sources. Malkut is also attested in early Aramaic, so it is hard to see how the external evidence proves anything regarding date. We believe, in any case, that the excellent criteria of distribution and opposition are enough to demonstrate that a form is characteristic of the core LBH books.
This is far from being the full story, however. Only a small minority of well-attested LBH linguistic forms are not also found in EBH texts. Thus we have seen that malkut is clearly a characteristic of LBH, occurring 91 times in the Hebrew Bible, 78 of them in the core LBH books, and a further six times in LBH-related psalms and Qoheleth. Yet, still, the remaining seven of those 91 occurrences in the Hebrew Bible are found in core EBH books like Samuel and Kings.
To us this phenomenon raises questions about the chronological approach which are not adequately explored by its proponents. Is malkut actually a "late" linguistic item after all? If so, its appearance in a text should indicate that therefore the text is to be dated late. And if EBH texts which use malkut were dated late, this means late texts need not exhibit an accumulation of LBH features. If against this it is argued that the LBH linguistic feature found in the EBH text is not actually "late" but was also available in an early period, then its value for dating texts "late" is negated. Despite the claims of the criterion of accumulation, to which we will turn shortly, there is no reason to assume that an early author could not produce a text with a clustering of LBH elements if they were available to him. Perhaps, though, it is not the mere availability of LBH features, but their frequency which counts. In the study of the natural development of a spoken language over time, factors such as the date of origin of a specific linguistic feature and the growth in the frequency of its use in the language are indeed important considerations. However, the consensus among scholars of the Hebrew language is that spoken and written varieties of Hebrew were some distance apart in the biblical period. In such a situation, the appearance of forms from the spoken dialects in literary Hebrew is unpredictable and a function of the individual stylistic choices of authors and scribes. The natural development of the spoken language behind the biblical texts is masked by this unpredictability. Issues such as the frequency with which such features occur, or that other texts avoid them completely, are dependent on the stylistic choices of individual authors and scribes, not a reflection of the chronological development of a natural language, as we shall see further below in detail. Or perhaps, finally, the LBH elements in EBH texts are evidence of later textual alteration of the language of the BH books. Proponents of the chronological model have been loathe to invoke this explanation. Once it is admitted that the language of the biblical texts has been changed in scribal transmission, the claim that the language of the current texts is evidence of the date of the original authors is thrown into serious doubt. We will return to this point later in section 5.
These questions aside, it is the phenomenon of the appearance of LBH linguistic items in EBH texts that leads to Hurvitz's final and most important criterion when it comes to dating texts: accumulation. This states that a text can only be considered LBH if it exhibits an "accumulation" of LBH features, identified using the above criteria of distribution and opposition. Unfortunately, nowhere to our knowledge has anyone actually specified how much of an accumulation is necessary for a text to be LBH. Hurvitz's claim that the Prose Tale of Job (749 words in length) is in LBH on the basis of seven LBH features, however, gives us an indication of how he might apply this criterion.
Another difficulty with the criterion of accumulation is that we are not aware of any procedure which has been developed for how such an accumulation should be measured. In response to this problem we developed a simple test of accumulation. Plainly put, this counts how many different LBH features occur in a given stretch of text. Where possible, this stretch of text will be of 500 words length, or to be more precise 500 Hebrew graphic units, so that samples will be comparable. Within this sample we count how many different LBH features there are. We do not count repetitions of the same feature since once an author has demonstrated the possibility of using a particular LBH form, there is no reason why it cannot be repeated as often as the opportunity presents itself.
- Core LBH in bold: Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, (non-synoptic) Chronicles.
- Core EBH in capitals and bold: PENTATEUCH, FORMER PROPHETS, PREEXILIC PROPHETS, PSALMS.
The table is very clear. The first surprise is that every sample we have studied includes LBH features. The only difference is the degree of accumulation of them. The core EBH and core LBH books are at different ends of the scale in terms of the amount of accumulation of these LBH features. Thus, while the highest core EBH sample, 1 Kings 22, has eight different LBH features, the lowest LBH sample, Esther 5–6 has 17, more than twice as many as 1 Kings 22, while all the other core LBH samples have yet higher numbers of LBH features.
One fact that is evident from the table is that Hurvitz and other proponents of the chronological approach have underestimated the amount of LBH features in EBH texts. His argument for linguistically dating texts like the Prose Tale of Job to a late period leads, in fact, to the conclusion that all the biblical texts are postexilic.
Recall that, firstly, Hurvitz argues that we know the features of postexilic Hebrew primarily by the distinct features of the core LBH books. Then, secondly, he argues that even when late writers tried to write early Hebrew, they betrayed their late origin by the use of a number of LBH features. This description of the late authors turns out to be a perfect description of "Early" BH: the authors attempted to write in a more conservative style than the LBH authors, yet they repeatedly use LBH features, so as to exhibit accumulations of them. Therefore, if these LBH linguistic features are actually late, Hurvitz's argument logically indicates that EBH is late, postexilic Hebrew by writers attempting (but failing) to write a more archaic or conservative style of Hebrew. The LBH authors in contrast were simply not so concerned to avoid these same linguistic features. The point is that both EBH and LBH authors used the same linguistic forms, just to different degrees. Thus EBH and LBH would turn out to be two styles of postexilic Hebrew, conservative and non-conservative.
3. Unravelling the Presuppositions of the Chronological Hypothesis
So, as we mentioned before, some of us may be quite content to leave all the biblical books in the postexilic period. However, for others of us we will now argue that the logic of the argument that leads to this conclusion is false because many of the presuppositions of the chronological approach are mistaken.
Hurvitz's initial and basic presupposition is that the core LBH books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles faithfully reflect postexilic Hebrew. This is a faultless presupposition given the evident dates of all these texts based on their internal references to at least the beginning of the Persian period. The inferences that Hurvitz drew from this initial starting point are, however, all open to question in the light of recent research. These include, firstly, that LBH was the only sort of Hebrew in the postexilic period and that therefore a late author was incapable of writing Hebrew without betraying his lateness, and secondly, that LBH could not be preexilic also. A third presupposition that underlies all linguistic dating work is that the traditional Hebrew MT forms of the books faithfully reflect the language of the original authors. Below (section 5) we will return to this last point.
The primary characteristic of EBH books that marks them apart from the core LBH books is a relatively low accumulation of LBH linguistic features. From the table above it is evident that such a low accumulation is a characteristic also of works doubtlessly composed in the postexilic period. Zechariah 1–8 is, according to the biblical book, a prophet of the early postexilic period. Even more surprising, in light of the expectations created by the chronological approach, is the low number of LBH links in our sample from the book of Ben Sira from the second century BCE and in the Qumran Pesher Habakkuk from the first century BCE. Thus far, in fact, we have not found a non-biblical work at Qumran with a LBH-like accumulation of LBH features. In light of this evidence, we arrive again at the conclusion that LBH was but one style of Hebrew in the postexilic period, alongside EBH.
It is even questionable whether LBH was a style of Hebrew restricted to the postexilic period. Most importantly, dating the language of the MT forms of the EBH books to the preexilic period, as Hurvitz does, indicates that a large number of LBH features were already in existence and available to be used in the preexilic period. Only a very small number of well-attested LBH features are not also found in EBH books. This is a crucial point. Recall the example of malkut. That this is not simply due to postexilic modification of the language of preexilic books―a possibility rejected in practice by Hurvitz―is evidenced by a number of LBH features in preexilic, monarchic era inscriptions. The 500 words of the Arad inscriptions exhibit an accumulation of nine LBH features―more than the accumulation that led Hurvitz to consign the Prose Tale of Job to the postexilic period! In fact, as you can see from the table, the preexilic Arad inscriptions from c. 600 BCE have a higher accumulation of LBH features than Ben Sira and Pesher Habakkuk, sources from the last two centuries BCE. Chronology is clearly not the explanation for these accumulations of LBH features, but rather that some authors have a stylistic preference for them. There is a strong case that many, if not most, LBH linguistic features already existed in preexilic Hebrew. If so, there is no reason why a preexilic author ―like Qoheleth as Young has argued―could not produce a work with an accumulation of LBH features. Thus it is a reasonable suggestion that even in the preexilic period LBH could have been a co-existing style of Hebrew alongside EBH.
