Category: BibleWorks

More Books For Sale

I’ve got a few more books to offer for sale–largely an effort to make a bit more space on the shelf.

Here are some books and reference works (including a little bit of Bible software) that I’m offering for sale at a discounted rate. All prices include free shipping to U.S. addresses. Interested in anything? Contact me using this form, and we’ll talk.

IVP Bible Background

IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
Like New
ISBN: 978-0830814053
Used just a few times. No markings. In great shape.
$22 (SOLD)

bdag

Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (BDAG)
for BibleWorks Software
 Compatible with BibleWorks 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. I’ve been in touch with BibleWorks to confirm that on completion of sale, one user license transfers to the buyer with no fee, so that you can use BDAG in your BibleWorks. (Must have purchased and own BibleWorks to be able to use this.)
Significant discount from buying new (where it’s $150).
$99 (SOLD)

Paradigms and Principal Parts

Paradigms and Principal Parts of the New Testament
Very Good
Inside clean, no marking. Sticker on back and ink/scuff mark on the front, other slight markings on cover, but nothing that obscures text
$22 SOLD

WBC Mark vol 1

Word Biblical Commetary: Mark 1-8:26 (Guelich)
Very Good
Clean inside. Strong binding. Barely used. Some wear to dust cover (small tear, small fold).
$20 SOLD

Ezra Nehemiah BHQ

Ezra and Nehemiah: Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ)
Like New
Taken out of shrink wrap and used just once or twice.
Excellent condition.
$45 (SOLD)

Greek Grammar Wallace

Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics
Very Good/Like New
Just some edge and cover wear. Light blue cover as pictured, but same contents as dark blue cover.
$22

UBS Handbook

A Handbook on the Books of Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah
(UBS Handbook)
Like New condition
Barely used at all. Pulled off shelf just a couple of times.
$29 SOLD

HALOT

The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament,
2 volume set (HALOT)
Very Good condition
ISBN: 978-9004124455
In great shape. Just some wear and tear (rubbing on page edges, e.g.).
No internal markings. 2 volume study edition (same full contents as 5 vol. edition).
$179 SOLD
Note: I also have HALOT in BibleWorks (see BDAG note above). Would possibly consider an offer.

Readers Hebrew English Lexicon

A Reader’s Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament
Very Good condition
ISBN: 978-0310369806
Former owner’s name on inside, no other markings. Small rip on top left corner of dustjacket, which has some other wear. Small crease on back cover of book, but does not affect integrity of book. Book itself in great shape. 720 pages.
All words that occur less than 50x in OT are listed in canonical order, verse-by-verse.
$39 SOLD

Free shipping on all orders. If you’re interested in buying–or just have questions–you can reach me using this form, and we’ll go from there.

Books I have for sale

Having seen a blogging friend sell some used books through his blog, I thought I’d try the same.

So here are some books and reference works (including a little bit of Bible software) that I’m offering for sale at a discounted rate. I have them listed online elsewhere, but the lowest rate I offer is here. It’s also generally the lowest rate online for a used copy. All prices include free shipping to U.S. addresses. Interested in anything? Contact me using this form, and we’ll talk.

bdag

Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (BDAG)
for BibleWorks Software
 Compatible with BibleWorks 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. I’ve been in touch with BibleWorks to confirm that on completion of sale, one user license transfers to the buyer with no fee, so that you can use BDAG in your BibleWorks. (Must have purchased and own BibleWorks to be able to use this.)
Significant discount from buying new (where it’s $150).
$119 (SOLD)

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia

BHS (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia), compact edition
Very Good condition
ISBN: 978-1598561630
No markings inside. Binding is a bit loose from front cover, but barely noticeable, and book is still in great shape.
$34 (SOLD)

UBS Handbook

A Handbook on the Books of Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah
(UBS Handbook)
Like New condition
ISBN: 978-0826701329
Barely used at all. Pulled off shelf just a couple of times.
$29 (SOLD)

HALOT

The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament,
2 volume set (HALOT)
Very Good condition
ISBN: 978-9004124455
In great shape. Just some wear and tear. No internal markings. 2 volume study edition (same full contents as 5 vol. edition).
$179 (SOLD)
Note: I also have HALOT in BibleWorks (see BDAG note above). Would possibly consider an offer.

