Would quick-link support for BibleGateway be... useful?

Question

So... Congratulations on graduating to a full-fledged Stack Exchange site!

We'd kinda like to do something special for y'all, and this is currently the top-ranked feature request: Add Markdown and/or OneBox support for BibleGateway

That said, oneboxing is troublesome. BibleGateway doesn't offer an API for this, so we'd be stuck trying to scrape the site's text, which is fragile... And then there are potential legal issues that we probably don't want to worry about.

However, Pacerier and Iszi laid out a reasonable idea in the comments there... What about a special syntax for Markdown here that enabled quick generation of links to specific passages and translations?

For instance:

• [bg Matthew 1:18] in Markdown would convert to Matthew 1:18 in the output.

• [bg Genesis 1:1-5 NIV] in Markdown would convert to Genesis 1:1-5 (NIV) in the output.

• [bg Ecclesiastes 1:18 NIV;KJV;NKJV] would convert to Ecclesiastes 1:18 (NIV;KJV;NKJV)

• etc.

The only question is, would this actually be useful? If you're quoting a passage anyway, then you probably already have a link ready at hand. Is this a feature that would actually improve the experience here on the site, or would it just end up being extra baggage?

Answer 1

Yes this would be very useful in itself, but oneboxing would be even better.

There are API's out there for this, the Bible text is the Bible text no matter whether you pull it from Bible Gateway or somewhere else. In fact there are sites that have large numbers translations available through an various API's.

If you were going to do just the link format support, I would like to see some options for providers. For many versions there are better sites to be linking to.

Answer 2

Rather than requiring additional markdown syntax, I would suggest an even easier approach for all users - let the backend submission code add the markdown for you. It would actually be very simple to implement.

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api.biblia.com has several useful calls:

• scan - will take a full text of an answer and return all bible locations it can find.

• parse - will then convert those to references that could be included in markup

• content - is a full up JSON-returning API that does what you could scrape from Bible Gateway - and since it's backed by Logos (you really should contact them about advertising!) - you will get almost as many versions.

Using these tools, I would love to add simple functionality to the [SUBMIT] button that would automatically scan the answer for any textual references and automatically add a link to the content. That way, even beginning users unfamiliar with content would get the nice syntax :)

At one point, I had actually written a simple little "Stack Exchange Concordance" using these tools. The idea was simple - iterate over every new post in C.SE and BH.SE, cache results in a database, and then generate a list of posts (questions and answers) that contained references to any verse. Ultimately, I was even planning on contacting you guys about adding a "Concordance" link, so that when you clicked on it, you'd get a page that would allow you to search all posts for any posts that contained any reference within a selected range. As a result, if you wanted to see if there were any questions that dealt with, say, Ephesians 2:8-9, or the Book of Jude, it would return all results in a fashion not unlike the search box today. Were that parsing integrated into the submit button as well, the concordance would be that much more useful.

As a pastor, when I set about to preach a text, I'm always trying to imagine what questions people have about any given text. There are a lot of people here who have great questions, and I for one would find that Concordance to be a great spur in my sermon preparation.

Anyways, that's a long answer to say yes anything we can do to link this content back to the Word

Answer 3

I've created my own site so I can quickly cite and link to the ESV, you are welcome to use/copy it if it is of any use. Or it could be adapted for other versions that are accessible via an API I imagine.

If you visit a URL like http://www.douglastechnology.co.uk/esv?passage=Matthew+5.43-47, you should see output like:

> <sup>43</sup>“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ <sup>44</sup>But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, <sup>45</sup>so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. <sup>46</sup>For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? <sup>47</sup>And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? <sub><sub>[ESV](http://www.esvbible.org/Matthew+5.43-47)</sub></sub>

and this pasted into an answer looks like:

⁴³“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? _ESV

The PHP behind this is:

<?
$v=fopen('http://www.esvapi.org/v2/rest/passageQuery?key=IP&include-passage-references=false&include-footnotes=false&include-headings=false&include-short-copyright=false&passage='.urlencode($_GET['passage']), "rb");
echo stream_get_contents($v);
?>
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
  $(function(){
    $("body").css("font-family", "monospace");
    $("span.chapter-num,span.verse-num").each(function(){ $(this).replaceWith("&lt;sup&gt;"+$(this).text().replace(/\s+/g,'')+"&lt;/sup&gt;"); });
    $("p").prepend("&gt; ");
    $("p:last").append("&nbsp;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;sub&gt;[ESV](http://www.esvbible.org/<?=urlencode($_GET['passage'])?>)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;");
    //$("p").prepend("&gt; ").each(function(){ $(this).replaceWith('<span>'+$(this).html()+"</span>"); });
  });
</script>

Answer 4

I'd like to use it and I appreciate the sentiment, but I prefer to quote and link to the New American Bible (which has a pretty good API), not because I think it's a better translation, but mainly to annoy Protestants, which I don't think works.

What if the translation part was the link and the rest of it was static text

[bible Ecclesiastes 1:18 NIV;KJV;NKJV;NABRE] would convert to

Ecclesiastes 1:18 (NIV;KJV;NKJV;NABRE)

If there was only one translation, then it could convert just to one full link (I'd imagine 99% of our links are just to one translation.)

Is this too complicated? Well, I'm a programmer and I'm starting to hate myself for even suggesting this. So, the bg syntax is good, as long as BH.se doesn't get it till they graduate.

Answer 5

It seems like Markdown is automatic generation of links to a specific site and Onebox is automatically copy-pasting specified verses onto the post. Correct me if I am wrong.

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Markdown and Onebox are both great features; however, when we write our post, we generally just copy and paste the verses from the Bible we wish to use; its not very often that we just post the link to the said verse. I for one always copy paste the verses I use.

Why? Simply because we do not want our readers to shuffle back and forth between tabs just to see what we are talking about; putting the entire verse in our post makes everyone happier. That being said, Oneboxing is troublesome.

The idea I propose is this; we create our own source of The Bible inside this site, and then we Onebox from there. No more hassle.