A reader emailed me asking for my recommendation on Bible software. I’m not the expert, and so I thought I’d ask the readers for their advice while sharing what little I know.
First, you have to decide whether you need Greek and Hebrew resources. If you don’t need the original languages, there are plenty of inexpensive or even free products that may work very well for you, such as eSword, a free download with considerable capabilities.
Second, what are you willing to pay? It’s a fairly efficient market, meaning that you get what you pay for, and what you really want is likely a little more than what you’d prefer to pay.
If you want free, nearly everything you could ever want is on the Internet, including commentaries by Matthew Henry, J. W. McGarvey, Calvin, Luther, etc. And they’re not hard to find.
The entirety of the early church fathers is on the Internet, too, from multiple translations.
Some Greek dictionaries can be dug up, as well as all sorts of Greek grammars. The Internet is a remarkable thing. In fact, I used to try to dig around in the Greek text of the Septuagint using a copy I downloaded from the Internet.
But, frankly, when you do a lot of Bible research — as I do — it’s a pain in the neck to have to go to several different Internet sites, with differing search features. You can do it, and I did it for years. But I’m old and tired, and I’d rather have one-stop research. And for that purpose, I use BibleWorks 8.0 (version 9 just came out but I’ve not yet upgraded).
I got it for free as a review copy, and that has spoiled me greatly — which I love. It costs $359, and I’d pay it if I had to. It is well worth the price — but that’s a lot of money. But I’m hooked on the software and use it, literally, every day.
I’ve reviewed it before.
BibleWorks 8.0, Introduction, Part 1
BibleWorks 8.0, Introduction, Part 2
BibleWorks 8.0: Now That I’ve Read One of the Instructions
Here’s the short review.
* It has incredible resources, with approximately 1 zillion translations and multiple Greek and Hebrew dictionaries and grammars. It has the early church fathers. It has the Septuagint. You can do Greek word studies easy as pie in the New Testament and Septuagint if you please (and I please).
* Its interface is a bit awkward and takes some learning. It has an obvious DOS, that is, non-GUI (graphical user interface) history that continues to drive its look and feel. And this makes it less than intuitive at times — which is annoying.
But the fact is that once you master the rules (and they have videos and other easily accessed instructions), it’s powerful and fast. For an amateur scholar such as myself, it can do more than I know how to ask.
Here’s an example. Suppose you want to do a word study on “justify.” Well, you find a verse with “justify” in it, and find that the KJV text links to the Greek word and definition. The Greek text itself is also presented (and you can have the critical text or the majority text or both). You can ask the software to search on the “lemma” for the Greek word — meaning every verse in the New Testament and Septuagint that uses “justify” or any word with the same root. And this takes about five seconds top to bottom (with a little practice). The search itself is instantaneous. The software is fast.
You can then go verse-by-verse through every occurrence and easily pull up the context if you wish.
You can also find every place where an early church father mentioned or alluded to every verse you’re looking at. You can click on multiple grammars and dictionaries to sort out the meaning of each sentence — all with only an amateur grasp of Greek.
It’s main competitor is Logos, and I know nothing about it. Maybe some other readers could provide a comparison.
Readers, any other suggestions?
For most users, http://www.biblegateway.com will meet their needs. I find myself using it more and more for quick lookups, version comparisons, etc.
For Mac users, Accordance (http://www.accordancebible.com/) is the top dog out there. I’m not good enough with the original languages to make full use of it, but for serious research, they have just about everything you need.
They’ve added iPhone and iPad apps. It’s good stuff, Maynard.
And no, I don’t even get a referral if you check it out.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
I have used both Logos 3 and WORDsearch programs for several years. Each has pluses and minuses but for my taste I prefer my WORDsearch 9 because of the “user friendliness” as well as the enormous number of free books that came with it. Both of these have a variety of add on books that can be purchased, everything from upper level scholarship to just basic books of devotion, but the books that came with each program have given me enough reading material to keep me busy for years.
And as an added bonus many of the add on books for WORDsearch will also work with BibleWorks. Check with them to see what they have available as they say the list is growing. I also have the free eSword and it is a nice program as well. On Ubuntu Linux I use a program called Bible Time that is free software that works very well for those using that operating system.
Hope this helps!
I’ve used e-Sword (free!) for many years and it has never let me down. You can get just about any resource you can imagine for it (translations, commentaries, early church documents, dictionaries, cross references, harmony of gospels….many free, but also many newer non-free resources) and many are free. Be sure to check out biblesupport.com for a large number of free add-ons.
I’ve conducted e-Sword classes at church, helping people to install it, to get a great set of resources, and then teaching them the basics of what they can do with it. I currently have 14 translations including Greek and Hebrew, and 17 commentaries, plus quite a few other modules. I heavily use about four translations and about eight commentaries for my study. I use e-Sword on my netbook as my Bible for church. It has an integrated word processor for taking notes in church. I l like the built in editor since it gives me hot links from scriptures in the notes to the active Bible, and the bubble text showing the scripture when you hover over a reference in the notes.
