The best Bible study software – Postscript

16 December, 2008 by 2 Comments

giantappleaquaIf you’re a Mac user, both QuickVerse and now Logos is available for the Mac. There’s also a Mac-only product called Accordance which costs between £35 and £2,000. It’s considered to strike a helpful balance between ease of use and power. If you want software for free, you should try MacSword, which is similar to e-Sword, although not as friendly.

There are also an increasing number of online tools, so if don’t have your only access to a computer is at the library or a friend’s home, they could be very helpful. The best are The Sword and The Blue Letter Bible. If you just want to read the Bible in many versions, try BibleGateway.

Finally, one further package deserves a mention: Ilumina Gold. It’s marketed as a “digitally animated encyclopaedia suite”. It’s good for bringing the Bible to life through animated sequences of Bible stories, virtual reality tours of important Bible places (e.g. the temple), and photos and maps of Bible lands. It’s therefore potentially helpful for families wanting to encourage children in Bible study. It’s available for Mac and PC.

That just about wraps up this little mini-series on the best Bible study software. In a future mini-series, I hope to be able to make some recommendations about software for pastors and preachers.

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The best Bible study software worth paying for

15 December, 2008 by 9 Comments

Logos Bible Software

Logos Bible Software 3

Logos is to Bible software what John Lewis is to shopping – wonderful choice, but sometimes bewildering. It has far more than you could ever need, and often more than you can really afford. In fact, Logos has almost every resource offered by all the other publishers combined (except Pradis), and plenty more besides.

There are two major downsides. One is cost. The most expensive “base” package in Logos is Scholar’s Library Gold, which costs almost £1,000, and even that includes ‘only’ 700 of the 9,000 titles available. The rest have to be added at additional cost. Having said that, few users will need Scholar’s Library Gold. A far cheaper option is the Bible Study Library at £180. This still includes 18 English Bible versions, and over 150 other resources, which are a nice mix of contemporary and historical. [Read more...]

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The best nearly free Bible software

14 December, 2008 by 2 Comments

sword-searcherSwordSearcher 5

SwordSearcher is excellent value for money, at just $50 (about £35). It includes 10 English versions, more than 20 commentaries (including Barnes, Calvin, Keil-Delitzsch, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, etc.) 10 dictionaries, hundreds of maps, and several other books. There are no additional modules available, and no modern Bible versions or commentaries. But although they are all out of copyright, these are high-quality resources, – the publisher hasn’t simply stuffed the product full of light resources you’ll rarely use, simply in order make the product look bigger. It is also excellent value for money. Just adding Calvin’s Commentaries to WORDsearch or Logos would cost you twice as much as buying SwordSearcher 5 with Calvin included.

Another strength of SwordSearcher is the links between the various resources. It is very easy to move between the various resources, and (for example) to find dictionary entries that relate to the verse you are currently studying. Even more impressive is the search facility, which is not only incredibly quick, but also very comprehensive.

Verdict: SwordSearcher is the best of the packages that focus on out-of-copyright resources. It’s cheap, fast, easy-to-use, and has higher quality resources that all of its competitors.

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The best free Bible study software

13 December, 2008 by 10 Comments

e-sworde-Sword

e-Sword is one of the most popular Bible study software packages, and it’s easy to see why. It’s free to download, and has 25 English bibles (including the ESV), plus dozens of commentaries (including Matthew Henry and Keil & Delitzsch), 14 dictionaries, nine volumes of the Church Fathers and several other books. All these are free, but you can also add some paid-for resources such as the NIV (£20), or NKJV (£10).

e-Sword is a little clunky, and if you have lots of resources the display can seem cluttered. Nevertheless, it’s hard to get lost, and everything works fairly intuitively. Unfortunately you can’t search all your resources at the same time, however, each has to be searched individually. On the plus side, there is a Windows Mobile version, so you can take your library with you if you have a Windows Mobile device. There are also several non-English language Bibles available, including the Revised New Welsh Bible. [Read more...]

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The best Bible study software – Introduction

12 December, 2008 by 2 Comments

Bible Study SoftwareThere are literally dozens of software packages that all promise to help us study the Bible better. In this mini-series of posts I want to look at the best of those that are aimed at Christians who have little or no knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, and are studying the bible for their own spiritual growth, or to teach in Sunday School classes or youth groups.

Most software companies produce a range of packages. The cheapest come with a minimum number of resources – perhaps a few translations of the Bible, together with some out-of-copyright commentaries and dictionaries. The more expensive will come with dozens of English Bibles, and perhaps hundreds of other resources, including Bible dictionaries, commentaries, and interlinears (Bibles that have the Greek/Hebrew text printed alongside the English text). [Read more...]

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The Bible and Children

3 June, 2008 by 10 Comments

Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it: his bottle, his mother’s attention, his playmate’s toys, his uncle’s watch, or whatever. Deny him these and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He’s dirty, he has no morals, no knowledge, no developed skills. This means that all children, not just certain children but all children, are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in their self-centered world of infancy, given free rein to their impulsive actions to satisfy each want, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist.

You might think that’s a strange quotation with which to start a post about children. But it’s here to help to us understand how much society has changed and how much we’ve lost our perspective. This particular quote is from the Minnesota Crime Commission, and was published in 1926. It’s virtually impossible to imagine any government agency saying anything similar today. But that excerpt accurately reflects what the Bible says about original sin and the responsibility of parents and society to love, teach and discipline.

[Read more...]

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SermonBrowser beta now available

13 May, 2008 by 22 Comments
This is an old post. Please refer to the dedicated Sermon Browser page for the most up to date information.

Several weeks ago I mentioned that I was developing a plug-in to allow you to upload sermons into your WordPress blog. I’m delighted to say that the beta version of this plugin is now available for you to download.

As with all beta software, the normal caveats apply. The software isn’t fully tested, and may cause you problems. In particular, the database format may change between now and the release version, which could mean that any sermons you enter into the database would have to be re-entered later.

If you want to see what the plug-in would look like on your site, you can view it here on this test site. (The site has not yet been launched, and is still in beta itself!)

[Read more...]

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