The Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (ETCBC) develops and maintains an advanced syntactic database of the Hebrew Bible.
The methodology of the ETCBC prioritises syntactic analysis over semantic, literary, or rhetorical analysis. Formal indicators, rather than functional, comprise the framework of the database. Linguistic information is encoded hierarchically at the word, phrase, clause, and text levels.
The activities of the ETCBC include encoding new texts (data creation) and utilising already encoded texts for linguistic research. The ETCBC is branching out to other Hebrew and Semitic para-biblical texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls, Targums, and Peshitta. Through the SHEBANQ project, tools like Text-Fabric enable researchers to apply computational linguistics to the database with the Python and R programming languages.
More information about activities, research, staff, education, data, and software implementation can be found on the website of the ETCBC.
The centre is closely related to the research team Digital Approaches to Sacred Texts (DAST) of the School of Religion and Theology. For the activities of this research group, ongoing projects and possibilities for MA en PhD thesis projects, see the website of DAST.