Rather than a model suggesting that EBH and LBH are successive chronological phases of the language, which is incompatible with the evidence, a better model sees LBH as merely one style of Hebrew in the Second Temple period and quite possibly First Temple period. Both EBH and LBH are styles with roots in preexilic Hebrew, which continue throughout the postexilic period. "Early" BH and "Late" BH are not different chronological periods, but co-existing styles of literary Hebrew throughout the biblical period. These two general language types, EBH and LBH, are best taken as representing two tendencies among scribes of the biblical period: conservative and non-conservative. The authors and scribes who composed and transmitted works in EBH exhibit a tendency to conservatism in their linguistic choices in that they only rarely used forms outside a narrow core of what they considered literary forms. At the other extreme, the LBH authors and scribes exhibited a much less conservative attitude, freely adopting a variety of linguistic forms in addition to (not generally instead of) those favored by the EBH scribes. Between extreme conservatism (e.g., Zechariah 1–8) and extreme openness to variety (e.g., Ezra), there was a continuum into which other writings may be placed (e.g. Ezekiel).
Within this new model, much of Hurvitz's methodology is still sound. The criteria of distribution, opposition, and accumulation are still valid ways of describing linguistic relationships. It is still a worthwhile task to map the linguistic relationships of the biblical books to each other. Thus it is a significant result that MT Ezekiel has a higher number of links to core LBH books than any other prophetic book. The difference is that our new model simply does not relate such findings immediately to chronology. The relaxing of focus on chronology also allows us to notice other patterns of linguistic relationship that have no relevance to the old chronological model. Thus, scholars have long noted that Deuteronomy has a strong preference for lebab as "heart," while Jeremiah strongly prefers leb. Jeremiah's preference is shared by, among others, Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Judges and Samuel, and hence is not obviously a sign of "lateness." Among the LBH books, Chronicles and Daniel align with Deuteronomy in preferring lebab, whereas the other LBH and LBH-related books prefer lebab. Because this data cannot be used in support of the chronological theory, it has been generally ignored by language scholars. If enough of such linguistic links are established, we may be able to note other groupings of books beyond just EBH versus LBH. We think that this sort of approach represents the way forward in the study of the linguistic diversity of the Hebrew Bible.
4. Persian Loanwords
Surely the Achilles heel of any non-chronological approach to BH is the distribution of Persian loanwords. We recall Collins' opinion above on the Song of Songs. Even though the argument from Aramaisms has rightly gone out of fashion since Eissfeldt's day, the one related to Persian loanwords is still going strong and has had to bear increasing weight in the current discussion.On the one hand, it is generally considered, as Mats Eskhult has recently put it, that "Persian loanwords...almost unequivocally point to the Persian era" (c. 500–300 BCE). The other side of this argument is also well put by Eskhult: "What deserves to be stressed is that Persian words are notto be found in the Pentateuch at all! If loanwords of Persian origin are considered a strong argument when dating biblical texts, then the lackof every vestige of such loanwords ought to be considered as an important evidence for a date of origin prior to the Persian era."
We believe this approach is wrong for the following reasons. First, Persian loanwords are absent from a number of biblical works that are universally acknowledged as postexilic, such as the books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi set in the early Persian period, but also various other books generally considered postexilic, such as Joel, Jonah, Job, and Ruth. Also in the Persian era, we may point to the existence in Aramaic of two co-existing styles, the conservative Western style, regularly able to avoid Persianisms, and the non-conservative Eastern style, replete with Persianisms. In any case, the Hebrew evidence on its own is enough to indicate that absence of Persian words does not prove that a text is preexilic. In addition, we may note the powerful analogy with the fact that the Qumran authors, even though writing well into the Hellenistic period, were able to avoid using Greek loanwords. Persian and Greek are non-Semitic languages, and hence presumably loanwords from those languages were easy to identify and reject should the author so choose. Therefore, the absence of Persian loanwords in some biblical texts should not be given much weight in arguing for the pre-Persian date of those texts.
It is seldom understood that Persian is one of several related Iranian languages along with, for example, Median. The Medes were an important world power in the preexilic period, showing that Iranian languages were prominent before the Persian period. In fact, various biblical texts contradict the idea that Persians were not in contact with the West in the pre-Persian era. Thus, Ezekiel 27.10, a text internally dated to the end of the preexilic era, refers to Persians serving in the army of Tyre. Ezra 4.9–10 claims that the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal settled Persians in Samaria in the seventh century BCE. Assyrian deportations, in fact, led to significant population movements throughout the Ancient Near East, centuries before the exile of Judah. Media is the second most commonly cited place of origin for deportees, and the Assyrians were famous for moving populations from east to west and west to east. See, for example, the exile of Israelites from Samaria to "the cities of the Medes" in 2 Kings 17.6. Although we seldom possess the full details of the origin and destination of specific deportations, a strong case can be made that Iranians were settled in multiple deportations in the late eighth century BCE to Ashdod, Gath, and further south toward the Egyptian border. In line with this, scholars have identified Iranian names on seventh-century BCE texts from the region. Thus, far from being cut off from Persian and related languages until the era of the Persian empire, people of Persian or other Iranian extraction were probably near neighbors of the kingdom of Judah for a significant part of the preexilic period.
Finally, there seems little understanding of the way Iranian loanwords are identified in biblical texts. It is inevitable in research on loanwords that one must start with presuppositions about which languages are likely to have influenced BH. Thus, it is unlikely that one should turn to Australian aboriginal languages to elucidate difficult words in the Hebrew Bible. In line with the general consensus of biblical scholars, Iranian scholars have typically looked for Persian linguistic elements only in those texts they believed stemmed from the Persian period.
Thus, for example, the Persian word dat ("law") occurs in the MT of Deuteronomy 33.2, but this understanding of the word is generally rejected because it is considered impossible for a Persian loanword to appear in a text as early as Deuteronomy 33. Note, as another example, the discussion by Ran Zadok, a leading expert on biblical names, of the name Arioch in Daniel 2.24–25. He concludes that an Iranian "etymology is accepted here provided that the name in Daniel is not the same as the much earlier 'rywk in Gen. xiv 1, 9." In other words, there is no difference in form between the Iranian word in Daniel and the non-Iranian one in Genesis. It is just that it is impossible for Iranian linguistic elements to appear in "early" biblical texts.
There are no grounds for criticizing the Iranian scholars for their methodology. As we have mentioned, the identification of loanwords is so hypothetical that it is essential that some presuppositions are used as a starting point. The problem comes when scholars working with BH fail to understand the methodology of the Iranian scholars and claim high significance for the fact that there are no indisputable Persian words or names in EBH sources. This, as should now be clear, is nothing more than a circular argument: scholars have not identified Iranian elements in EBH because they have presupposed that EBH is too early to have them; other scholars then claim that since EBH texts do not have Iranian linguistic elements; this demonstrates their early date.
In fact, a preliminary search through the literature has enabled us to compile a list of 12 Iranian words and names in EBH sources. Whether they are really Iranian or not, it is hard to say, given the hypothetical nature of loanwords research, but we have compiled the list to counter the idea that it cannot be done. And we argue that it is very likely that the MT intends us to read the Persian words dat in Deuteronomy 33.2, raz ("secret") in Isaiah 24.16, and peladot ("steel") in Nahum 2.4. So if we take the evidence as it now stands―the usual procedure of Hebrew linguists―then the answer to whether there are Persian elements in EBH texts is unequivocally "yes."