IVP Dictionary

IVP Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books
Very Good condition (2 available 1 available)
ISBN: 978-0830817825
No marking inside. Barely used. One has rubbing on page edges.
$33 (SOLD)

Readers Hebrew English Lexicon

A Reader’s Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament
Very Good condition
ISBN: 978-0310369806
Former owner’s name on inside, no other markings. Small rip on top left corner of dustjacket, which has some other wear. Small crease on back cover of book, but does not affect integrity of book. Book itself in great shape. 720 pages.
All words that occur less than 50x in OT are listed in canonical order, verse-by-verse.
$39 (SOLD)

luke by bock

Luke (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament)
(2 Volumes), by Bock
Very Good condition
ISBN: 978-0801010514
Hardly used. Only flaws: name inscribed on inside of one book, tiniest of rips on part of dust cover, small smudge mark on outside of pages. Inside clean.
$60 (SOLD)

1 Peter by Jobes

1 Peter (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NT), by Jobes
Very Good condition
Barely used: remainder mark, small dings on spine and corners of cover.
$22 (SOLD)

Free shipping on all orders. If you’re interested in buying–or just have questions–you can reach me using this form, and we’ll go from there.

Which Bible software program should I buy? Comparison of BibleWorks, Accordance, and Logos

 

Which Bible software program should I buy? It’s an important question for the student of the Bible, especially if she or he is on a limited budget. Having now reviewed BibleWorks 9 (here), Accordance 10 (here) and Logos 4 (here) and now 5 (here), I want to compare the three programs and offer some suggestions for moving forward with Bible software.

There are some free programs available for download (E-Sword, for example), but my sense has been that if you want to have something in-depth, you’ll probably want to consider BibleWorks, Accordance, and Logos.

If you’re in the market to buy Bible software, then, here’s how I recommend proceeding.

 

1. Think through why you want the Bible software.

 

I don’t mean in an existential sense; I mean: for what do you want to use Bible software? Personal Bible study? As a means to access electronic commentaries for sermon preparation? To do in-depth word studies in the original languages? To compare the Greek and the Hebrew texts of the Old Testament? For complex syntactical searches? To help generate graphics and handouts for a Sunday School class you teach? Some or all of the above?

Similarly, are there things you know you don’t need? Are you interested only in studying the Bible in English (or Spanish, or French…) but not necessarily in Greek and Hebrew? Are maps and graphics something you can easily access elsewhere? Is having a large library of electronic commentaries not a value?

I highlight these considerations because the answer to the question, “Which Bible software program should I buy?” is: It depends. It depends on why and for what you want Bible software. More on that below.

 

2. Explore BibleWorks, Accordance, and Logos on their own merits.

 

Get a sense of what each can do by visiting their respective Websites (BibleWorks here, Accordance here, and Logos here). Look through those sites for videos which will let you see the programs in action. You can also look through the full reviews I’ve done of BibleWorks here, Accordance here, and Logos here (v.4) and here (just-released v. 5). In these reviews I look at multiple features and resources in each program.

BibleWorks is a PC program. You can run it on a Mac, though. This either requires a separate Windows license (= more $$), where it runs nicely in Parallels, etc., or you can use a “native” Mac version of it. The former option is costly and requires a lot of your Mac machine (though you get a fully-functinoing BibleWorks on a Mac that way). I can’t yet recommend the latter option, where it is in “Public Preview,” since the “native” Mac version looks only native to about two Mac operating systems ago… I expect BibleWorks will make improvements here, but I haven’t found BibleWorks on my Mac to be as functional as I’d like. It’s excellent on a PC, though.

Accordance is a Mac program. They have announced that they’ll introduce Accordance for Windows in 2013, and they have said that they are previewing that at SBL/AAR this week. (I understand that you can run Accordance on Windows now via an emulator, per the above link, but that it’s not 100% functional in the same way Accordance on Mac is.) Accordance is silky smooth–if I may call a Bible software program that. It is very Mac-like, which is a goal and priority of Accordance. Using it is truly enjoyable. Accordance also has an iOS app, which I haven’t used, as I do not own an iPhone, iPad, iOverbrain, etc. It looks like a stripped-down version of Accordance, but it’s free. If I had an iPhone, that would definitely be on there.

Logos works on PC and Macs. It’s also cloud-based, so that you can sync your work in Logos across computers, platforms, mobile devices, on the Internet using Biblia, and so on. Logos for the Mac feels fairly Mac-like, but not to the extent that Accordance does. However, being able to switch between a PC and a Mac in Logos and have everything sync via the cloud is a great feature. I noted in a Logos review recently how I was working in Logos 5 on a PC, then the next day opened Logos on my Mac to the exact same window I had just closed on a PC the day before.

 

3. Think about what your budget is.

 

You should actually probably do this before you check out the individual programs a whole lot–just to make sure you don’t end up spending money you don’t really have! Sometimes you’ll see a price tag associated with how much a base package would cost you if you bought all the resources in print. But this really doesn’t matter if you wouldn’t buy many of those resources in the first place (per point #1 above).

