First published: Joint Church Press: Methodist Recorder, Baptist Times, Church Times, Church of England Newspaper, 13 September 2001
In this article we will examine those dream pieces of software that you have always yearned for. That long lost set of unavailable commentaries; those programs that take all the pain out of Hebrew and Greek study, reference and learning; all those antiquarian books on your shelves that are falling apart and lack indexes; all these are now available on a small shiny disk the size of a drinks mat - something that those free AOL and Compuserve disks are regularly used for!
If, like me, you collect thousands of books, by now you might also have hundreds of CD-ROMs ranging from the Early Church Fathers to the Encyclopaedia Judaica. I travel regularly to Sinai, the land where 3,500 years ago it took two large stone tablets to record just ten lines of text, but for my portable study I can carry a laptop the size of a paperback book with more than 1500 works of Biblical reference tucked away on a hard disk smaller than a cigarette packet. Technology also enables me to copy material onto either a 2Gb disk the size of a business card or a 1Gb compact flash hard drive the size of a postage stamp. I can even leave the disks and external CD-ROM drive at home as a nifty piece of software called Virtual CDv3 (£29.95) can create up to 23 virtual CD-ROM drive letters on my laptop and allow me to use compressed images of the original CDs straight from my hard drive with a considerable performance improvement. This software will also work on desktop PCs so that you can study material uploaded to your hard drive whilst your computer CD drive plays St Matthew's Passion or Handel's Messiah.
Bibleworks Hermeneutika and Original Language Lexicons
This premier bible study package is really aimed at scholars or those with at least passing familiarity with the original biblical languages. It is now on version 5 (£229 or less, upgrades available) and offers incomparable facilities for searching, comparing and counting, the occurrences within the biblical text. I have personally used it to compile Hebrew student exercises by searching for particular grammatical forms occurring in close proximity to each other in key biblical verses, thus enabling the student to study one verse and at the same time encounter several forms that need practising. The Hebrew texts are pointed and now accented and searchable with or without the points and accents.
The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the OT (£319.96) from Brill Academic Publishers is at the top end of the range for Hebrew lexicons pricing. More reasonable is the Logos format BDB Unabridged Hebrew-English Lexicon (£34.95). Bibleworks Hermeneutika itself includes the abridged and unabridged BDB and BDB-Gesenius lexicons but also the excellent Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament by Harris, Archer and Waltke, which is very helpful for word studies.
Hermeneutika is even more of a dream for Greek scholars containing numerous Septuagint versions and Greek lexicons such as Liddell-Scott, Friberg, UBS, Thayer, and Louw-Nida. All original language versions are available morphologically analysed, i.e., broken down into their grammatical parts. In addition to the newly added Hebrew New Testament there are 8 Greek NT texts.
Apart from biblical languages Bibleworks also offers foreign language versions from Albanian to Ukrainian and Vietnamese, and the latest benefit in version 5 is that you can now add your own bible versions as you translate the text yourself.
Soncino Tanakh, Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash, Zohar
For those wishing to study the contemporary and later Jewish sources the Soncino CD-ROM (email for pricing) editions are invaluable. The Jewish Talmud is hard to follow at the best of times, whether in the original unpointed Hebrew or the arranged English-Hebrew editions. Soncino make the Hebrew and English texts available, searchable in either language, allowing extensive research into rabbinic and later thought. Now you can verify for yourself whether 90% of Jesus' teaching can be found in the writings of contemporary rabbis such as Hillel and Shammai. Apart from this product there are over 150 other Jewish software titles available for students of the Judaeo-Christian faiths.
A Word about Formats
In order to access bible versions, dictionaries, and commentaries, biblical software writers have adopted one of three different formats, which are each incompatible with each other. The leading format is the Logos Library System (LLS) and has the most titles available. For example, the Baker Digital Reference Library (from £25-£110), Anchor Bible Dictionary, Scholar's Library (from £319), Early Church Fathers (£223.96), Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (£199), Works of Philo and Josephus (£35.96), Biblical Archaeologist (£111.96), and many more (see our website for the full list and for ordering as there are over 60 packages containing hundreds of titles). Second up is the STEP format with more and more titles becoming available, and finally there is the universally recognisable Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) that works on PCs and MACs.
Word Biblical Commentary
The 54 volumes of the Word Biblical Commentary will take up nearly 6 feet of shelf space and set you back well over £1000. The CD-Rom version will save you a lot of space and a little of your money, though it still retails at nearly £700. You will gain from instant electronic access to all the volumes, 9 Bible versions, Greek and Hebrew texts and lexicons and a pop-up program that enables you to enter any of this information straight into your word-processor or other applications. If you are not certain about investing in this excellent package you can try the top five titles for under a hundred pounds and reclaim this against the full version if you upgrade.
Expositor's Bible Commentary
Seventy-eight renowned international evangelical scholars worked for 18 years on the award-winning 12-volume Expositor's Bible Commentary (£119.95), among them the excellent F F Bruce and Gordon D Fee. The CD-Rom edition is in STEP format.
