DIATHEKE(1)

💖 DIATHEKE(1) 💖 — the Diatheke man page, bestie edition

okay so you opened man DIATHEKE(1) and now you're here, hiiii 🫶 this is the manual page for diatheke, and I'm gonna walk you through it like we're texting at 2am. grab a snack. it's giving biblical scholarship but make it a group chat. ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

diatheke — a command line Bible reader. yes literally. it reads Bibles from your terminal and it ate. 👑

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

here's the shape of it, three whole moods:

diatheke -b module_name [-o option_filters] [-m maximum_verses] [-f
output_format] [-e output_encoding] [-t script] [-v variant_number] [-l
locale] -k query_key

diatheke -b module_name -s regex|multiword|phrase [-r search_range] [-l
locale] -k search_string

diatheke -b system -k modulelist|modulelistnames|localelist|bibliography

and then, like, the lore on those system keys:

• modulelist will return a list of the names and descriptions of all installed modules
• modulelistnames will return a list of the names of all installed modules
• localelist will return a list of all installed libsword locales
• bibliography will return a list of all installed modules and their BibTex bibliographical entry

and one more for the girlies:

diatheke -b info -k module_name

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

diatheke prints Bible verses or other text from the modules which the Sword library uses. that's it, that's the whole job, and she does it flawlessly. 💅

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🦋 OPTIONS 🦋

• -b — Module name. it can be "system" or "info" (peep QUERY KEYS for the tea) or one of the names you get from running diatheke -b system -k modulelist.
• -s — Search type. pick one of regex (regular expression, see regex(7)), multiword (like "word [AND word]..."), or phrase (exact text, no notes, no extras).
• -r — Search range. a valid Bible key range value (see -k). for example: Matt-John, Rom, gen-psalms, 1Thess 1:5-2:6.
• -o — Module option filters. a combination of "fmhcvalsrbwgeixtM". see MODULE OPTIONS below bestie.
• -m — Maximum number of verses returned. any integer value, go wild.
• -f — Output format. one of CGI, GBF, HTML, HTMLHREF, LaTeX, OSIS, RTF, ThML, WEBIF, XHTML, plain, and internal (def).

heads up: This currently works only if there is a Sword library filter from the original format to the specified output format. XHTML, HTML and CGI are for generating text for a webpage. 🌈

• -e — Output character encoding. one of Latin1, UTF16, HTML, RTF, UTF8 (default). This currently works only for module contents, not for system key contents or key texts. noted. 📝
• -v — Variant. The text may contain variant readings. one of -1 (all), 0, 1.
• -l — Locale. Sword may have different locales installed. Default is en. Localization affects input and output keys.
• -k — Query key. It must be the last argument because all following arguments are added to the key. See QUERY KEYS for different kinds of keys. yes she's the main character and she has to go last. periodt. 👑

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💜 MODULE OPTIONS 💜

By default the optional features of modules are not shown in the returned text. These options make them visible if the module supports them. (if the module doesn't support it? nothing happens. no drama. 🙈)

• n — Strong's numbers. These numbers refer to the Strong's dictionaries of the New and Old Testaments. Some Bible texts attach these numbers to words.
• f — Footnotes.
• m — Morphology of the Greek/Hebrew words. Morphology is shown as a code which refers to an entry in some dictionary-type module.
• h — Section headings.
• c — Hebrew cantillation.
• v — Hebrew vowels.
• a — Greek accents.
• p — Arabic vowels
• l — Lemmas (the base forms of the words).
• s — Scripture cross-references.
• r — Arabic shaping.
• b — Bi-directional reordering.
• w — Red Words of Christ.
• g — Glosses/Ruby
• e — Word Enumerations
• i — Intros
• x — Encoded transliterations, i.e. transliterations provided by the module (currently few modules have any such information)
• t — Algorithmic Transliterations via ICU
• M — morpheme segmentation

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🔥 QUERY KEYS 🔥

📖 Bible texts and Commentaries

use verse keys. Examples: john 1:1, j1:1 jh1 (the first chapter of John), jh (the whole book of Gospel of John), joh 1:1-3 ( a verse range), joh 1:0 (one verse backwards from 1:1, which is the last verse of the previous book or possibly an introduction to John), joh 1:100 (which is 100 verses forward from the first verse of John 1:1), 1234 (which is the 1234th verse from the beginning of the Bible).

📚 Lexicons and Dictionaries

use word keys. Any word can be used and similar or next entry alphabetically is returned. Some dictionaries like Strong's use numbered entries.

🖥️ system

is not a module but when used with -b allows one of these keys: modulelist (list of the available modules with short descriptions), modulelistnames (list of the names of the available modules), localelist (list of the available Sword locales).

ℹ️ info

is not a module but when used with -b allows a module name as a key and gives some information about that module.

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

• diatheke -b KJV -k joh1:1 Shows John 1:1 in King James Version. 💫
• diatheke -b RWP -k Matthew 2:2 Shows Matthew 2:2 in Robertson's Word Pictures commentary.
• diatheke -b WebstersDict -k bible Show entry "bible" in Websters Dictionary.
• diatheke -b system -k modulelist Shows the list of available modules.
• diatheke -b KJV -o fmslx -f OSIS -e Latin1 -k john 1:1-3 Shows John 1:1-3 from KJV in OSIS XML format in iso8859-1 encoding with footnotes, morphology, cross-references, lemmas and words of Christ in red. (The module may not support all options and those have no effect. KJV includes only ASCII characters so encoding has no effect.) 💀 that last part is so real
• diatheke -b GerLut -l de -m 10 -k Offenbarung Shows the first 10 verses of Revelation in German GerLut version, both input and output keys are localized. multilingual queen 🌍
• diatheke -b KJV -s phrase -r Mt -k love Shows those verse keys which include phrase "love" in Gospel of Matthew in KJV module.

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😭 DIAGNOSTICS 😭

Currently diatheke exits always with status 0. so like... always fine, allegedly. here's the decoder ring:

• If only Bible verse key and module name are shown it means that the module did not have any content in that range.
• If only module name is shown the key may have been bad.
• If nothing is shown the book name may have been bad.
• If Segmentation fault is shown diatheke has been bad.

that last one is not a vibe. that one is a real crash. 😭

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🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

http://www.crosswire.org/sword/

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👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Sword library: © 1994-2018 Crosswire Bible Society, released under GPL licence.

Diatheke: written by Chris Little, Peter von Kaehne, Troy Griffitts

Manpage: written by Eeli Kaikkonen, Peter von Kaehne © 1999-2018 Crosswire Bible Society, released under GPL licence.

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okay that's the whole page bestie, you're officially a diatheke girlie now 🎀 this was diatheke version 4.8, dated 2018-11-08, from the DIATHEKE(1) manual — mwah, go read some scripture in your terminal, it's iconic ✨💖🦋