5. Textual Criticism
The issue of loanwords is a convenient stepping-off point for the next issue. They are, in fact, a clear example of what we think is one of the greatest weaknesses of efforts to date BH texts on a linguistic basis. Here we see a prime and essential presupposition of the chronological approach in action.
Two or three Persian words have been enough for some scholars to conclude that the whole books of Song of Songs or Qoheleth cannot date earlier than the Persian period. Let us put this into perspective. The Persian words represent two or three words in texts having 1250 and 2987 words respectively. Given that the Qumran copies of Song of Songs differ from the MT once every six words, or the Qumran Qoheleth once every eight, how confident can we be that the couple of Persian words derive, without change, from the "author" of these works?
Modern readers are accustomed to a book, once published, remaining in the same form. Ancient books, however, according to scholarly consensus, did not maintain a static form, but developed over time. Despite the extremely fragmentary nature of our textual evidence, with no texts dating earlier than about 250 BCE and most of our evidence much later, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the versions of the Septuagint and the Samaritan text of the Pentateuch among others, when placed alongside the traditional MT, provide us with abundant evidence of textual variety. Thus, only a very small percentage of Qumran biblical texts have a very close relationship with the MT. For the parallel text 2 Samuel 22//Psalm 18, David Clines shows that, on average, one in every two words has an attested variant. Leading text critics such as Emanuel Tov and Eugene Ulrich agree that the biblical texts evolved through the production of successive literary editions, as evidenced by the fact that most biblical books have an attested variant edition.
Thus the evidence in our possession indicates a high degree of fluidity of biblical texts in the BCE period. This fluidity is especially noticeable in regard to the language of the biblical texts. At the very least, individual linguistic elements came and went during scribal transmission. The text-critical evidence, therefore, puts a question mark over the whole enterprise of linguistic dating before it has begun, since linguistic dating could only work if the language of the current texts is very close, if not identical to the language of the "original author" of the text being dated. On the contrary, the text-critical evidence indicates that the current linguistic profiles of the biblical books are not only the result of choices made by their authors only but also by later scribes.
According to general scholarly consensus on historical-critical issues and according to the consensus of text-critical scholars, the books of the Hebrew Bible are in their present, final form postexilic, but with elements (generally considered to be substantial) that go back to the preexilic period. Thus we would not expect any BH work to represent purely preexilic Hebrew. The fact that the orthography of all known biblical manuscripts is typologically different and, apparently, later than that of the Hebrew inscriptions would seem to back up this expectation. Textual criticism shows us that after orthography, language was the second most commonly changed element of the texts. The EBH and LBH linguistic forms of biblical books are thus not only the result of choices made by their authors. Later scribes clearly could change the EBH/LBH orientation of a text during its transmission. The classic example is the book of Isaiah in its EBH MT form and its more LBH form in the Qumran 1QIsaa, but many cases exist of linguistically variant forms of the same book, passage, or individual linguistic item. 4QCantb or the Samaritan Pentateuch represent systematic linguistic differences to the MT forms of the books. Often the variant forms represent EBH linguistic forms in contrast to LBH features of the MT. One example is the presence in the MT Pentateuch of examples of the LBH min ("from") separate before a noun without the definite article, all of which are absent from the Samaritan Pentateuch. Note the contrasting tendency of the scribe who added LBH medinah ("province") to EBH 1 Kings 20.14–19 with the one who added EBH anoki ("I") to Ezekiel 36.28 against the LBH tendency of Ezekiel to otherwise exclusively use ani. We must thus see the conservative and non-conservative tendencies applying in different ways and degrees to each individual textual version of each biblical book.
We can now see that the question that needs to be asked is: what are we actually dating? If biblical books were written and rewritten over the generations in the BCE period, then the question of the "original date" when a biblical book was composed is revealed to be anachronistic and irrelevant. The book as a whole was composed over a long period of time. Beyond this there are various things we may try to date such as when do we think the core form of the book came into being or what is the date of the current form of the text we are studying? We can see that these are two separate questions and that we must be very cautious about using the features of the current texts to date a presumed original composition.
To conclude, what we refer to as EBH and LBH are two co-existing styles or tendencies utilized by authors and scribes throughout the biblical period. EBH refers to a tendency to conservatism in linguistic choices, only rarely using forms outside a narrow core of what they considered literary forms. LBH refers to a less conservative attitude, freely adopting a variety of linguistic forms in addition to those favored by EBH authors. Later, scribes could choose to modify the style of a book or passage toward the other style.
The linguistic variety of our biblical texts, therefore, represents the end result of the application of these two writing and editing styles to various editions of the biblical books.
This is not to deny linguistic change in ancient Hebrew. On the contrary, ancient Hebrew obviously did change over time. But the nature of the texts is such that they do not reflect this change in any straight forward way.
Several practical outcomes of the new model for biblical studies in general are clear. First, the many attempts to date biblical books and passages on the basis of linguistic evidence are all based on a misconception of the nature of BH, and hence do not have the evidential value sometimes claimed for them. Second, the new model is more easily compatible with mainstream scholarship in other fields of biblical studies, especially textual criticism.
Thanks for this detailed article.
What do you make of passages that appear to have been rewritten in LBH, like II Chronicles 6:1-4, mirroring I Kings 8:12-15? As I explain in In The Beginning (though the information is fairly well known), the Chronicles passage appears to be a rewrite of the Kings passage, except that some of the grammar and spelling seems to have changed in accordance with LBH.
-Joel
#1 - Joel H. - 07/16/2010 - 13:09
Thank you for the question, Joel.
The issue is not straightforward. Aside from defining precisely what an LBH feature is (many so-called LBH features are no more characteristic of LBH than EBH books!), I think it is important to consider text-critical explanations, alongside linguistic ones, for the presence, or absence, of LBH features.
For example, sometimes in synoptic passages Chronicles and Samuel-Kings have the same LBH features, sometimes Chronicles has more LBH features than Samuel-Kings, but sometimes it is reversed, and sometimes they have a similar number of LBH features but not the same ones. So, for example, in 1 Kings 22.1–35//2 Chronicles 18.1–34, Kings and Chronicles share 5 distinct LBH features, Chronicles has another 4, and Kings has another 5 (thus, in total, Kings, 10, Chronicles, 9). If we repeat this exercise for a variety of synoptic passages we see that the results go different ways, thus throwing doubt on the standard chronological view that EBH = early and LBH = late.
We discuss the distribution of linguistic features in synoptic Samuel-Kings//Chronicles in detail in our books (see above), especially in vol. 1, chs. 3, 5, 13, and I have looked in detail at this issue in other publications, including a monograph on the ark narrative in 2 Samuel//1 Chronicles.
#2 - Robert Rezetko - 07/16/2010 - 21:55
On what basis is Qoheleth being considered a preexilic author?
#3 - Joseph - 07/21/2010 - 11:59
Young's argument that Ecclesiastes/Qoheleth is pre-exilic has nothing to do with the language. All that is argued in regard to the language is that, yes, it is strange, but not necessarily late. In any period, the language of Qoheleth would need to be explained. Young does this by arguing that the non-traditional message of the book was being presented in a non-traditional form of language.
The specific argument for the pre-exilic date of Qoheleth (see Ian Young, Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew, Tubingen: Mohr, 1993, pp. 140-157) is that Qoheleth presupposes the presence of a king in Jerusalem (see e.g. the beginning of chapter 8). The earliest manuscript of Qoheleth from the Dead Sea Scrolls is dated to the early-mid second century BCE. There was no king in Jerusalem before this date except in the pre-exilic period.
Is "Shibboleth" (Judges 12:6) EBH or LBH?
I always thought a lot of differences were
a regional dialect as opposed to early or late Hebrew. Sort of NY vs. Mississippi or
British vs. American. Job and Ecclesiastes
may be from east or west / north or south
and not Before exile or After exile!
The rewriting can also have been by regional closer contemporaries.
-maggid
#5 - Jerry Rosenberg - 11/25/2010 - 23:29
Very thoughtful, thank you
#6 - Paul Duggan - 08/01/2015 - 22:41