Probably the cheapest way to obtain the maximum number of commentaries, dictionaries and lexicons, is on the Online Bible CD-Rom (from £30) which, apart from numerous bible versions, includes over twenty of them, so long as you don't mind them being more than 75 years old, i.e., out of copyright.
Anchor Bible Dictionary
Since its publication, the Anchor Bible Dictionary (£269 or less) has been acclaimed as a landmark in biblical scholarship - the most comprehensive, up-to-date and authoritative reference work in the field. The CD-Rom contains everything from the complete and unabridged six-volume 7,200 page printed edition, with illustrations and more than 6,000 entries from 800 leading international scholars. It is part of the Logos Library System and can therefore be used in conjunction with their other products.
New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology
A complete 4 volume set that offers the complete NIV with the exhaustive e-concordance and Goodrich/Kohlenberger numbering system together with concise discussions of the major theological terms of the Bible and more.
Logos Collection
The top of the range Scholar's Collection (RRP £399, available from £289) contains 60 Logos format titles including 10 English bible versions, 10 dictionaries and study tools, 6 commentaries, and 14 original language resources. Nevertheless, you should only consider this product if you need interaction with other Logos modules as much of its contents is better served in Bibleworks and the Online Bible.
AGES Ultimate Christian Library on DVD
We have outlined the ever-popular Master Christian Library (£63) before. It contains some 500 works on two CDs. It includes the 39 volume pre and post-Nicene Church Fathers collection, a wide selection of works by Philo, Josephus, Luther, Wesley, Finney, Moody, Edwards, Edersheim, and more literature, bible dictionaries and commentaries including Keil and Delitzsch's Old Testament commentary and Barnes' Notes on the Bible. All this is now available on one DVD (£234.95) with over 1000 books and includes the previously separate packages containing the Reformation History Library and the entire collections of Spurgeon, Calvin, Arthur Pink, John Owen, and John Gill. AGES software are also now releasing the Pulpit Commentary (£59.95) in PDF format.
Early Church Fathers
Whilst the early church fathers can be purchased in Adobe Acrobat format as part of the Ultimate or Master Christian Library they are also obtainable in Logos format, albeit at a much steeper price (from £179).
Encyclopaedia Judaica
All 26 volumes of this essential reference are integrated into a unified text on one CD comprising 15 million words, 25,000 articles, and 100,000 hyperlinks. Powerful search capabilities bring Jewish background material ready to hand to anyone studying the context of the Judaeo-Christian faith.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
The inimitable Britannica used to sell for over a £1000 and take up 2 metres of shelf space. When first launched as a CD-ROM is still cost several hundred pounds. Now you can pick up its 32 volumes, 90,000 articles, 56 million words and 7 hours of video, on one DVD or 2 CD-ROMs for less than £50.
Hebrew/Greek word processing
Biblical language word processing is well served because of the ongoing use of Hebrew in modern Israel. Many products have been developed but perhaps the best are Universal Word (from £199) and OnePen which have academic and biblical language versions that allow typing in 165 languages including classical Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Hebrew and even Ugaritic, all with right-left typing support and editable software based keyboards. OnePen will even allow you to add right-left Hebrew typing to any of your existing software applications such as Microsoft Word or your desktop publishing package.
Hebrew/Greek learning: Parsons Hebrew/Greek Tutor
Computer based biblical language learning is still in its infancy, or rather the level of interest does not justify the expense of writing or updating software. Biblical Greek is better served than Hebrew. Parsons Greek Tutor (£39) offers an interactive format that includes 28 units comprising a first year course, starting with the alphabet and finishing by reading the first three chapters of the John's Gospel in Greek. Parsons also supplies a similar Hebrew package taking you through grammar and the book of Ruth. Other Greek products include Greek Master (£39), and in LOGOS format: Introduction to New Testament Greek (£99), Greek Grammar - Beyond the Basics (£30).
Operating Systems
All the software mentioned above is for Windows systems. Apple Mac computers can use any of the Adobe Acrobat products (AGES range), the Online Bible, Accordance (similar to Bibleworks) and some others but the range is considerably more limited. Psion, Palm and Windows CE (Pocket PCs), all have bible software available including several bible version packages and now including Strong's numbers with concise Greek and Hebrew lexicons.
Article by Jonathan Went (BMSoftware, NetResearcher.co.uk)
jon@bmsoftware.com
Jonathan Went runs BMSoftware, acts as a Net researcher and journalist, an IT consultant and web designer, and runs a correspondence Biblical Hebrew made easy course. He can be contacted by email (jon@bmsoftware.com) or by phone on 01603 667393.
BMSoftware and NetResearcher.co.uk are Christian software, web design and Net Journalism specialists.LINKS TO AUTHOR'S SITES
Web Hosting, Design & Promotion: www.bmsoftware.com/webdesign
Biblical and multilingual software: www.bmsoftware.com
Biblical Hebrew correspondence course: www.biblicalhebrew.com
Christian study courses, resources and articles: www.biblicalstudies.co.uk
Roots and Branches - the Hebraic Journal: www.rootsandbranchespress.com
Christ for England Bible School: www.cfebibleschool.org.uk
Christian Comment: www.christiancomment.com
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