BibleWorks does not have packages, per se–it’s just the program and all its contents for $359. You can also purchase add-on modules in BibleWorks. Accordance has various collections (beginning with the basic Starter Collection at $49.99), which you can compare here. They sell various other products, as well. These base packages had been a little difficult to wade through and make sense of in Accordance 9, but the August release of Accordance 10 greatly simplified things. Logos also sells various base packages, starting at $294.95 retail price for their Starter package, and many other products. Note also that Accordance and Logos both offer discounts to academicians, ministers, etc.

 

4. Compare.

 

Keep firmly in mind the purposes for which you want Bible software as you read the below. But I will offer some general insights.

 
Speed

BibleWorks (PC) and Accordance (Mac) take the cake here. I wrote here about the sluggishness of Logos 4 for searching. That’s improved somewhat in Logos 5. Where BibleWorks stands out is in its Use tab, new in BibleWorks 9. Via the Use tab, you can instantaneously see all the uses of a given word in an open version just by hovering over that word. I’m not aware of anything comparable in Accordance or Logos, and it’s a mind-blowing feature. Accordance, however, returns search results as quickly as BibleWorks, and starts up faster. I continue to be impressed with the speed of both BibleWorks and Accordance. I’m glad for the improvements in Logos, but hope they’ll continue to improve search speed.

 
Package for the Price

Had I written this post six months ago, the no-brainer answer would be that BibleWorks is best. For $359 you get everything listed here.

Comparable in Accordance is the Original Languages Collection for $299 (full contents compared here). This collection six months ago was not really comparable to BibleWorks, but with the release of Accordance 10, Accordance significantly improved on and expanded what’s available in its Original Languages Collection. Someone wanting Bible software for detailed original languages work could get a lot of what they need in Accordance for under $300. However, it remains true that you get more in BibleWorks that you have to pay extra for in Accordance (like the Center for NT Textual Studies apparatus and images, Philo, Josephus, Church Fathers, the Tov-Polak MT-LXX Parallel, etc.). That’s true compared with Logos, too.

Logos 5 is a little more difficult for me to size up here. In Logos 4 there was an Original Languages Library for $400 or so that was at least comparable to BibleWorks and Accordance (and included the 10-volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament). Based just on package for the price, I still would have picked BibleWorks over Logos, but the release of Logos 5 has seen a restructuring of base packages that seems less than ideal for something like original language study. They do now have the Theological Lexicon of the OT and of the NT in the “Bronze” package, but the nearly $300 Logos Starter package doesn’t include the necessary and basic lexica for studying the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, and the Greek New Testament.

This is where what you want out of a Bible software program should dictate which way you go. Are you a seminarian with a primary interest in original language exegesis, with a preference for commentaries in print? If so, I recommend Accordance on Mac or BibleWorks on PC. Accordance also has good commentaries as add-ons (not much here for BibleWorks), but Logos has a large amount of digitized books, and tends on the balance (though not always) to run cheaper than Accordance for the same modules. (The cheapest BDAG/HALOT lexicon bundle is in BibleWorks.) But the larger library in Logos is perhaps at the expense of program speed, so you’ll want to weigh options here. If you preach weekly and don’t make much reference to Greek and Hebrew, wanting extensive commentaries instead, Logos could be the way to go for you.

 
Customizability and Usability

Here I favor Accordance of the three. BibleWorks is probably the least configurable. There are four columns in BibleWorks 9, but you can’t move things around much, whereas in Accordance and Logos you can put tabs/zones/resources more or less where you want them. Logos is plenty customizable, but the Workspaces feature in Accordance sets it apart from Logos. In Accordance you can save distinct Workspaces and have multiple ones open at a time. You can save “Layouts” in Logos, but from all I can see, you can only have one layout open at once. This has often slowed my study. You can detach tabs into separate windows with Logos, but for working on multiple projects at once (e.g., an NT use of the OT Workspace, an LXX Workspace, a Hebrew OT Workspace, an English Bible Study workspace, etc.), Accordance is tops.

For the record, both for my graduate studies and message preparation, Accordance is the first program I have open. Part of this is due to the fact that I prefer to use a Mac. (Within the last year I bought a cheap PC laptop just so I could keep using BibleWorks, which is still excellent.) But the multiple Workspaces option makes Accordance great for easy day-to-day use across multiple kinds of tasks. It’s been interesting to watch myself mouse over to the Accordance icon in my dock on my Mac before either Logos or BibleWorks.