text:
Free Public Transport for everyone, not just elites
The Scottish Socialist Party is calling for free public transport to be extended to everyone in Scotland to cut emissions and reduce poverty.
The SSP is on the streets of Glasgow during COP26, arguing for a Socialist Green New Deal that tackles pollution and poverty together.
Radical plans include taking busses, train services, railway infrastructure, underground rail, ferries, and trams into democratic public ownership; extending accessible, free public transport to everyone in Scotland with a one-ticket-serves-all system; greatly improved pay and conditions for transport workers; and creating new, well-paid, unionised jobs in manufacturing and infrastructure in Scotland.
COP26 delegates have the benefit of "Oyster-like" smartcards in Glasgow, giving them free public transport for the duration of the conference.
The move is an admission that Scotland's fragmented, privatised, for-profit system of public transport is not fit for purpose – but creates a two-tier COP in a two-tier Glasgow. Instead of special privileges for elites, we need free public transport for all.
Travel and transport account for the majority of Scotland's greenhouse gas emissions – and travel is still expensive and difficult. If Scotland is serious about its climate commitments, it needs a public transport system fit for the 21st century.
Despite this, ScotRail is cutting 300 train services, and popular Daytripper tickets in Strathclyde have been axed before COP26. This puts more cars back on the road and deepens inequality in Scotland.
Travelers face sky-high fares and low-quality transport services across Scotland, which greatly impacts low-paid and precarious workers, the unemployed, and disabled people. Poor provision hits the poor hardest, diminishing choices, restricting access to essential services, increasing social isolation, and reducing job opportunities.
A lack of accessible, affordable transport costs economic opportunities and makes inequality worse. Free public transport means access to jobs, to public services, and to improved economic activity across Scotland. Free public transport is a net economic benefit to Scotland.
Expanded services and free public transport will provide safer travel for workers on late-night shifts, such as those in hospitality, who are often dumped on streets by employers without guaranteed transport home.
The Scottish Socialist Party supports RMT members on the Caledonian Sleeper who are taking strike action for better pay – this is a fight that won't be forgotten during COP26. The Caledonian Sleeper is a public service that could provide an alternative to short-distance flights. Serco has received millions from the Scottish Government to prop up their profits – it's time they gave workers a proper pay rise.
Winning a Socialist Green New Deal: Monday 8 November 2021
The Scottish Socialist Party is bringing the case for a Socialist Green New Deal to COP26.
Join our free public meeting at Community Central Hall, Maryhill, at 7pm Monday 8 November to hear from Trade Union organisers – including BFAWU General Secretary Sarah Wooley, RMT Regional Organiser Mick Hogg, and the Glasgow GMB's Chris Mitchell – why we need a Socialist Green New Deal.
Click HERE to register today
As capitalist polluters and the governments who prop them up gather at COP26 to discuss climate change – like criminals returning to the scene of their crimes – workers are fighting back.
Railway workers are campaigning against savage cuts to the service – which would totally undermine building clean, green transport to cut car pollution.
Workers in the cleansing service and schools are amongst those fighting against cuts to their real pay, the services they provide, and against the filthy state the host city is in, after years of underfunding.
We need to build solidarity with those in struggle – and link that to the urgent need for measures to combat both poverty and pollution.
This meeting will hear the case for a worker-led transition from fossil fuels to green energy – with no loss of jobs or conditions; the need to retrofit every home, and build 100,000 new eco-houses for rent; the case for free public transport to combat pollution, poverty and social isolation; and other measures that would help achieve socialist change to combat climate change.
As well as workers and young people on the front line, and an SSP speaker, we are delighted to have the General Secretary of the Bakers Union (BFAWU) SARAH WOOLLEY, RMT Regional Organiser MICK HOGG, and CHRIS MITCHELL from the GMB Trade Union.
Climate Crisis COP26 Free Public Transport Socialist Green New Deal
COP26: Socialist Change, not Climate ChangeNo, Capitalism Can't Solve Its Climate Crisis

