I was looking at some interesting tables on John’s vocabulary at this site. In it, the author, Dale Loepp, compares John’s use of certain words related to the family with the total number of occurrences in the NT and each of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). But what really hit me was the thought of how easy it is to get all those results in a very short time with some of today’s Bible software programs. I happened to be browsing the net with my Mac, so I fired up Accordance and opened a search window set to Words with the Greek NT in it. I then chose [All text] as the search field (NT would have also been fine), and duplicated that same window four times. Next, I changed the search fields of those four windows to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, respectively. All that I needed to do before running the search was to link all five windows (by using the LINK command in the last four). The whole operation took slightly over a minute (maybe less), and I was all set to do the searching. I just wrote ἀγαπάω, pressed the Enter key, and in the blinking of an eye each window showed the results (143 times in the NT, 8 in Matthew, 5 in Mark, 13 in Luke, and 37 in John).

Getting a detail of the references in John was simply a mouse-click away with the Concordance feature, as were many other statistical and analytical tools. I thought I could make regular use of this particular layout, so I saved the session. Now, whenever I want to see the distribution of some Greek word across the NT, the Synoptics and John, all I have to do is write the term in one window and click OK. Yes, a single search is all you need! FYI, I could have used a Workspace (i.e., one window) with five tabs, but in this particular case I preferred the “clutter”, so that I could see all the numbers at a glance (or maybe I was just too lazy to use Control-Tab or Shift-Control-Tab to cycle through open tabs?).

Incidentally, the data offered for the word ἀδελφός (26-3-5-3-6) is wrong. The right figures are as follows: 343 hits in the NT, 39 in Matthew, 20 in Mark, 24 in Luke and 14 in John. I’ll let you find the refs. in John’s Gospel all by yourselves

I have posted new reviews of MacSword and iLumina. There is also an About Us section available. Enjoy!

Not so long ago, Bible software packages (in fact most software packages) included a printed user manual. Today, the vast majority of software companies do not publish any manual at all. Supposedly it’s all found in the online Help so, they say, there is no need to duplicate efforts. I could give you dozens of examples, but let’s take just one:

Zondervan states that “in the interest of being environmentally responsible, there is no print manual with this software”, in reference to their Bible Study Library line of products. And then they add, “The entire manual is included under the Help Menu in the program. You are welcome to print it from there if you desire.” I beg your pardon! Do you mean to say that you want to be “environmentally responsible” but that it is okay if I, the user, spend hundreds of pages of paper and a good bit of ink printing the online help? Doesn’t seem to make much sense to me! I know that different people have different tastes and study habits, but I for one deeply regret the fact that most Bible software vendors (with some notable exceptions!) are no longer providing detailed printed manuals. I can think of a good number of reasons why printed manuals are valuable:

a) Reading from a book is a lot easier on your eyes than reading from your screen, particularly when you reach a certain age
b) Most online helps aren’t very complete anyway, to say the least. While ideally a printed manual should be comprehensive.
c) Printed manuals should offer, IMO, a good deal of information about the tagging/hypertexting philosophy that’s being followed, as well as the rationale of the search engine (i.e., why do we get the results we get when we do what we do). d) Considering the price of most commercial
applications, expecting to receive a manual seems quite reasonable.
e) I like reading books… Any problem with that? )
f) There are many more, no doubt, but I have to go now…

And yes, the fact that many users don’t bother to read the manual (any manual) and keep calling or writing tech support doesn’t mean that manuals are useless. In fact, reading a good manual will go a long way towards mastering any software and overcoming the much-feared “learning curve”.

As no doubt many of you know, e-Sword is a freeware/donationware Bible software program for Windows. Unlike other products, the application and all the available texts can be downloaded from the website for free (although you can get a CD containing most of the material in exchange for a small donation). The number and quality of modules available is worthy of note. Besides, there are three add-ons that can currently be bought at a reasonable price: The New American Standard Bible Study Set (including Updated NASB, Updated NASB with Strong’s numbers, and Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries from the NAS Exhaustive Concordance), The Amplified Bible, and The Complete Word Study Dictionary (Old and New Testament) by Spiros Zodhiates. These last two items have just been made available this month.

Following my previous entries on emulation here and here, this link will give you all the information and help you need to get your Accordance for Macintosh up and running on your Wintel box.