 
Support

This is probably a toss-up. I’ve had positive interactions with everyone I’ve contacted in BibleWorks, Accordance, and Logos. All have active and helpful user forums. All offer help files and how-to videos. (BibleWorks has the most extensive set of videos.) I was surprised to see how many how-to videos and manuals you could buy from Logos, but many of these have been produced by approved third-parties. I don’t think you should have to pay more money to learn how to use a program you already paid for.

 
Note-taking

One thing I haven’t extensively reviewed is the note-taking features, which are available in BibleWorks, Accordance, and Logos. I particularly appreciate being able to highlight passages (which then stay highlighted every time I open that resource) in resources in both Accordance and Logos. Logos has an easier one-keystroke shortcut to highlight selected text, but there’s a delay in doing so; Accordance is faster here. But back when I was using only BibleWorks, I was concerned about saving notes in a file format that wouldn’t be accessible across computers and platforms, so all my notes were always just in Word or TextEdit (.rtf). I’ve continued this practice as I’ve begun using Accordance and Logos, so that any writing I generate is not confined within a given program.

 

In sum…

 

So, which Bible software program should you buy? It depends on why you want Bible software and the uses you’ll have for it. If you’re looking to build and access a large digital library, no one denies that Logos is the leader in that regard. It is also only Logos that connects to the cloud to sync across multiple devices. If you’re looking to really delve into the original languages, though, and do complex and fast searches, Accordance for Mac and BibleWorks for PC are preferable. (Logos 5 has offered significant improvement from Logos 4 in working closely with original language texts, but the search speed still needs to be improved.) BibleWorks gets you the most bang for your buck by including as many resources, versions, lexica, grammars, etc. as it does, but the interface and customizability of Accordance makes the latter more enjoyable and a little easier to use.

When it comes to the BibleWorks vs. Accordance vs. Logos question, I think at bottom each is a solid software program and good decision. You can’t go badly wrong with any of them. In fact, I now use all three on an almost daily basis. (Thanks again to each software company for the review copies.) But insofar as potential users may not want to have to purchase or learn how to use all three programs, I hope the above reflections are of use.

 

Next time…

 

I will post one more time in the near future along these same lines. In particular I plan to compare Septuagint study across BibleWorks, Accordance, and Logos. I’ve covered this in each of my individual reviews already, but I’ll look at the Tov-Polak MT-LXX Parallel database in particular in each of the three, so you can see in more detail how each software program handles the same basic resource. In that post I will also write about more complex search features in BibleWorks, Accordance, and Logos, assessing how they compare.

(2015 UPDATE: That would-be blog post ended up as a published article in a journal of Septuagint studies. See more here.)

If you’ve made it this far (more than 2,000 words later), congratulations! Please feel free to leave me a comment or contact me if you are seriously considering Bible software and want to ask any questions about anything I’ve reviewed… or haven’t covered in my reviews.

January 2014 UPDATE: I have begun reviewing the Bible Study app from Olive Tree. You can see those reviews gathered here.

BibleWorks 9 now runs natively on Macs

Big news from BibleWorks today. BibleWorks 9 now runs natively on a Mac. And there’s a free way Mac users who own BibleWorks 9 can do it. Read all about it here.

I’m looking forward to taking it for a spin.

See links to all six parts of my BibleWorks 9 review here.

UPDATE 10/4/12: Shoot! It’s no longer going to be available for free, and at the moment (10/4/12), it’s not available at all:

10/4/2012: Due to licensing restrictions, it turns out that we will have to offer the BibleWorks 9 Mac Public Preview through our webstore. We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but if you check back here early next week, we should have it available again!

Hopefully this gets ironed out soon. I’d love to use BibleWorks on a Mac.

UPDATE 2, 10/4/12: See here.

All six parts of my BibleWorks 9 review

Here, collected in one place, are all six parts of my review of the excellent Bible software program, BibleWorks 9:

Prologue: BibleWorks in the pew? (Not quite, but the next best thing) (link)

Part 1: BibleWorks out of the box (setup and layout) (link)

Part 2: The Verse tab (link)

Part 3: Would Mark’s Jesus have us drink snakes and handle poison? 1 of 2: textual criticism in BibleWorks (link)

Part 4: These 4 Perks are Divine in BibleWorks 9 (link)

Part 5: Would Mark’s Jesus have us drink snakes and handle poison? 2 of 2: the BibleWorks Manuscript Project and CNNTS apparatus (link)

My thanks again to the staff at BibleWorks for the review copy. I highly recommend this program to PC users for in-depth Bible study: personal, academic, and/or for ministry purposes. Find the full program contents here.

UPDATE: Go here to see my comparative review of BibleWorks, Accordance, and Logos.