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Home > Volume F > Contents > Chapter 13.4 > Section 13.4.12 | previous | next |
Section 13.4.12. Ab initio phasing starts
M. G. Rossmanna* and E. Arnoldb
aDepartment of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907–1392, USA, and bBiomolecular Crystallography Laboratory, CABM & Rutgers University, 679 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854–5638, USA
13.4.12. Ab initio phasing starts
Some initial low-resolution model is required to initiate phasing at very low resolution. The use of cryo-EM reconstructions or available homologous structures is now quite usual. However, a phase determination using a sphere or hollow shell is also possible. In the case of a spherical virus, such an approximation is often very reasonable, as is evident when plotting the mean intensities at low resolution. These often show the anticipated distribution of a Fourier transform of a uniform sphere (Fig. 13.4.12.1 ). Thus, initiating phasing using a spherical model does require the prior determination of the average radius of the spherical virus. This can be done either by using an R-factor search (Tsao, Chapman & Rossmann, 1992 ) or by using low-angle X-ray scattering data (Chapman et al., 1992 ). A minimal model would be to estimate the value of F(000) on the same relative scale as the observed amplitudes. This structure factor must always have a positive value. Such a limited initial start was first explored by Rossmann & Blow (1963) .
Figure 13.4.12.1 | top | pdf |
Structure amplitudes of the type II crystals of southern bean mosaic virus, averaged within shells of reciprocal space, shown in relation to the Fourier transform of a 284 Å diameter sphere. The inset shows the complete spherical transform from infinity to 30 Å resolution. [Reproduced with permission from Johnson et al. (1976 ). Copyright (1976) Academic Press.]
In surprisingly many cases (Valegård et al., 1990 ; Chapman et al., 1992 ; McKenna, Xia, Willingmann, Ilag, Krishnaswamy et al., 1992 ; McKenna, Xia, Willingmann, Ilag & Rossmann, 1992 ; Tsao, Chapman & Rossmann, 1992 ; Tsao, Chapman, Wu et al., 1992 ), it has been found that initiating phasing by using a very low resolution model results in a phase solution of the Babinet inverted structure ( ), where the desired density is negative instead of positive. Presumably, this is the result of phase convergence in a region where the assumed spherical transform is π out of step with reality. As long as this possibility is kept in mind with a watchful eye, such an inversion does not hamper good phase determination. In the case of phase extension, stepping too far in resolution can also lead to analogous problems (Arnold et al., 1987 ).
Similar errors can occur due to lack of information on the correct enantiomorph in the initial phasing model. In some cases, where spherical envelopes are used and the distribution of NCS elements is also centric, there will be no decision on hand, and the phases will remain centric (Johnson et al., 1975 ). However, in general, the enantiomorphic ambiguity (hand assignment) can be resolved by providing a model that has some asymmetry or by arbitrarily selecting the phase of a large-amplitude structure factor away from its centric value.
The progress of phase refinement away from false solutions has been the subject of `post mortem' examinations (Valegård et al., 1990 ; Chapman et al., 1992 ; McKenna, Xia, Willingmann, Ilag, Krishnaswamy et al., 1992 ; McKenna, Xia, Willingmann, Ilag & Rossmann, 1992 ; Tsao, Chapman & Rossmann, 1992 ; Tsao, Chapman, Wu et al., 1992 ; Dokland et al., 1998 ). The main lesson learned from these observations is that phase determination using NCS is amazingly powerful. Most initial errors in phasing gradually work themselves out with subsequent iterations and phase extension.
Perhaps the power of NCS phase determination should not be overly surprising. When phases are determined by multiple isomorphous replacement, the amount of data collected for the given molecular weight is , where N is the number of derivatives and is usually 3 or 4. Similarly, for multiwavelength anomalous-dispersion data collection, there might be measurements at four different wavelengths, essentially giving data points for each reflection. However, icosahedral virus determination frequently provides data points for the equivalent resolution.
Arnold, E., Vriend, G., Luo, M., Griffith, J. P., Kamer, G., Erickson, J. W., Johnson, J. E. & Rossmann, M. G. (1987). The structure determination of a common cold virus, human rhinovirus 14. Acta Cryst. A43, 346–361.Google Scholar
Chapman, M. S., Tsao, J. & Rossmann, M. G. (1992). Ab initio phase determination for spherical viruses: parameter determination for spherical-shell models. Acta Cryst. A48, 301–312.Google Scholar
Dokland, T., McKenna, R., Sherman, D. M., Bowman, B. R., Bean, W. F. & Rossmann, M. G. (1998). Structure determination of the ϕX174 closed procapsid. Acta Cryst. D54, 878–890.Google Scholar
Johnson, J. E., Argos, P. & Rossmann, M. G. (1975). Rotation function studies of southern bean mosaic virus at 22 Å resolution. Acta Cryst. B31, 2577–2583.Google Scholar
McKenna, R., Xia, D., Willingmann, P., Ilag, L. L., Krishnaswamy, S., Rossmann, M. G., Olson, N. H., Baker, T. S. & Incardona, N. L. (1992). Atomic structure of single-stranded DNA bacteriophage ϕX174 and its functional implications. Nature (London), 355, 137–143.Google Scholar
McKenna, R., Xia, D., Willingmann, P., Ilag, L. L. & Rossmann, M. G. (1992). Structure determination of the bacteriophage ϕX174. Acta Cryst. B48, 499–511.Google Scholar
Rossmann, M. G. & Blow, D. M. (1963). Determination of phases by the conditions of non-crystallographic symmetry. Acta Cryst. 16, 39–45.Google Scholar
Tsao, J., Chapman, M. S. & Rossmann, M. G. (1992). Ab initio phase determination for viruses with high symmetry: a feasibility study. Acta Cryst. A48, 293–301.Google Scholar
Tsao, J., Chapman, M. S., Wu, H., Agbandje, M., Keller, W. & Rossmann, M. G. (1992). Structure determination of monoclinic canine parvovirus. Acta Cryst. B48, 75–88.Google Scholar
Valegård, K., Liljas, L., Fridborg, K. & Unge, T. (1990). The three-dimensional structure of the bacterial virus MS2. Nature (London), 345, 36–41.Google Scholar