Lots of folks have good things to say about a package called The Word, which is also free. It is newer and some feel it has a more modern user interface, but I personally prefer e-Sword’s interface. It has many of the same resources as e-Sword, but not as large of a community and not as many third party resources. Last I checked it lacked some of the features of e-Sword but that may have changed.
Both of these are Windows software. There is also an open-source project called “The Sword Project” at http://www.crosswire.org/sword/index.jsp. This one runs on a variety of platforms including Linux as well as Windows. There are multiple user interfaces available for the basic Sword Project engine. The upside of this project is also its downside — it is open source, which means there is no effective way to protect resources with a license key. So some commercial ($$) resources are not available. It has been awhile since I looked at this one so things may have changed.
I would recommend Logos 4 for most users. It is also available for the mac platform. It is good for the original language study and the richness of materials available for it are unsurpassed. You can check it out here:
http://www.logos.com/
I’ve got both Logos 4 and PC Study Bible. I use Logos 4 daily. I find it user friendly, and the resources are excellent. You can add on single books/collections easily. Start with the basic program and add as you want. PC Study Bible used to be my favorite program but the latest versions aren’t as user friendly, and some of the search results are, frankly, hard to read. I also have a couple of the “free” programs, but they are very limited, with older resources. That’s not altogether bad, but you want new, fresh resources available if you’re going to use Bible programs for serious study. If you just want to do basic word studies, concordance searches, etc., go with a free program. Spend money only if you’re going to use the program for what it was designed to do. E-book readers (Nook Color, Kindle, etc) have Bibles available and some of these will do minor searches too. My Logos program puts more research material before me than I often have time to use. Learn how to narrow searches and prioritize your study. I’d hate to have to do with this program!
Last sentence should read “I’d hate to have to without this program!”
I’m an e-sword guy myself. I used Quick Verse (DOS version) for quite a while, but when my computer crashed and I lost all of my notes, I elected to restart with e-sword rather than pay for a Windows Version of Quick Verse.
It has a ton of free stuff – plus additional books available quite economically. Look at http://www.e-sword.net to check out the downloads available. I have not found a convenient way to search the LXX in e-sword; to search the Greek New Testament (several texts available plus word studies and abbreviated lexicons), I search the KJV+, which gives the Strong number for each word. I search the strong number itself – which gives every place that particular word appears.
It is fast, efficient, fairly complete, – and free. Al Maxey uses this program and frequently cites it as a source in his Reflections.
Jerry
I’ve used for years and still do, Quick Verse. It has a large number of bibles, reference books, Hebrew, Greek, maps, commentaries, etc. However my go to program, like Jay is Bible Works. I have only BW’s 5 but I’m hooked to it like an umbilical cord for most all of my studies and fast Scripture searches. It is well designed for fast and easy use.
Thank you all for your information and recommendations.
Fraternally in Jesus,
Bobby G. Deason
Let me suggest ISA over e-sword. E rearanges the greek and hebrew text to fit English work order. While this is handy, it aint what the original wrote. Interlinear Scripture Analyzer leaves the orginal alone, is free and fast. Click on anything and you get helps and all uses of that word be it English or original language.
But let me be clear; I still think e users can go to heaven.
Larry, I’m glad to know my bible software doesn’t disqualify me 😉 But there are plenty of e-Sword Greek and Hebrew modules which are in original word order. I’m not sure what module you have in mind that doesn’t… but the Greek and Hebrew modules downloadable from the e-Sword menu are in original word order. Personally the one I use most is the Interlinear Greek New Testament (IGNT) from here
I haven’t used e-sword in years, so I’m sure its updated. I never checked out all the modules. Anyway ISA is so basic and complete that its easy to try. Reminds me of my son-in-laws and tools. Both spend 10 minutes selecting the rigtht attachments, finding a charge battery pack, before drilling a hole. I just plug in my old fashion electric drill, chuch a bit, and am done before they start. Howver when doing a project, they finish ahead of me.
So if you do lots of long sturdy anti up for Bibleworks, some e-sword it, or if you want quick easy interlinear search try ISA.
One online resource that I like is net.bible.org. It holds the New English Translation of the Bible with literally thousands of notes. It also has hundreds of “articles” or commentaries.
It is a complete online tool where you establish an account and keep all your notes online. There are good and bad points to having all your notes online. You can access everything at any time you have Internet access, but if you are visiting relatives with no broadband access, oh well.
By the way, bible.org is one of the oldest continuing and growing web sites on the Internet.
If you have an iPad and you like the ESV, I recommend purchasing the ESV study bible app. It is great! It has all of the features of that gigantic printed ESV study bible that you see in the stores, and it is easy to navigate on the iPad.
studylight.org is also a good online resource