get_cross_references

Retrieve the cross-references for a Bible reference — the passages traditionally read alongside it — or a curated chain of passages for a doctrinal theme.

Two modes:

By verse reference (most common). Pass reference="John 3:16" (or any canonical verse) to get the passages historically read alongside it. The database draws from four scholarly sources, returned in a three-tier ranking:

Tier 3 (top, "consensus and curated"): - CH — Harrison & Romhild's curated dataset (~58k links, OT-only as source). Hand-vetted; high-relevance pairs flagged canonical-direction. - Gage parallel — the tighter pairings from Warren Gage's John ↔ Revelation typological reading (Bradley/Gage, John/Rev only). - TSK ≥100 votes — TSK pairs with crowd-source consensus that strong are near-universal cross-references (top ~0.4% of TSK) and break through to compete with curated.

Tier 2 ("argued and acknowledged"): - Burnett — David A. Burnett's argued chain for the Gen 15:5 / Rom 4:18 "star-like seed" deification reading (JSPL 5.2, 2015). ~30 pairs. - Gage chiastic — the looser-typology sheet of Bradley/Gage (the source spreadsheet labels these "looser connections, just noting"). - TSK 20–99 votes — solid topical links acknowledged across commentaries (top ~5%).

Tier 1 (long-tail): TSK <20 votes — surface only when explicitly raising limit for exhaustive study.

Results typically include the texts the verse quotes, its fulfilment passages, contested parallel readings, and the later authors who picked the verse up.

By theme. Pass theme="atonement" (or salvation_by_grace, deity_of_christ, resurrection, holy_spirit, justification) to get a hand-curated chain of foundational passages for that doctrine — relevant for broad theological questions not anchored to a specific verse.

Coverage caveat. TSK is built on R.A. Torrey's 19th-century index, which catalogues topical/thematic connections — not necessarily direct quotations or verbal allusions. Consequence: a verse with few cross-refs here is NOT necessarily a verse with few biblical echoes. Famously, Revelation shows surprisingly few links to OT prophetic books even though it is saturated with OT symbolism, because Torrey indexed by subject and Revelation's subject is "apocalyptic". The CH dataset partly compensates (it leans toward NT-quotes-OT linking), so source="ch" may surface a quotation or allusion the topical index misses, as may find_similar_passages for verbal parallels.

Adaptive default — limit is a cap, not a target. Default limit=8. Rows are returned in tier-then-strength order, and tier-1 noise (low-vote TSK) is suppressed by default whenever the verse has at least 3 rows from tier 2+. So:

• Signal-rich anchors return 6–8 strong refs spanning curated, scholarly, and consensus-TSK sources.

• Signal-poor anchors return only what passes the bar; a short result set means the verse has few well-attested links, not that the query failed.

For the long tail, source="tsk" returns all TSK rows including tier 1, and min_strength=0 sets an explicit floor of zero. Either disables tier-1 suppression; both pair with a higher limit (20–30).

Interpreting the scores. Each row carries type (the dataset), relevance (its native strength signal), and where applicable a tsk_votes side-channel showing the TSK count for that pair. The scales differ by dataset:

TSK vote scale (full corpus distribution): ≥ 500 votes — extraordinary; near-universal cross-reference (top 0.01%, only 35 pairs) 100-499 — very strong; the link tradition reflexively makes (top 0.4%) 50-99 — strong; well-established parallel (top 1.3%) 20-49 — solid; real connection acknowledged across commentaries (top 5%) 10-19 — moderate; one of many recognised links (top 12%) 5-9 — weak; thematic stretch, use with caution (top 33%) 2-4 — very weak; mostly noise floor (62% of TSK) 0-1 — noise

CH (curated — all CH refs carry signal; the tag indicates weight): "canonical direction" (rel=3 or 2) — Harrison's flag for the canonical direction of the pair, often part of a thematic circle (top 78% of CH) no tag (rel=0) — present in CH but unflagged (still hand-curated)

Gage (John ↔ Revelation typology): relevance=3 ("parallel" tier) — tighter pairings from the parallel-reading of John 1 ↔ Revelation 1 relevance=1 ("chiastic" tier) — looser thematic echoes across the full John-Revelation chiasm; the source spreadsheet flags these as "looser connections, just noting" The note field carries the thematic tags + commentary + per-row attribution (Bradley vs Gage). Treat as canonical-typology, not topical.

Burnett (single-paper argued chain): All Burnett rows are at relevance=5 by convention — they're explicit claims from one scholar's published argument, not graded by strength. The note field carries the JSPL citation and which step of the argument the pair belongs to. They represent a single scholarly proposal rather than consensus.

A result whose strongest row has only 5–15 votes indicates a verse the topical index does not treat as a major thematic anchor — a materially weaker signal than a 200-vote parallel. For such verses source="ch" (Harrison's curated set, which leans toward NT-quotes-OT links) and find_similar_passages (verbal/semantic parallels Torrey did not index) cover different ground.

The source parameter restricts results to a single dataset — useful when CH alone gives too little coverage for an obscure verse, or when the dense TSK long-tail is wanted.