Lectionary Games for those with too much time on their hands...

[pmcleanj]

One of the members of my Bible Study mentioned that she had never read the bible all the way through, despite starting on such a project several times. She was using the "start at Genesis and when you get to Revelation you're done" method -- which was, admittedly, the method I used the first time I commenced on the project.

I suggested to her instead that she simply supplement our regular study of the weekly lectionary by using the weekdays to fill in the gaps in the RCL. I had thought of using the "When will it be read" webpage to identify said gaps, but that page refers to the TEC lectionary rather than the RCL. So I downloaded the text files of the lectionary from the Vanderbilt website, compiled them into a single document, and parsed them into a data structure. Then I cross-referenced the RCL against a similar data structure of the Bible itself. There's some error, of course, given the variation in book/chapter/verse counts. But the system is largely working and I'm starting to put together reading lists for my friend.

So; quiz time: roughly how many verses do you think the RCL never covers? or, what proportion of the bible that constitutes?

[Jadis40]

Question for you: What's the RCL and TEC? I've never heard of those.

[pmcleanj]

TEC is "The Episcopal Church". That's the Anglican church in the United States. RCL is The Revised Common Lectionary (http://www.commontexts.org/rcl/faq.html)

[Jadis40]

TEC is "The Episcopal Church". That's the Anglican church in the United States. RCL is The Revised Common Lectionary (http://www.commontexts.org/rcl/faq.html)

Ah, thanks. I need to revise my comment a bit, I have heard of the Episcopal Church. Just didn't know what the RCL was. I guess my brain wasn't fully functional at that moment ;)

Being a Methodist, I can't help but think of our link to the Anglican church through John Wesley, who was ordained as a minister over in England back in the 18th century.

[pmcleanj]

Ah, thanks. I need to revise my comment a bit, I have heard of the Episcopal Church. Just didn't know what the RCL was. I guess my brain wasn't fully functional at that moment ;)

Being a Methodist, I can't help but think of our link to the Anglican church through John Wesley, who was ordained as a minister over in England back in the 18th century.

The United Methodist Church is among the denominations that typically use the Revised Common Lectionary for their Sunday readings. The virtue then is, that if you meet for lunch with someone from another church, or participate in an ecumenical bible study, or have to travel and stop at a strange church, there's a good chance that the other church or other class-members may well be using the same readings that are in use in your own home church.

[higgs2]

You could use the TEC 2 year cycle for daily reading which I believe covers even more of the bible. TEC has gone over to RCL for Eucharistic Readings starting this year, by the way.

[karen freeinchristman]

So; quiz time: roughly how many verses do you think the RCL never covers? or, what proportion of the bible that constitutes?
I'm guessing it's a fair amount - say... 3%? :confused:

[AngCath]

yikes, only counting the Eucharistic readings?
i'm sure we leave out more than we'd like to admit. we have the 2 year Daily Office readings, but so few people actually do the Daily Office...

[pmcleanj]

Yes, only the daily office -- that's the only part that's actually "Common". The two-year cycle is specific to TEC.

I'll give you some hints.

1) The uncovered portion is lower than for the 1662 BCP lectionary (go figure: that is a one-year cycle with only two readings normally referred to as "the Epistle" and "the Gospel", while the OT that it barely touches on is more than two thirds of the whole Bible -- but then the BCP's two-year daily office cycle purportedly covers 100% of the Bible, not that I've analyzed it in a database)

2) Karen's guess of 3% uncovered is WAY low.

[pmcleanj]

How to go about this problem:

1) Create a database table listing all the chapters of the bible, indexed by the book they are part of, and attributed with the count of verses in each chapter. I got the counts from http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/, so I don't have values for the books of Esdras or the Prayer of Manasseh, and the deuterocanonical portions of Esther and Daniel and Jeremiah aren't separated out from the primocanonical portions.

2) Create a database table listing all the readings in the RCL, indexed by book, chapter, and verse.

3) Create a view providing one record for each verse in the Bible (excepting of course Esdras and Manasseh which will simply be ignored in all subsequent statistics)

4) Create a view providing one record for each verse in the lectionary.