At the wrestling place there were many people. Duke Frederick was also there. In the earlier matches Charles threw little challengers one after another. All the three challengers had broken their ribs. They were struggling for life. Celia and Rosalind also had come there. Duke Frederick asked the girls to talk to the young man, Orlando. Frederick had felt that Charles would throw Orlando down in the fight. The girls approached Orlando. They requested him not to fight. Orlando refused gently. He said, "I have no one to care for me. I do not care even to die."
The match began. Orlando was much stronger than Charles. Orlando lifted Charles above his shoulders. Then he threw him down. Charles became unconscious after falling. Frederick and all others were happy. They congratulated Orlando. Orlando told Frederick, "I am the second son of late Sir Rowland de Boys."


text:
Tag: escape room game
Sneak in Some Free Virtual RECON for Escape Room Con
August 14, 2020 / Michael Andersen / Comments Off on Sneak in Some Free Virtual RECON for Escape Room Con
In August 2021, a collective of escape room creators, reviewers, and enthusiasts will converge in Boston for Reality Escape Convention (RECON), a two-day long convention dedicated to the escape room industry hosted by a team of industry leaders. The event promises carefully curated talks from a list of industry leaders, followed by interactive discussion groups with attendees to connect with the community, with early bird tickets priced at $300. The team is headed up by the Room Escape Artist blog, which has previously arranged for a series of Escape, Immerse, Explore escape room tours.
The Reality Escape Convention may be coming to Boston next year, but the wait for RECON content is much shorter. Next week, from Sunday August 23rd to Monday August 24th, the RECON team will be putting on a virtual version of their conference. For free. While the convention originally planned on holding their inaugural Boston con in 2020, they postponed for a year out of consideration for the safety of attendees. However, recognizing that the unprecedented challenges the escape room industry is facing is exactly the right time to assemble the escape room community to connect and share knowledge, the team pivoted to a free virtual convention to help facilitate the sharing of knowledge to set the stage for next year and beyond.
Registration for RECON Global remains open, and over 500 people have already expressed interest in conducting some virtual RECONnaissance in the coming week.
Refining the At-Home Escape Room Model with Flashback
September 27, 2019 / Michael Andersen / Comments Off on Refining the At-Home Escape Room Model with Flashback
Two years ago, I wrote a brief introduction to the world of escape room in a box games for Boxing Day after playing Wild Optimist's Escape Room in a Box: The Werewolf Experiment. Juliana Patel and Ariel Rubin initially funded production of their game through a Kickstarter campaign, before partnering with Mattel to produce a mass market version of the game that includes one particularly devious puzzle that still sits as a trap on my desk for unwary coworkers. The Wild Optimists have partnered with Mattel once more with Escape Room in a Box: Flashback, a game that manages to create the most elegant narrative and puzzle-based experience I've seen in the space.
New Retro Packaging, Same Lycanthropic Focus
While the retro '90s design aesthetic of the box and Flashback title might imply this game is a throwback to the electronic board game era of Dream Phone and Electronic Mall Madness, the Wild Optimist's newest escape room in a box is actually a direct sequel to The Werewolf Experiment. In the first installment, players were tasked with facing off against the mad scientist Doc Cynthia Gnaw, rushing to avoid becoming a casualty of her latest experiments. For Throwback, Doc Cynthia Gnaw is back with a vengeance, and players need to dive into her history to get out intact.
Because the narrative framing is so straightforward, these games don't have to be played in sequence: the group I assembled to play this game had never played The Werewolf Experiment before, and at no point in the 90-minute experience did I need to stop and explain what happened in the previous chapter.
Puzzles in Three Acts: Letting Players Choose Their Puzzling Fate
In The Werewolf Experiment, the solving process was largely a linear one. Upon opening up the box, a series of puzzles became available. By solving puzzles, players would figure out the combinations for a series of plastic combination locks or receive hints to explore unexpected places to uncover additional puzzles until they figured out how to open up the final locked box.
Flashback refined that model by splitting gameplay into three separate rounds: a word-puzzle round themed around Doc Gnaw's childhood friend Doctor Lisa David, a science-oriented puzzle round themed around Doc Gnaw herself, and a childhood round themed around their friendship. If smaller teams are tackling the escape room, these rounds are probably best tackled sequentially so everyone can appreciate the full breadth of the experience together. However, larger teams may find it easier to get everyone more consistently engaged by splitting up into smaller groups, and tackling the themes that speak to them while also making it harder for a single person to dominate the solving process.
This is where the game's strong theming steps up to become the hero: because each of the rounds have distinct theming and color-coding, it's possible to have all the game's pieces splayed out on the table at the same time without getting confused about which puzzles are tied to which theme.
Happy Escape Room in a Boxing Day!
December 26, 2017 / Michael Andersen / Comments Off on Happy Escape Room in a Boxing Day!
It's Boxing Day! The day when thoughtful gifts from friends, family, and coworkers are exchanged for store credit, and when you start planning on how to convert that stack of gift cards into even more presents. Something to consider for puzzle fans: the escape room in a box.
Comparing escape rooms in a box against their traditional escape room counterparts is a bit like comparing a theatrical performance with its cinema adaptation. Paying a premium to see a performance of West Side Story live delivers an experience that can't be completely translated to film, and attempts to directly lift the experience will make that absence noticeable. However, in the hands of the right team, cinematic adaptations can do things that would be impossible on a live stage. This article explores how three different companies brought their own particular spins on bringing the escape room genre home.
Giving Escape Room Stories Room to Breathe through Theater
November 19, 2017 / Michael Andersen / 1 Comment
Madame Daphne's Tarot Reading Room and Séance Parlor is hard to find without assistance, hidden away in a Houston artist's studio. An invitation from Madame Daphne herself provides instructions through the former rice packaging plant's stark white interior to the medium's lair, its lavish decor making it feel like a room out of place. Stepping over the threshold begins a 90 minute experience that tells a tale of deception, magic, and love spanning almost a century.
Strange Bird Immersive's production The Man From Beyond thrusts 4-8 players into a supernatural adventure that combines a masterfully crafted escape room themed around Harry Houdini with an immersive theater performance to frame the experience, set within the walls of Madame Daphne's parlor.
An Immersive Theater Sandwich
The Man From Beyond's fictional narrative starts the minute players step into the room, as Madame Daphne greets her guests with a dramatic flourish. All the standard onboarding activities of an escape room are wrapped up into the context of the room, with a flair for the dramatic. The requisite waivers are still signed, but are done through the narrative conceit of the séance. Players are presented with the rules for the experience through a series of photographs in the hallway leading to the séance parlor, illuminated by candlelight. The séance itself sets the stage for the escape room portion, setting the narrative context for players when they take over the story's agency.
Once the room's clock starts ticking, the room transforms from séance parlor into a standard escape room. In a room surrounded by Houdini's tools of the trade, players must tackle a century-old mystery on a deadline. At key milestones in the experience, micro-moments of theatrical exposition serve as narrative cut scenes, serving the dual purpose of rewarding player's progress through the puzzle portion and reminding players of their broader purpose in the room. Solving a major puzzle might unlock information about Houdini's wife Bess' previous efforts to speak to her dead husband.
Most room escape games leave little room for telling a narrative that exists outside the room's theming. A room based around an archaeological dig might hide some of its puzzles in a dig site and draw upon those themes to inform its puzzles, but a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is required to tackle the room's challenges. Even rooms that try to adhere to their own internal narrative consistency stick to a bare-bones plot due to the realities of room design. Players must often split themselves up into continually shifting groups to divide and conquer in the most efficient way possible. While this tactic is highly effective at uncovering a room's secrets, it forces players to experience the room's narrative in a disjointed fashion. Players might all be aware they're escaping from a jail cell, but the specifics of their escape route might only be known to a few participants, on a need-to-know basis. This challenge is exacerbated in the final minutes of a room, as teams scramble to put together the final pieces needed to escape. Often, escape room operators' explanations at the end of the room are as necessary to explain the accomplishments of teammates as they are to highlight overlooked puzzles and clues.
The Man From Beyond addresses that problem by explicitly carving out time outside the escape room's unforgiving countdown to allow players time to take in the story. Every player is aware of what they're doing because they experienced the introduction together, before the clock started ticking. Every player knows the main narrative beats because the information is broadcast to the group at key moments. And the grand finale can be fully experienced since it takes place after escaping the room, removing any time pressures that might otherwise cause players to gloss over the story.
Because Strange Bird Immersive created space for players to breathe and take in the narrative, it stopped the puzzles from overwhelming the game's powerful narrative themes. During my team's playthrough, we made it through the puzzles at a steady clip, but were so moved by the bittersweet tale that few of us made it out through the full experience without shedding a few tears along the way. It wasn't just that the story was pulling on our heartstrings. It was knowing everything that happened was because of our actions.
The Puzzling Rise of the Escape Room Game
February 19, 2015 / Michael Andersen / 1 Comment
Image of Tomb's sarcophagus illumination puzzle. ©2015, 5 Wits Productions, Inc. Used by permission.
The first time I visited Boston, I met up with a group of friends and broke into an ancient Egyptian burial chamber. The tomb's resident pharaoh was not exceptionally happy about our flagrant act of trespass, and forced our group of amateur archaeologists to solve a series of puzzles before barely escaping with our lives.
The rooms in the tomb were designed with a family-friendly audience in mind, and our guide throughout the experience embraced his role with an exuberant gusto I had only seen before from a skipper on Disney's Jungle Cruise. The experience managed to make even familiar puzzles feel extraordinary: no matter how many times you've solved Tower of Hanoi puzzles in the comfort of your own home, it's a completely different experience when you're passing oversized pieces across the room while the ceiling is slowly crashing down overhead.
When 5 Wits' puzzle adventure Tomb set up shop in Boston in 2004, it was something of a rarity. The interactive exhibit mixed theatrics with physical puzzles to make its guests feel like swashbuckling adventurers narrowly escaping danger thanks to their collective intelligence. And the design was flexible enough to reward that success, allowing for multiple endings based on groups' performance. While the original location is now closed, the 5-Wits moved Tomb to Tennessee, launching additional puzzle experiences in Washington DC, Massachusetts, and New York covering themes ranging from undersea exploration to espionage. Over the past decade, this type of immersive puzzle experience has expanded exponentially, with hundreds of locations putting down roots across the globe. For many, visiting the nearest real-life escape room is a day-trip away.
trap door escape stream


