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The user access<strong>in</strong>g the database (at http://www1.snunit.k12.il/kodesh/kodesh.html) can descend through a<br />

series of menus, reflect<strong>in</strong>g the hierarchical structure of the Bible and the Talmudic Literature, and read a<br />

specific chapter. He can also search the Bible or the Talmudic Literature for specific keywords, phrases, or<br />

keywords connected with Boolean operators, by us<strong>in</strong>g an HTML form <strong>in</strong>terface. In response to his query, the<br />

user receives an HTML page [Figure 1] <strong>in</strong> which the list of relevant chapters that answered his query appears.<br />

The list is ordered accord<strong>in</strong>g to the traditional order<strong>in</strong>g of the books <strong>in</strong> the Bible. For each chapter, all the<br />

verses conta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g the words searched by the user are represented as HTML l<strong>in</strong>ks. When press<strong>in</strong>g one of those<br />

HTML l<strong>in</strong>ks, the user is presented with the chapter itself. The relevant verse appears on top of the browser’s<br />

text w<strong>in</strong>dow.<br />

In the database, each chapter is represented as an HTML page. The Talmudic Literature texts quote often from<br />

verses <strong>in</strong> the Bible. In the database those quotes are represented as HTML l<strong>in</strong>ks po<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g to the exact verse<br />

from which the quote was taken. On the other hand, when a specific verse is quoted <strong>in</strong> the Talmudic<br />

Literature, it appears highlighted as an HTML l<strong>in</strong>k <strong>in</strong> the Bible. Press<strong>in</strong>g this l<strong>in</strong>k br<strong>in</strong>gs up to the user a<br />

different version of the chapter[Figure 2], which <strong>in</strong>cludes HTML l<strong>in</strong>ks to the places <strong>in</strong> the Talmudic Literature<br />

that quote this verse. Thus the user can easily view the commentary from the Talmudic Literature available for<br />

each verse.<br />

Architecture and Implementation:<br />

The database itself is simply a collection of HTML pages, one for each chapter. The files were <strong>in</strong>dexed us<strong>in</strong>g<br />

FreeWAIS 0.5. A ‘WAISGate’ [Tim BL & H. Frystyk 1995], is responsible for the <strong>in</strong>terface between the WAIS<br />

server and the client’s browser. Special modules were added to the WAISGate <strong>in</strong> order to support Hebrew<br />

search and return the list of match<strong>in</strong>g verses accord<strong>in</strong>g to the conventional order of the books <strong>in</strong> the Bible. We<br />

are currently replac<strong>in</strong>g WAIS with ‘Inter-Text’, a commercial <strong>in</strong>dexer, especially adapted for Hebrew, made by<br />

SPL.<br />

As mentioned above, the Talmudic Literature conta<strong>in</strong>s a lot of quotes from verses <strong>in</strong> the Bible. For each quote,<br />

the chapter from which the quote was taken is mentioned, but not the verse. Also, many times the quotes are<br />

not exact: some words are spelled differently or omitted all together and it isn’t clear where the quote ends and<br />

the Talmudic text resumes. A special algorithm, implemented <strong>in</strong> Perl, was developped <strong>in</strong> order to over come<br />

those problems and f<strong>in</strong>d the exact verse quoted. The algorithm rated all verses <strong>in</strong> the chapter accord<strong>in</strong>g to how<br />

much they matched a given quote, and then chose the verse with the highest score as the one from which the<br />

quote was taken. If it seemed that several verses matched a given quote, the length of the quote was doubled,<br />

and the score for each verse recomputed. After the quoted verse was found, a hyper l<strong>in</strong>k po<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g to it was<br />

made <strong>in</strong> the Talmudic text. Another hyper l<strong>in</strong>k, po<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g to the Talmudic text, was made near the relevant<br />

verse <strong>in</strong> the Bible.<br />

Conclusion<br />

We have implemented a database of the Bible and the Talmudic Literature on the World Wide Web. The<br />

database enables the user to easily reach the chapter he is <strong>in</strong>terested <strong>in</strong>, and view it <strong>in</strong> a way that is pleasant to<br />

the eye. By us<strong>in</strong>g HTML l<strong>in</strong>ks embedded with<strong>in</strong> the text, the user can easily move between a specific chapter<br />

and the commentaries relat<strong>in</strong>g to it <strong>in</strong> the Talmudic Literature. The user can also search the database for any<br />

words or phrases appear<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> it.<br />

We believe that databases, widely available to the public, should be one of the ma<strong>in</strong> constituents of the ‘useful’<br />

portion of the World Wide Web. Here we have demonstrated how a rather advanced database can be built by<br />

us<strong>in</strong>g and modify<strong>in</strong>g widely available freeware and comb<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g it with some orig<strong>in</strong>al ideas and algorithms. We<br />

also demonstrated how an ‘electronic version’ of a book can be produced on the Web, and how such a version<br />

can support advanced brows<strong>in</strong>g features which would never be available <strong>in</strong> a conventional book.<br />

References

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