Pt.4 of Scripting the Talmud: Using ChatGPT4 to Automatically Optimize the Formatting of side-by-side Hebrew-English Talmud

A continuation of this previous piece: 

As an aside, it is interesting to compare Sefaria’s UX/UI with that of the ‘Perseus Digital Library,’ for example, Perseus’s edition of Josephus, ‘The Wars of the Jews’ (based on ed. Whiston). I hope to do a full comparison and review in the future.

Tested using the Daf yomi of a few days ago:

Sefaria, Talmud Bavli, Kiddushin 30a, sections # 2-3

Screenshot comparing original Sefaria interfact, with final table in Google Docs:

Final Table 

Screenshot of ChatGPT4 output, in ChatGPT interface

Technical Source

https://www.sefaria.org/Kiddushin.30a.2?lang=bi&with=About&lang2=en

Resources > Download Text:

Choose: 

Davidson Edition - English

Text (with tags)

Prompt to ChatGPT4

'

set up the orginal hebrew, and the corresponding translation, in table. each cell should be a phrase. English translation on left, Hebrew original on right.

Format bold and italic based on the HTML tags in the input

If an English section is an interpretation and does not have a direct Hebrew counterpart in the provided text, leave the corresponding ‘Original’ cell blank.

Before new section (§), add a blank row in the table.

For proper names of Sages, add ‘T’ for Tanna OR ‘A’ for Amora in parentheses, using an educated guess. 

##

[text]

'

I manually did the following: 

1. Set Hebrew Original as right aligned

2. Set fonts as follows: 

   1. Hebrew - Frank Ruhl Libre - Normal - 15 pt.

   2. English - Garamond - 14 pt.

3. Narrowed the table

4. Bolded and underlined the column headers

These can all be done programatically, using Google Apps Script (see my previous piece on this)

Bugs / issues: 

1. The formatting (bold and italics) is converted accurately by ChatGPT4 (see screenshot earlier, under section ‘Screenshot of ChatGPT4 output, in ChatGPT interface’). However, the Markdown from ChatGPT4 to Google Docs is not parsed fully accurately by the plug-in I use (‘MarkdownToDOCs’, see my previous post on this plug-in)

2. ChatGPT4 does not know the traditional division of Tannaim and Amoraim into generations. These divisions started to be used by the Rishonim, and are most fully and accurately developed in Chanoch Albeck, Intro to Talmudim (Hebrew) (Menachem Katz marks this in his edition of Talmud Bavli Kiddushin). For those divisions, see the the template boxes in Hebrew Wikipedia, at the end of the following enries: Tannaim; Amoraim.

Ideas for the future

1. Use chatGPT4 API and Sefaria API, to process a lot of text at once

2. Add morphology - Parts of Speech (for now, see Dicta’s exciting new Parts of Speech tagging tool, which I hope to review in the future)

Appendix: ChatGPT4 transcript and Raw chatgpt4 output

ChatGPT4 transcript

https://chat.openai.com/share/2e43eeed-2536-4c47-9b86-71315e0fd48f

 Raw chatgpt4 output

(Note: I originally asked ChatGPT4 to underline names. It noted: “As I can't underline directly in this platform, I'll use double underscores __ before and after the name as a representation of underlining.”)

| English Translation | Hebrew Original |

|---------------------|-----------------|

| The Gemara notes that this is **like** a dispute between **tanna’im**, | כתנאי: |

| based on the verse: **“Train a child in the way that he should go”** (Proverbs 22:6). | ״חנך לנער על פי דרכו״, |

| __Rabbi Yehuda (T)__ and __Rabbi Neḥemya (T)__ disagreed about the age in which the verse instructs the parent to educate his child: | רבי יהודה ורבי נחמיה, |

| **One said** that the verse is referring to the ages **from sixteen until twenty-two**, and **one said** it is referring to the ages **from eighteen until twenty-four**. | חד אמר: משיתסר ועד עשרים ותרתין, וחד אמר: מתמני סרי ועד עשרים וארבעה. |

| The dispute concerning the correct age for marriage and the dispute about educating a child are the same, as while a father still has a large measure of influence over his son, he must both teach him and find him a wife. |  |

| | |

| § The Gemara continues its discussion of a father’s obligation to teach his son Torah. |  |

| **To what** extent **is a person obligated to teach his son Torah?** __Rav Yehuda (A)__ says that __Shmuel (A)__ says: | עד היכן חייב אדם ללמד את בנו תורה? אמר רב יהודה אמר שמואל: |

| **One should** emulate the education of, **for example**, Zevulun ben Dan, | כגון זבולון בן דן, |

| a contemporary of Shmuel, **whose father’s father taught him Bible, Mishna, Talmud, *halakhot*, and *aggadot***. | שלימדו אבי אביו מקרא ומשנה ותלמוד הלכות ואגדות. |

| The Gemara raises an objection | מיתיבי: |

| from a *baraita*: If a father **taught** his son **Bible**, he is **not** required to **teach him Mishna**. | למדו מקרא – אין מלמדו משנה, |

| And __Rava (A)__ said in explanation of this *baraita*: **Bible is** the **Torah**, not the Prophets or Writings, i.e., he is not required to teach him anything else, including Mishna. | ואמר רבא: מקרא – זו תורה! |