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First sent out March 2005
Biblical scholars are pampered. Unlike almost any other
discipline, all our primary texts
and most of our background texts are
easily available with full searching and parsing facilities.
At SBL
recently, I was pushing the software producers to remember the scholars, even
though
they can make much more money by selling popular texts. Mostly I
didn't need to push - they
are all doing us proud. The software keeps
getting better, at such a bewildering speed that
packages are hard to
compare.
John Glynn has produced a wonderful review of the top five, and
this email is really just
an adjunct to his work. See http://www.TyndaleHouse.com/TTech/GlynnReview.pdf
and
updates: March 2007
1) Review of the top five packages
2) Other software, including free stuff
3) Personal recommendations
1) Review of the top five packages
READ THE REVIEW by John Glynn - http://www.TyndaleHouse.com/TTech/GlynnReview.pdf
-
if you miss it, you have missed the main value of this email.
- he is the
author of the Commentary
& Reference Survey (Kregel, 2003)
Libronix (Logos)
the big one - http://www.logos.com/products/bstudy.asp
Accordance
the pretty one - http://www.accordancebible.com
BibleWorks the
all-in one - http://www.bibleworks.com
Gramcord the old
one - http://www.gramcord.org
Pradis (Zondervan) the
sturdy one - http://www.zondervan.com/interactive/pradis
PCs run
them all (Accordance via an emulator) .
Macs run Accordance (and soon, Logos
too)
All of them are growing and improving constantly, especially in the
realms of
grammatical analysis, secondary literature and background sources.
2) Other software, including
free stuff
The Sword (free: PC, Mac & PDAs): http://www.crosswire.org/index.jsp
Online Bible
(free: PC): http://www.onlinebible.org/html/eng/starterspack.htm
Bible
Windows (PC): http://www.silvermnt.com/
E-Sword (free: PC): http://www.e-sword.net/
AnyText (Mac): http://www.linguistsoftware.com/atse.htm
Bible
Database (free: PC): http://bibledatabase.org/full.html
Theophilus
(cheap: PC): http://www.theophilos.sk/
QuickVerse (PC): http://www.quickverse.com/shopfiles/default.asp
More
details: http://www.TyndaleHouse.com/TTech/TTech028.htm
For
PDAs (ie Palms, Pocket PCs, phones &
iPods):
=======================================
BiblePlus
(Palm, free, very good): http://palmbibleplus.sourceforge.net/pbmanual.htm
Olive
Tree (all PDAs, scholarly, using Gramcord texts): http://www.olivetree.com/index.php
Bible With You
(Palm & Pocket PC, new, using Accordance texts): http://www.gmpsoft.com/
Laridian (Zondervan, all
PDAs): http://www.laridian.com/
Quickverse (Palm &
Pocket PC): http://www.discountchristian.com/qvpdastd.html
More
details: http://www.TyndaleHouse.com/TTech/TTech021.htm
Comparative
review: http://www.mobiletechreview.com/software/bible.htm
Accordance is the one I find easiest to use and
most powerful. It is less pretty and slightly
slower on the PC because of
the emulator. It exports Greek & Hebrew in Unicode, so that
you can
create documents which are future-proofed and readable on PC or Mac.
BibleWorks is what I use mainly on a PC, mostly because it starts
up quicker than Accordance
on a PC, and has most of the same
tools.
Libronix is necessary because it has exclusive rights to so
many important works, but
personally I don't like the interface.
Online Bible is useful on one of my old laptops, because it is so
fast. Basic searches only,
but that's all you need for sermon writing.
The Sword online is just the thing when you are at an internet
computer. Its Web 2
programming means that it can have pop-up lexicon and
parsing for Greek - see
OT LXX & MT at http://crosswire.org/study/parallelstudy.jsp?key=Gen&add=LXX&add=WLC
NT parsed Gk at http://www.crosswire.org/study/parallelstudy.jsp?add=WHNU&add=NASB
BiblePlus
on the Palm is what I used most. In my pocket I carry: various Bibles in
English,
Hebrew, and Greek (with basic parsing & lexicon); Targums in
Aramaic & English; complete
Josephus, Philo and even Nag Hammadi. Views
two versions at once with a split screen. All free!
Download from http://palmbibleplus.sourceforge.net/pbmanual.htm