Logos what?! If that is your first reaction you definitely need to read the Wiki Getting Started Faq and the Wiki Wiki Web Faq. Logos has launched a Logos wiki. According to Bob Pritchett, “It’s an open, freely editable web site where anyone can contribute and add content.” A longer general description goes like this:

Wiki is a discussion medium, a repository, a mail system, and a chat room! It’s a tool for collaboration. In fact, we don’t really know what it is, but try it and explore some links – it’s a fun way to communicate! The concept may seem weird at first, but you will come to love it! The name ‘Wiki’ may seem strange too — what does it mean, and where does it come from? The WikiWikiWebFaq answers this and other questions, but the short answer is that “wiki-wiki” is Hawaiian for “quick”. Watch the pages grow and refine here; watch the discussions that surround the process. Watch information automagically crystallize before your eyes!

Whatever it is, it is available to users of Logos Bible Software, and should prove to be an interesting collaborative effort. Hey, man, this is Internet at its best!

Today I’d like to draw your attention to The SWORD Project, which I think is one of the most exciting open-source endeavors currently taking place. The CrossWire Bible Society is pursuing a number of projects, and their aim is “to produce a free, open-source, cross-platform Bible software engine: the SWORD API.” I welcome the idea and personally feel it’s got a great potential. I am finishing a review on MacSword (hope to post it soon!), which is the Mac OS X front-end for their search engine, and another one will follow on The Sword Project for Windows.

The whole thing works this way: different developers volunteer to build applications and graphical interfaces for the various platforms. Each application is OS-specific (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.), but it is based on the same search engine and the same collection of electronic texts. This has a number of advantages. Although I would not say any of the incarnations of the core engine that I’ve seen and used is a “finished” product yet (particularly if you compare them with the commercial packages — or even some of the more sophisticated freeware/software alternatives), we’ll have to follow future enhancements very closely. It does look promising.

I could certainly do with some help in the area of Bible software for the different Linux distros. Is there anybody out there who’s actually using any Bible package developed specifically for Linux systems? I would love to hear from you! I openly confess that my experience with Linux is rather limited, although I do like what I’ve used.

Dove Booksellers
offers a limited quantity of copies of Perseus 2.0 (both the Complete and Concise edition) at reduced prices while supplies last. Here is a brief description of the product taken from DoveNews:

Named for the Hellenic hero who explored the world to its most distant reaches, Perseus is a remarkable, award-winning digital resource that is revolutionizing the study of ancient Greece by expanding the ways in which ancient Greek literature, history, art, and archaeology can be examined. Now available for the first time for PCs and Windows-based computers, Perseus has been widely praised as one of the most innovative educational tools ever published Perseus is the work of a collaborative team including philologists, historians, and archaeologists.

Perseus 2.0 is the most comprehensive collection of primary sources and supporting reference materials on ancient Greece ever created. It contains over 380 texts in Greek and in translation, representing all of the major authors of the classical period and
others, extensive morphological tools, art and archaeology resources, and much more. Superb navigational tools and hypertextual links make searching this enormous resource quick, intuitive, and effective. This unparalleled program supports teaching and study in literature, art, history, and language and is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the ancient world.
Comprehensive EditionFour CD-ROMs contain the complete textual database, encyclopedia, lexicon, and atlas, plus the complete visual database of 25,000 full-screen images.

Concise EditionOne CD-ROM provides the complete textual database, encyclopedia, lexicon, and atlas with 5,200 full-screen images and an online catalogue of all 25,000 images in small format (1.3″ x 1.1″) for reference.

The issue of whether or not Strong’s numbers, or other similar schemes, are helpful for those who are not versed in the original languages has been hotly debated. The potential for misuse is probably very high, but there are also a number of advantages associated with its correct use. David Lang has just posted an informative article about the practical use of these numbers in Bible software, from a Mac perspective. Except for the test cases, everything else should be relevant to users of Bible software packages for Windows.

The purpose of all these numbering systems (Strong’s, revised Strong’s, or Goodrick-Kohlenberger’s) is to allow the user who has no familiarity with Greek and Hebrew to carry out some research on the underlying original terms behind some English translations of the Bible. We keep coming back to the well-known and often discussed “a little knowledge of Greek or Hebrew is a dangerous thing”, but I’m afraid that just about anything can become a source of exegetical fallacies (e.g., the popular use made by some modern preachers of the Amplified Bible — a.k.a. the totality-transfer fallacy). So, I guess the bottom line is this: any system or method is as good as the people who use it. We probably need to stress the importance of a good solid preparation in the field of the humanities — including classical languages and a fair amount of critical thinking. This, I think, is woefully lacking in most churches and seminaries today.