Would Mark’s Jesus have us handle snakes and drink poison? (part 2 of 2) (BibleWorks 9 review, concluded)

The Gospel of Mark has a couple of possible (disputed) endings. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the options for how to understand Mark’s closing chapter.

It is the so-called longer ending of Mark that has Jesus appearing to some of his followers and talking about their picking up snakes and drinking poison.

Of course, even if the longer ending is authentic and original to Mark, there is still the matter of interpretation. As a way to complete my review of BibleWorks 9, I set out to use BibleWorks to try to examine some of the manuscript evidence. A BibleWorks module of Daniel Wallace’s Greek grammar (included in BW9) offered some insight into interpretation, which you can read briefly here (screenshot).

BibleWorks 9 features the BibleWorks Manuscript Project, where you can “compare and analyze original manuscript text and images.” As a part of the Analysis Window, the manuscripts are integrated with the Browse Window, so that as you move around in the latter, the former tracks with you. The perfect complement to the Manuscripts Project is the Center for New Testament Textual Studies’ (CNTTS) NT Critical Apparatus. BibleWorks describes it:

For the first time, the New Testament Critical Apparatus from the Center for New Testament Textual Studies is available for PCs. This exhaustive apparatus covers the entire New Testament. The BibleWorks version has been enhanced to show a matrix of Aland categories and time period for the mss for each reading. Users will especially appreciate having the apparatus track and update as the mouse moves over the text in the BibleWorks main window. In addition, the start of each verse entry summarizes the significant, insignificant, and singular variants. When examining a variant, the text of the verse is shown with the variant text highlighted. No unlock required!

You can’t get NA27 and its textual apparatus in BibleWorks but with what CNTTS offers (it’s thorough), it doesn’t matter! Greek textual critics benefit immensely from the additions in BibleWorks from version 8 to 9.

BibleWorks has some great mini-training videos. Here they explain the CNTTS Apparatus. And here they discuss the Manuscripts Tab. If you’re serious about either (a) considering purchasing BibleWorks 9 or (b) have it and want to figure out how to use those two features, those two videos will get you there.

Now, on to the manuscript evidence regarding Mark’s ending in BibleWorks 9. This gives an idea of what the program can do in an applied Bible study.

If I’m wondering what Codex Vaticanus (“B”) has in Mark 16:9, I can simply select that Codex in the drop-down menu in the Mss Tab. (BibleWorks refers to it as m-3, too.) The screenshot below (click for larger) shows that there’s no image for Vaticanus at 16:9. This is because Vaticanus ends Mark at 16:8.

Note, too, something I find exceedingly helpful in the bottom right of the shot above–a key to not only BibleWorks’ manuscript numbering system but to abbreviations for manuscripts, their dates, and their contents. This is the stuff budding text critics always have to look up, flipping from page to page and resource to resource. (Or just using that little insert in the NA27. But this is easier!)

In fact, by right-clicking when you do see an image (e.g., Vaticanus at Mark 16:8), you can “load image in viewer” to pull it out and look at it more closely. There you can zoom and drag your way through the various parts of the text. It looks like this:

The top right section of the Mss Tab (in the full screenshot image above) lines up the various readings available in the manuscripts that BibleWorks contains. I can quickly see that “A” (Alexandrinus) and “W” (Washingtonianus) do have text for a longer ending of mark. Pulling up the image for Alexandrinus, I see this for Mark 16:9 ff.:

Hovering over the verse references (superimposed over the manuscript) brings up the pop-up window that you see there, where I can compare the given manuscript, the English, and the BGT Greek text in BibleWorks. (!!) This is all pretty amazing.

The Mss Tab is easy to figure out. Using the CNNTS Apparatus was less than intuitive for me. But this BibleWorks video explained it quite well. I’ve had to work at it to figure out how to best use it, but having done that, it’s a great apparatus. Especially helpful is its classification of variation types (significant, insignificant, lacunae, etc.). The Apparatus is chock full of abbreviations to learn, but what critical apparatus isn’t? And this one hyperlinks the abbreviations to what they stand for, so it’s not too bad.

For the Greek manuscripts that include some parts of the Septuagint (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus), I would love to be able to see both testaments in future BibleWorks editions. That was a loss for me, especially given my appreciation of the Septuagint. So be aware that even though BibleWorks has images of manuscripts that contain parts of the LXX, it’s just the New Testament that appears in BibleWorks.

But the images are already some 8 GB, and this is a work in progress (with future updates promised), so the lack of the LXX/Old Greek is understandable. Viewing Hebrew manuscripts in the future would also be awesome! Until then, what BibleWorks includes and gives the user access to (as part of the purchase price) is pretty remarkable.