Find A Dentist In Chelmsford | Gentle Dental of New England.
Winner Readers Choice Award 2018! Our Chelmsford dentist office serves these areas: Chelmsford, North Chelmsford, Lowell, Dracut, Tyngsboro, Billerica, Carlisle, Tewksbury, Westford.


Description: At the meeting-point of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers lies this ancient city, previously known as Khalifatabad. Situated in the suburbs of Bagerhat, it was founded by Ulugh Khan Jahan, a Turkish general of the 15th century. The infrastructure of the city shows considerable technical skill, and reveals an extraordinary number of mosques and early Islamic monuments (many built of brick). --WHMNet paraphrase from the description at WHC Site, where additional information is available. For 360 degree imaging of this site, click here.
Mosque City of Bagerhat is one of the three World Heritage Sites in Bangladesh. This historic city is located within Bagerhat District in south-west Bangladesh. It was founded by Turkish general Ulugh Khan Jahan in the early 15th century. Originally this ancient city was known as Khalifatabad. The city is renowned for its large concentration of mosques and Islamic monuments. More than 50 monuments have been catalogued as part of the citation by UNESCO World Heritage. These include Shatgombuj Mosque, masoleum of Khan Jahan, the mosques of Singar, Bibi Begni, Reza Khoda, Zindavir etc. The Sixty Pillar Mosque (the Shatgumbad) is a mosque located in Bagerhat, south Bangladesh. This is one of the oldest mosques in the country. It attracts a large number of tourists and visitors every year. It has more than sixty pillars with its eighty one gambuj or domes. Seventy seven domes are over the roof and four smaller ones over the four corner towers. It was established by Khan Jahan Ali, a Muslim saint and the local ruler of Bagerhat, during the 15th century CE. The mosque is decorated mostly with terracotta and bricks. As it is heard that this mosque had been used for three purposes: as a prayer mosque, as an assembly hall on early times of Muslims, and a Madrasa. --Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. For 360 degree imaging of this site, click here.


