Frequently Asked Questions

1.1. What criteria are used for the pericope divisions?

My best attempt at a concise statement of how the pericopes are constructed is the maximal contiguous sequence of verses with a single setting (location and participants) that corresponds to material from other Gospels (if any). The requirement of a single setting sometimes results in pericopes that are shorter than the larger thematic material they're part of: for example, Pericope 30, "Jesus stays in Capernaum" consists of a single verse from John describing the transition between two larger stories.

Similarly, a shorter pericope is sometimes defined by material that is common to other Gospels. Luke's source for Pericope 64, "Jesus teaches about the light", is only a single verse, but the parallel in Matthew is somewhat longer.

2.1. I looked at the CGI but it's all strangely formatted. Isn't it supposed to be readable?

Actually, no: it's meant to be computer-readable, not human-readable. It's expressed in an World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard for structuring data called XML. Cover Pages is a good place to start learning about it.

2.2. What good is the CGI if it isn't human-readable?

Being computer-readable, it provides a foundation for computer programs to produce a variety of other results, including human-readable ones. For example, the individual pericopes (see the Pericope Index) are produced automatically from a combination of the CGI and the Gospel texts (formatted according to the OSIS format).

3.1. Why is Luke's source missing for Pericope 342 (Luke.24.12)?

This verse is missing from some older manuscripts, so it is not included in the Revised Standard Version text. Consequently, the program that constructs the Composite Gospel has no principled way to include it. I hope to include a more modern version in the future which should not have this deficiency.