BibleWorks won’t actually answer the question I posed in the title of this post: Would Mark’s Jesus have us handle snakes and drink poison? Exegetes will always have to interpret and answer questions like this. (This one’s a bit of a softball, admittedly.) BibleWorks also can’t determine with certainty what the actual ending of Mark is.

But it can sure show you a lot of evidence, and give you just about everything you need to try to have an informed opinion on the matter. Being able to look at images of actual manuscripts still boggles my mind. And it’s not only being able to view those manuscripts (much of which you could do online anyway)–it’s the fact that they’re tied to BibleWorks’ analysis tools that’s truly astounding to me. BibleWorks has enhanced my Bible study immensely.

BibleWorks 9 is easily a five-star program in my book. I’ve enjoyed being able to review it.

See all that’s new in BibleWorks 9 here.

I received a free upgrade to BibleWorks 9 in exchange for an unbiased review. (Thank you, BibleWorks!) See the other parts of my BibleWorks review here. You can order the full program here or upgrade here. It’s on Amazon (affiliate link), too.

These 4 Perks are Divine in BibleWorks 9

Okay–not divine per se, but pretty indispensable for Bible study. Here are four perks in BibleWorks 9 that, the more I use the program, the more I appreciate.

1. Archer and Chirichigno’s Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament

Sure, this is perhaps an obscure thing to highlight. But it’s a major perk in my book! Archer and Chirichigno’s resource is already an invaluable one, particularly for studying the NT use of the OT. But the way it’s laid out in BibleWorks opens up possibilities unavailable to the owner of just the print version.

Because the focus is on OT Quotations, everything is listed in Old Testament canonical order. So if you’re wondering where Exodus 20 (the 10 Commandments) shows up in the New Testament, you can skip ahead to that section and find (click for larger):

Everything in Archer and Chirichigno’s book is there–their commentary at the bottom, their comparison of MT/LXX/NT. You can hide or display the English in BibleWorks (I have it shown above). Also, when you mouse over a blue hyperlinked verse, as I’ve done in the image above, you see a popup with that verse in three different versions. This seems to be an underrated part of BibleWorks, but if you’re serious about LXX or OT/NT study, having this is a great help.

2. Lots of how-to videos

Some six hours worth, according to the BibleWorks site. The videos I’ve watched have been clear, simple, and substantive.

3. Intermediate Hebrew and Greek grammars included

BibleWorks 9 comes with these three classics included:

They’re keyed to individual verses so that the appropriate information from each of these grammars will automatically show in the “Resources” window at any given verse. Using even Amazon prices, just these three grammars cost more than $150 in print. And having them lined up with the OT and NT texts as I use them in BibleWorks saves me time from flipping through indices and physical pages. (See this portion of my BibleWorks review to see Wallace in action.)

4. The Use Tab

In an earlier part of my review I wrote:

[T]he new “Use” tab … instantaneously shows you all the uses of a word with how many occurrences it has in that book and version…. You had to search on a word in previous versions to do this…. I find this particularly useful for vocabulary acquisition. As I come across a word I don’t know in the text, I can easily see–does this occur 121 times and I should know it? Or is it just in the text two or three times, so I was okay in not knowing right away what it means?

This feature was reason enough for me to pursue an upgrade from version 8 to version 9. (!) With the new fourth column (which I mention at more length at the same link above), the Use tab can be open together with an additional analysis window.

Although I still regularly use print copies of the Bible (Greek, Hebrew, and English), BibleWorks has been a useful companion in my personal Bible study and devotions for the last couple years. Especially when I want to do word studies or delve into the grammar of the text or compare multiple translations, BibleWorks has been a great program to use.

See all that’s new in BibleWorks 9 here.

I received a free upgrade to BibleWorks 9 in exchange for an unbiased review. See my prolegomenon to a review here, part 1 (setup and layout) here, part 2 (the Verse tab) here, and part 3 (text criticism 1 of 2) here, with the completion of the text criticism mini-series coming soon.  You can order the full program here or upgrade here. It’s on Amazon, too.

Would Mark’s Jesus have us handle snakes and drink poison? (part 1 of 2) (BibleWorks 9 review, continued)

First century snake handler?

Many believe that Mark’s Gospel ends rather abruptly at 16:8 (“for they were afraid”), but others have found it difficult to think of a Gospel ending with Jesus’ followers’ being afraid to say anything to anyone about the resurrection.

So there is the so-called shorter (add-on) ending of Mark, which adds to the above, “…the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation” (RSV). This has 10 words that otherwise appear nowhere else in the book.  In my view the vocabulary and style of the shorter ending do not seem to fit well with the rest of the Gospel, and have the feel of an effort to give the book closure well after the fact of the writing.