text:
Sonna Rele Challenges Music Industry Stigmas on New Single "Bad Bitch"
Vocal powerhouse tackles the social media issues of the music industry on her brand new single "Bad Bitch". The track speaks to internet social addiction and the video depicts Sonna's path in the entertainment business with everyone telling her she needed to make changes to her appearances to fit the industry mold. The track showcases her vocal range moving between pop and RnB while the video transforms her into a video vixen and back into herself.
The singer had previously signed with Ne-Yo's label but now she's stepping out on her own as an independent artist. "Bad Bitch" is the first single that the LA based, London born singer is releasing on her new deal with Empire distribution. She adds about the song:
"I have had an interesting journey within my music career with people telling me I need to look and act a certain way and that I wasn't enough. "Bad Bitch" is about staying true to yourself, loving yourself and respecting yourself enough not to submit to social media bullying or expectations. I want woman/girls not to feel pressured into being something from societal expectations."
In addition to the new single, Sonna is currently working on a full album which will release in 2020.
Previous LISTEN: TroyBoi Previews Wonky Unreleased Track
Next Mariah Carey Releases Mini Documentary "Mariah Carey is Christmas: The Story of "All I Want for Christmas Is You"


text:
Q: Installing PostFix on Ubuntu (Lucid Lynx) from terminal window from script using apt-get postfix: no options to select Actually I'm using

sudo apt-get install bzr bzr-builddeb equivs

(though sudo apt-get install postfix seems to be doing the same thing) from the terminal windows, As per the iFolder instructions for installing Simias, but postfix is a dependency (I guess).  Someone else seemed to have the same problem as I, but there was no resolution of the issue there.
What is happening is that a configuration screen opens up, with the configuration options, but I can't seem to select anything (and there is no cancel option).
Any idea what is going wrong?  How can I fix it?

A: Hit the tab key. See if the selector appears.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: How to display only the content of webpages(not any of the tags,links) by regular expression in Java program I checked for this specific question and could not find any. I am writing a program in Java which analyses content from web pages, so I need a regular expression which can weed out all the links and tags (href, img, etc...), so that I could display only the pure content written and visible in the webpages. Thanks a lot.
Hi I wanted to make it more specific:
URLConnection connection = wordURL.openConnection("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter");
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(connection.getInputStream()));
String line;
String word = "bloom filter";
String regexp2 = word;
Pattern pattern2 = Pattern.compile(regexp2);
String HTML_REGEX = "(<.+?>)+"; // as per your answer(Martijn Courteaux)
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null)
{
       String content;
       if ( (content = line.replaceAll(HTML_REGEX, "\n") )!= null)
       {
              Matcher matcher2 = pattern2.matcher(line);
              if(matcher2.find())
              {
                   System.out.println(line);
              }
        }
 }

But unfortunately it still prints out paragraph (
) tag and also
 tag with some rubbish inside
. I would like to restrict it to display only those words where "bloom filter" is present.Thanks again.

A: HTML isn't regular so you can't do what you want with a regex but you can use JSoup.

jsoup is a Java library for working with real-world HTML. It provides a very convenient API for extracting and manipulating data, using the best of DOM, CSS, and jquery-like methods.

In particular you might like the following which is outlined in one of the examples...
String html = "

Lorem ipsum.
";
Document doc = Jsoup.parseBodyFragment(html);
Element body = doc.body();

A: Don't use RegEx for HTML parsing. Use an HTML parser, for example HTML Parser or jsoup.

A: I really know it isn't good to use a regex with html. But if he really wants to this might help:
String HTML_REGEX = "<.+?>";
String yourHTML = "
Lorem Ipsum
" +
                  "
Lorem Ipsum dolorem sedet. Set nihil amat. " +
                  "I don't know the text
"

String content = yourHTML.replaceAll(HTML_REGEX, "\n");
System.out.println(content);

prints:

Lorem Impsum

Lorem
Ipsum
dolorem sedet. Set nihil amat.
I don't know the text

As you can see, it will work, but it is definitely not what you want.

You can reduce the number of newlines by using this regex:
String HTML_REGEX = "(<.+?>)+";
String yourHTML = "
Lorem Ipsum
" +
                  "
Lorem Ipsum dolorem sedet. Set nihil amat. " +
                  "I don't know the text
"

String content = yourHTML.replaceAll(HTML_REGEX, "\n");
System.out.println(content);

prints:

Lorem Impsum
Lorem
Ipsum
dolorem sedet. Set nihil amat.
I don't know the text

I tried your code, and it didn't work indeed. After some editing this worked:
URLConnection connection = new URL("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter").openConnection();
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(connection.getInputStream()));
String line;
String word = "bloom filter".toLowerCase();
String HTML_REGEX = "(<.+?>)+"; // as per your answer(Martijn Courteaux)
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
    String content;
    if ((content = line.replaceAll(HTML_REGEX, "\n")) != null) {
        if (content.toLowerCase().contains(word)) /* Changed: regex match -> contains() */
        {
            System.out.println(content); /* CHANGED: line -> content */
        }
    }
}

What you did wrong was:

*

*You didn't print content, but line which of course contains the tags...

*You tried to find the word "bloom filter" using a regex, which is case sensitive. So, just lowercase the strings and use String.contains(CharSequence target), which tells you if the target string is a part of the whole string.


Because we always want more mobile games /s. Square Enix has announced a free mobile game that ties into Final Fantasy XV somehow called King's Knight - Wrath of the Dark Dragon. King's Knight was a game that actually predates Final Fantasy that was made by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu. So this mobile game is a bit of a throw back.
The game will be free to play with some in game purchases if you want. It will be available on the apple store and google play sometime in 2017.
For free I'll give it a try. I struggle to get into mobile games, though. When I'm out and about I'm actually doing something like working and when I'm at home I prefer to play on systems. I just don't have that in between time for things like this.