To find the proportion of the Bible not covered, take 1 - [value from 3)]/[value from 4)]

To find which verses are not covered, join the two views with an open (left) join, and select the records where the value from 4) is null.


Okay, trivia question #2 (assuming all my datasets got transcribed and parsed without truncation, which is by no means certain): which entire BOOKS don't get read at all in the course of the RCL (even assuming that you read all options on the days that offer you a choice)?

[higgs2]

How to go about this problem:

1) Create a database table listing all the chapters of the bible, indexed by the book they are part of, and attributed with the count of verses in each chapter. I got the counts from http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/, so I don't have values for the books of Esdras or the Prayer of Manasseh, and the deuterocanonical portions of Esther and Daniel and Jeremiah aren't separated out from the primocanonical portions.

2) Create a database table listing all the readings in the RCL, indexed by book, chapter, and verse.

3) Create a view providing one record for each verse in the Bible (excepting of course Esdras and Manasseh which will simply be ignored in all subsequent statistics)

4) Create a view providing one record for each verse in the lectionary.

To find the proportion of the Bible not covered, take 1 - [value from 3)]/[value from 4)]

To find which verses are not covered, join the two views with an open (left) join, and select the records where the value from 4) is null.


Okay, trivia question #2 (assuming all my datasets got transcribed and parsed without truncation, which is by no means certain): which entire BOOKS don't get read at all in the course of the RCL (even assuming that you read all options on the days that offer you a choice)?



Every book in the Apocrypha?

[pmcleanj]

Every book in the Apocrypha?

Nope. The CL started with the Roman Catholic lectionary, and hence treats the apocrypha except the books that they don't recognize as completely integrated with the rest of the OT. But the RCL offers alternatives any time that the regular reading strays outside the 66 books that the congregationalist folk recognize, so as to be fully ecumenical.

Well, fully except for Esdras and Manasseh. So you get a two points because Esdras and Manasseh are left out completely. Along with at least five others.

[higgs2]

Nope. The CL started with the Roman Catholic lectionary, and hence treats the apocrypha except the books that they don't recognize as completely integrated with the rest of the OT. But the RCL offers alternatives any time that the regular reading strays outside the 66 books that the congregationalist folk recognize, so as to be fully ecumenical.

Well, fully except for Esdras and Manasseh. So you get a two points because Esdras and Manasseh are left out completely. Along with at least five others.


Um. Leviticus? THat's what I'd leave out. :P

[pmcleanj]

Um. Leviticus? THat's what I'd leave out. :P

Yup!:clap:

[AngCath]

i don't think we read out of Tobit or either Maccabees in RCL... though they pop up for other things.

[karen freeinchristman]

2) Karen's guess of 3% uncovered is WAY low.

OK, 30% then! :sorry:

[pmcleanj]

i don't think we read out of Tobit or either Maccabees in RCL... though they pop up for other things.

Yup! Three more points for you!

However, I did an open join on JUST the BookID's, so I can now tell you that not counting the deuterocanonical partial-books, 17(!!!) entire books are skipped by the RCL.

So there are 11 more besides 1 & 2 Esdras, Leviticus, Tobit and 1 and 2 Maccabees.

[pmcleanj]

OK, 30% then! :sorry:

Right order of magnitude; but still low :cry:

Of course, I'd love it if someone would double-check my numbers and find me wrong ...

[higgs2]

Yup!:clap:

<giggle> ^_^ SWAGS can be accurate sometimes! :thumbsup:

[higgs2]

Yup! Three more points for you!

However, I did an open join on JUST the BookID's, so I can now tell you that not counting the deuterocanonical partial-books, 17(!!!) entire books are skipped by the RCL.

So there are 11 more besides 1 & 2 Esdras, Leviticus, Tobit and 1 and 2 Maccabees.



I wonder if the 1979 BCP lectionary skipped that much?

[pmcleanj]

I wonder if the 1979 BCP lectionary skipped that much?

Probably. The 1979 lectionary is an adaptation of the Common Lectionary, from which the RCL was derived largely by adding MORE options for readings.