Then there is the so-called longer ending of Mark, which is also not satisfied in ending with his followers’ fear. This records Jesus’ appearance to some of his followers, as well as the commissioning of his disciples, including the hard-to-understand reference to picking up snakes and drinking poison.

Mark could well have ended with “For they were afraid”–Mark is not unknown for being abrupt—nor would he have a problem upbraiding (or reporting Jesus’ upbraiding) people for their lack of faith or for their fear.  But would someone who started so positively with a proclamation of Jesus as “Son of God” in 1:1 have truly ended on such a dour note?  One possibility is that Mark’s original ending was lost.  R.T. France says, “It is one thing to emphasise and exploit paradoxical elements within the story of Jesus’ ministry and passion, as we have seen Mark doing again and again, but quite another to conclude his gospel with a note which appears to undermine not only his own message but also the received tradition of the church within which he was writing” (683).

Of course, lacking evidence of such a “lost” ending means that to postulate one is speculative, and it is perhaps a wiser hermeneutic to accept the text as we have it to be the intended one.

Can BibleWorks help here? One of the major new features in BibleWorks 9 is the BibleWorks Manuscript Project. From the BibleWorks site:

This massive project has been years in the making. BibleWorks 9 includes the first installment of this ongoing work. The BibleWorks Manuscript Project’s initial release covers the following:

  • Sinaiticus
  • Vaticanus
  • Alexandrinus
  • Bezae
  • Washingtonianus
  • Boernerianus
  • GA1141

For these manuscripts, the BibleWorks Manuscript Project includes the following:

  • New full NT transcriptions
  • Complete NT digital image sets (over 7.5 GB!!)
  • Verse location tagging in images
  • Extensive transcription notes
  • MSS comparison tool
  • Morphological tagging (not complete for all manuscripts but updates will be provided free of charge to BibleWorks 9 users as they become available)

Manuscripts are fully searchable and integrated with the full array of BibleWorks analysis tools. As you change verses in BibleWorks, the MS image display tracks with the current verse. Compare, inspect, and analyze the text and images of key original manuscripts. Tweak and enhance the manuscript images using the sophisticated image processing panel now included in BibleWorks.

Before I could even get into the manuscripts, there were two ways BibleWorks immediately helped me to explore this issue. First, with my NET Bible notes open in the Verse Tab (which I review here), I see a nice, lengthy note that explains the options–with manuscript evidence–for Mark’s possible ending. (You can see the NET note itself by clicking on footnote 9 here.) That much I’ve come to expect from BibleWorks.

What pleasantly caught me by surprise was that the NET note mentions a section in Wallace’s Greek Grammar that discusses the grammar of the contested snake-handling verses. I quickly and easily navigated over to the “Resources” tab in my analysis window and looked it up (click for larger image, or open in a new tab):

Wallace’s grammar is free with BibleWorks, a nice bonus. And it’s set up so that as you’re working your way through a text, Wallace tracks with you, so you can easily look up what he has to say about a given verse or grammatical topic.

Already some great help from BibleWorks in exploring a difficult textual issue. In my next post, I’ll use BibleWorks to get into the Mark manuscripts themselves, exploring the possible endings of the Gospel of Mark.

See all that’s new in BibleWorks 9 here.

I received a free upgrade to BibleWorks 9 in exchange for an unbiased review. See my prolegomenon to a review here, part 1 (setup and layout) here, and part 2 (the Verse tab) here. You can order the full program here or upgrade here. It’s on Amazon, too.

The Verse Tab: Review of BibleWorks 9, part 2

I continue to be impressed with BibleWorks 9. The new Use Tab is likely my favorite new feature (I posted about it in part 1 of my review). The Verse Tab is another new feature. Here’s how the BibleWorks site describes it:

The Verse Tab tracks with any Bible version. For the current verse under the mouse, it displays the relevant sections in resources such as the CNTTS apparatus, the NET Bible textual notes, the Tischendorf apparatus, Metzger’s Textual Commentary (requires unlock), and the ESV Study Bible (requires unlock).

I will devote a future post to the CNTTS apparatus. Today I want to comment on and review the Verse Tab and its usefulness. Just so you can have a visual of what I’m working with, here’s a layout I’m currently using to look at the Hebrew of Malachi. (Click on the image below for larger.)

(Editorial note. File this under: can you believe that’s in the Bible? I had somehow never noticed this verse until the other day… thou shalt not trifle with the Lord, especially if you’re a priest or pastor. Take obedience to God seriously.)

Here’s the great thing about the Verse Tab. In previous versions of BibleWorks, the NET Bible study notes were only available via the Analysis Window. But this meant that if the Analysis Window were open to an NET study note, you couldn’t also at the same time easily see morphological analysis and lexical data–it was one or the other in that window. Now, however, as you can see above, you can easily access both study notes and a separate analysis window for individual word analysis. I find this new feature an immense help.

