Westminster Theological Seminary

With great honor and deep appreciation for Professor J. Alan Groves, on December 15, 2006 the Board and Faculty of Westminster renamed the Westminster Hebrew Institute the J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research. Read the full press release here.

The J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research applies computing and related technology to the study and teaching of the Hebrew Bible and language. Formerly known as the Center for the Application of Technology to Biblical and Theological Education (CATBE), and more recently the Westminster Hebrew Institute, it was formed in 1986 as an outgrowth of ongoing research in the area of Hebrew Bible and computing at Westminster under the executive direction of Professor Alan Groves [CV]. Currently the Center is also staffed by director Professor Kirk Lowery (a Hebraicist who has additional skills in both linguistics and computing) and assistant director Stephen Salisbury (a software developer with skills in computer science and Hebrew). Part-time support is supplied by graduate student assistants, who are involved in the various aspects of our ongoing research.

A special note for the historians: If one searches far enough back in the literature, the name "Westminster Computer Project" may surface. It was the forerunner to CATBE.

Educational Mission

In the area of teaching, the Center currently sponsors (bi-annually) a Seminar in Hebrew Text-Linguistics. (Usually this as offered in the Spring semester, but occasionally it is offered as a special seminar during January. See Hebrew Text- Linguistic Seminar in the OT section of the Ph.D. course descriptions-OT 742 or 743, depending on the semester offered). In addition to Professors Groves and Lowery, Professor Eep Talstra of the Free University, Amsterdam, regularly participates, as well as other scholars. The Center also serves as a resource center for the academic research needs of faculty and students in Hebrew and related study. It is noteworthy that the Center participated in some of the earliest attempts at computer-aided instruction for the Hebrew language.

Mission for Research

Concerning research in Hebrew and computing, the Center authors, contribute to, or consults on five ongoing projects:

The electronic Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC) The Center maintains the canonical version of the electronic representation of the best complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. Begun under the rubric of "The Westminster Computer Project" (a forerunner to the Center), and as part of the larger CCAT project at the University of Pennsylvania (under the direction of Robert Kraft), it was funded by the NEH and the Jewish Publication Society. A joint team of scholars (editors: Professor Groves and Professor E. Tov of Hebrew University, Jerusalem) from Westminster, Hebrew University (Jerusalem), and the University of Pennsylvania verified the accuracy of a machine-readable text of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) as initially input by the University of Michigan and the Claremont Institute of Christian Antiquities (Van Parunak and Richard Whitaker). By appealing to photo facsimiles of the Codex Leningradensis (the original manuscript upon which the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia is based), the Center team produced a verified electronic version of the BHS, which has become the foundation for all biblical software that incorporates a computerized Hebrew text. This project also involved the cooperation of the Centre Informatique et Bible (Maredsous, Belgium - F. Poswick).
Today this text aspires to be as accurate a "digital mirror image" as possible of the manuscript in modern data formats. The older versions are alternately known as the Michigan-Claremont-Westminster Text or the eBHS or the CCAT Hebrew text.

The Groves-Wheeler Westminster Hebrew Morphology (editors: Professor Alan Groves, Professor Kirk Lowery; Professor Dale Wheeler, Multnomah Bible College; assistant editor: Steve Salisbury). With seed funding from the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI), a team of Westminster scholars under the direction of Professor Groves began in 1987 to perfect a computerized version of the morphological analysis of the Hebrew text. We say perfect, because the basis for the text was a machine-produced analysis done by Richard Whitaker (Claremont, Princeton Seminary), who used the IBYCUS system to develop a parser that provided a trial parsing for about 95% of the words in the Hebrew Bible. While much editing was required, this initial analysis provided an excellent beginning database from which to build the database that exists today. The combination of the machine-readable version of the text and analysis provides a significant tool for Hebrew study for students at every level of interest and ability in Hebrew.
          The first version of the morphology was released in the summer of 1991. The second version, with significant corrections supplied by users, was released in 1994. The third version, which added homonyms and normalized the lemmatization to Kohler Baumgartner's III, came out in 1998. The combination of the machine-readable version of the text and analysis provides a significant tool for Hebrew study for students at every level of interest and ability in Hebrew. Professor Dale Wheeler (Multnomah Bible College) became co-editor in 1994. The database is now referred to as the Groves-Wheeler Westminster Hebrew Morphology.
          Funding came initially from PHI and then from Westminster Seminary. In recent years, The Gramcord Institute (TGI), under the direction of Paul Miller, has provided substantial funding for the ongoing improvement of the text.
          Significant scholarly contributions have been made by Professor Todd Beall (Capital Bible Seminary), Professor Eep Talstra (the Werkgroep Informatica at the Free University, Amsterdam), and F. Poswick (the Centre Informatique et Bible, Maredsous, Belgium). Under the direction of Professor Lowery, with the assistance of Steve Salisbury, enhancements and corrections are on-going.
          The Westminster Hebrew Morhphology has been incorporated into many Bible software products. Among them are:
- Accordance by Oak Tree Software (Mac)
- BART by SIL/Wycliffe (Win)
- BibleWindows by Silver Mountain Software (Win)
- BibleWorks by Hermeneutika (Win)
- Gramcord by the Gramcord Institute (Win)
- Logos by Logos Research Systems (Win)
- WordSearch by iExalt Electronic Publishing (Win)

Many of these products are available at a discount from the Westminster Bookstore.
For information about licensing the Westminster Hebrew Morphology for use in software projects or products, please contact Professor Lowery.

The Stuttgart Electronic Study Bible (SESB-with the Free University and Professor E. Talstra, Westminster has been part of production and verification; 1988-present.) The pioneering task of encoding an electronic text of the Hebrew Bible with syntactical data was begun in 1977 by Professor E. Talstra at the Free University, Amsterdam. The SESB program was released in 2004, marking the first completion of the first phase of the project. Westminster, through Professor Groves, has been a participant since 1988.

The Biblica Hebraica Quinta, a new text-critical edition of the Hebrew Bible. A multinational team of text-critical scholars is producing a new critical edition of the Hebrew Bible to replace the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Professor Groves is the technical editor for the project. The Center's role has been to develop data-entry and verification tools for the project and to re-examine the most recent photo-facsimiles of the Codex Leningradensis in order to verify the accuracy of the electronic text. The German Bible Society (the publisher) anticipates both hardcopy and electronic publication sometime after 2010. The first fascicle (The Megilloth consisting of the books of Ruth, Esther, Song of Songs, Lamentations and Ecclesiates) was published in the fall of 2004. Professor Groves was Technical Editor for BHQ.

The Chinese Standard Bible (CSB), a fresh translation of the Bible into Mandarin Chinese produced by the Asia Bible Society. Professor Lowery is collaborating with this project in two areas: developing a syntactically tagged and "richly annotated" Hebrew text for use in the Society's next generation translation software and additionally serves as Old Testament Translation Consultant for the CSB. Inquiries for further information about this project should be directed to Professor Lowery.