Logos Bible Software v3 (£300 – £1,000)

19 April, 2009 by 1 Comment

Logos Bible Software is not so much Bible Software, but a full electronic theological library. It combines the power of Bibleworks’ searching with the ability to read some of the very best commentaries, dictionaries, systematic theologies and even books. Most of these are available as add-ons, which can quickly get pricey. However, when you make your initial purchase of Logos you could choose a package that had many of them included, usually at a substantial discount.

Let me give you a flavour of some of the commentaries that are available: Kistemaker/Hendriksen (12 vols, £110), Bible Speaks Today NT (22 vols, £70), Calvin (22 vols, £70), Focus on the Bible (coming soon – 32 vols, £200), Welwyn (coming soon – 49 vols, £210), Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (21 vols, £350), Keil & Delitzsch OT (10 vols, £85), Lenski’s NT (12 vols, £210), New International Greek (12 vols, £375), Pillar NT (8 vols, £175), Word Biblical Commentary (59 vols, £490). [Read more...]

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Bibleworks v8 (typically £250)

18 April, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Bibleworks does one thing very well, very quickly. It allows you to view, search and analyse the Biblical text. Bibleworks deliberately avoids commentaries, theological dictionaries and other ‘books’, and puts all its effort into the Bible text. It’s lightning-quick, relatively cheap, and very powerful.

Bibleworks is designed for people who are familiar with the original languages, or you want to become so. There’s no interlinear included, for example, which would display the Greek/Hebrew text, but under every Greek/Hebrew word give an English translation of that word.  There’s also few ‘extras’ to buy (which many people think is a blessing – you get almost everything included for your initial fee). The only ‘extras’ most people would consider would be the BDAG, HALOT and perhaps Liddell-Scott lexicons, which weigh in around £100 each. [Read more...]

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Understanding advanced Bible software

17 April, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Before we compare the different products available, let’s look at what marks out these packages from the more basic ones that we looked at in the last issue. In two words: morphological tagging. Let me explain what that means.

Each of the packages I’m going to review offer the Bible in English and in the original languages. They also offer several lexicons (i.e. Greek/Hebrew dictionaries). But simply having the Bible in Greek or Hebrew is of limited value. Most teachers of the Bible know that ἀγαπάω (agapaō) means ‘to love’. But did you remember that ἀγαπήσεις (agapēseis) is finite, second person, singular, future, indicative and active, and is usually translated ‘You shall love’? No, nor did I. That means you don’t just need a Greek text, you need a morphologically tagged Greek text. These texts have tags hidden in every word in the Bible that explain exactly the form of every word, and tell you what the lemma (root word) is. [Read more...]

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The best Bible software for bible teachers

16 April, 2009 by 4 Comments

Bible and laptopBefore Christmas, I looked at some of the best Bible software packages that were designed for those who have little knowledge of Hebrew or Greek, and were studying the Bible for their own growth, or for teaching in Sunday School classes. In these follow-up posts, we’re going to look at software for those who need to dig a little deeper. These recommendations are therefore for people who teach the Bible to adults, or who want to study Greek/Hebrew.

At this end of the market, the choice of software is actually quite limited. Although there are plenty of software packages that include Greek/Hebrew texts (see the previous review), most of them are dated and unreliable. [Read more...]

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