The NET study notes are fantastic. (It’s worth reading more about that translation and its notes here.) Honestly, a verse like the one I’ve chosen to highlight above might be a bit jarring to some–although in context it makes perfect sense. Yahweh was dealing with a corrupt and complacent priesthood. They were not making sacrifices in the way he had commanded (and they knew it, too). So his response in context really ought not to be a surprise. The NET note (see superscript number 4 and “tn” in the image above) clarifies that Yahweh is speaking of the entrails of to-be-sacrificed animals. The priests were supposed to dispose of these away from the sacrificial altar, but apparently were not in Malachi’s time. Bad idea. Clicking on Lev. 4:11 in the BibleWorks Search column (far left column) immediately takes me to the verse that explains this requirement.

One other neat thing about the Verse Tab: if you click on the “Expand” button, you can get a free-floating window that shows you all the NET notes for the whole Bible. This is easy to navigate through, as you can imagine:

I welcome the Verse Tab as an addition to the BibleWorks program. I’ve already made heavy use of it and will continue to in the future. For a mere $20 you can buy a module that gives you the notes and maps from the ESV Study Bible in that same tab. The program comes with the NET Bible notes already loaded.

See all that’s new in BibleWorks 9 here.

I received a free upgrade to BibleWorks 9 in exchange for an unbiased review. See my prolegomenon to a review here and part 1 (setup and layout) here. You can order the full program here or upgrade here. It’s on Amazon, too.

BibleWorks out of the box: Review of BibleWorks 9, part 1 (setup and layout)

The perennial question: Should I upgrade my BibleWorks program? I was perfectly happy with BibleWorks 7 until I upgraded to 8. (Then I was really happy with 8.) I thought 8 was such a vast improvement that when 9 came out, I saw no need… at least until I got to know version 9 a little better. Versions 7 or 8 are certainly still powerful in their own right, but my upgrade to 9 has been a great experience so far. In this and future posts, I’ll highlight why. Today: BibleWorks 9, out of the box.

The installation is easy and quick. I consider myself somewhat proficient when it comes to computer know-how, but certainly don’t have programming expertise. No matter. BibleWorks is easy to install and keep updated. And the BibleWorks staff is constant in making updates available if and as they find bugs in the program. Better than any other computer software I’ve used, in this sense.

BibleWorks 9 comes with a “Quick-Start Guide,” which has the Installation Instructions (they are mercifully short–three pages and easy to follow) and a 12-page Orientation to BibleWorks guide. The guide focuses on the Search Window, the Browse Window, and the Analysis Window, and gives instructions and specific examples as to how to best utilize each in studying the Biblical text. My only quibble with the helpful guide is that the images contained therein seem to be from BibleWorks 8, not 9. But that doesn’t really keep it from doing what it needs to, namely, quickly and effectively orienting the new or only somewhat experienced user to using the program well. (The instructions do detail the contents of the new tabs in version 9.)

BibleWorks 9 adds a delicious fourth column (essentially, a second analysis window). It looks like this (click on the png below for a larger view, if you wish):

Already this opens more options. There are also more available tabs in the Analysis Window. For example, the new “Use” tab, in my third column above, instantaneously shows you all the uses of a word with how many occurrences it has in that book and version (here, the WTT=Hebrew Bible). You had to search on a word in previous versions to do this (using the first column above). I find this particularly useful for vocabulary acquisition. As I come across a word I don’t know in the text, I can easily see–does this occur 121 times and I should know it? Or is it just in the text two or three times, so I was okay in not knowing right away what it means?

The “Verse” tab and the “Mss” tabs are new, too–those are worthy of their own post. (Anyone familiar with BibleWorks, whether they have 9 or not, may already know that this new version allows you to look at and work with images of original manuscripts.)

And, what I find best of all, you can drag and drop the tabs between the third and fourth columns so that you can customize your setup. I had already figured out a setup so that I had my own equivalent of a “fourth column” in BibleWorks 8. Now I can do even more! Check this out (from a previous post):

It’s a thing of beauty.

BibleWorks has unbeatable customer service. The user forums are active and always helpful. (Good things to know when you’re considering getting set up with them.) And they’ve provided quite a few videos to show users their way around the program. If you don’t want to wait for the rest of my review, you can see all that’s new in BibleWorks 9 here. You can order the full program here or upgrade here. It’s even on Amazon!

I received a free upgrade to BibleWorks 9 in exchange for an unbiased review. See my prolegomenon to a review here.