[higgs2]

Probably. The 1979 lectionary is an adaptation of the Common Lectionary, from which the RCL was derived largely by adding MORE options for readings.

Actually, having *options* for readings does not mean more is covered over the 3 year cycle, does it?

[pmcleanj]

No, and since many of the options retread other options, any improvement that the RCL may have introduced with respect to its coverage is likely minimal. But one change was to introduce a "semi-continuous" Old Testament cycle, and my analysis to date shows that some of the readings do show up only in the semi-continuous option. Of course, the other option could have been narrowed by moving things out into the semi-continuous chunk, but if I'm were to go into this depth of analysis on the 1979 to satisfy my curiosity about it's coverage, my children would have me committed.

Here's an easier quiz question. Within 10%, how many verses do you think are in the Bible as a whole? (should be able to come close with googling)

[higgs2]

31,000 not counting deuterocanonical books.

[pmcleanj]

31,000 not counting deuterocanonical books.

Yup. and about another 4500 in the Rome-accepted deuterocanonicals. Which is part of what I'm struggling with: somewhere in my counts I'm losing about 4000 verses.

I'm coming up with only about 5000 verses in my count of the Lectionary. But if my Bible overall verse-count is off by 4000, my Lectionary count is likely to be off too.

So, close order of magnitude only, it looks like the lectionary covers slightly less than 20% of the Bible.

[higgs2]

Yup. and about another 4500 in the Rome-accepted deuterocanonicals. Which is part of what I'm struggling with: somewhere in my counts I'm losing about 4000 verses.

I'm coming up with only about 5000 verses in my count of the Lectionary. But if my Bible overall verse-count is off by 4000, my Lectionary count is likely to be off too.

So, close order of magnitude only, it looks like the lectionary covers slightly less than 20% of the Bible.


That is not really very much of the bible. :sorry:

[pmcleanj]

No, it's not:( I was pretty surprised.

But this underpins that hearing the Bible once a week is not enough -- and I think both our Evangelical and Anglo-catholic wings would endorse that. Either we need the daily office to hear the rest of the Bible, or we need small-group Bible studies to cover the rest of the Bible.

Or both -- for the crazy broad-churchers as opposed to the hazy broad-churchers:D

I'm just surprised that I haven't yet found a three-year supplementary lectionary already on the internet somewhere. I can't be the only person who wants to stick with the RCL for thematic study throughout the week, while still covering the whole of the Bible instead of 18% (or whatever it works out to when I get all my data discrepancies resolved)

[higgs2]

No, it's not:( I was pretty surprised.

But this underpins that hearing the Bible once a week is not enough -- and I think both our Evangelical and Anglo-catholic wings would endorse that. Either we need the daily office to hear the rest of the Bible, or we need small-group Bible studies to cover the rest of the Bible.

Or both -- for the crazy broad-churchers as opposed to the hazy broad-churchers:D

I'm just surprised that I haven't yet found a three-year supplementary lectionary already on the internet somewhere. I can't be the only person who wants to stick with the RCL for thematic study throughout the week, while still covering the whole of the Bible instead of 18% (or whatever it works out to when I get all my data discrepancies resolved)



So, is it correct that the 1979 BCP lectionary had old testaments readings that correspond with whatever the theme of the epistle and gospel reading are? ANd the RCL old testament readings are more or less a continuous reading from the OT without regard to the topic of the epistle and gospel for the day?

[AngCath]

So, is it correct that the 1979 BCP lectionary had old testaments readings that correspond with whatever the theme of the epistle and gospel reading are?

Often it is, well was in the 79, the OT and Gospel which are thematically tied together and the Epistle when lucky.

[pmcleanj]

So, is it correct that the 1979 BCP lectionary had old testaments readings that correspond with whatever the theme of the epistle and gospel reading are? ANd the RCL old testament readings are more or less a continuous reading from the OT without regard to the topic of the epistle and gospel for the day?

During the "green" seasons, the RCL provides an optional semi-continuous reading. Festival and penitential Sundays (for the most part) stick with the thematic OT reading only; and the thematic OT reading is available during the "green" seasons if you don't have a preference for the semi-continuous readings.