Bible Software Review Weblog

Logos has recently announced the appointment of Mike Heiser as Academic Editor, and Guillermo Powell as International Director for Spanish Products. These two appointments indicate the increased commitment of the company to the scholarly and Spanish markets, respectively.

Incidentally, according to the press release, "(Guillermo) Powell comes to Logos after eight years working in 'localization,' the art of adapting and translating products into another language for local consumption". It turns out that localization has also been one of my tasks as a freelance translator over the past eight years or so. It is a highly specialized, and challenging, branch of translation.

Contributed by guest blogger Ken Ristau

Hi Everyone! I just wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself: a new blogger here at Bible Software Review. I'm a PhD student at PennState working under the direction of Dr. Gary Knoppers. My areas of study are biblical and classical historiography in the Achaemenid Persian period. I've written several published reviews on various bible software products. I own both PC and Mac computers. I hope I can bring to this blog some added insight on the ways that bible software are useful to the study of the Bible. I expect that my posts, when they do come, will provide tips, comments, and perhaps some news on bible software. I will concentrate on the commercial products rather than shareware or freeware. I hope you will enjoy my contributions.

One of the recurrent questions that gets posted in different email lists, user groups and forums, etc. is "How do I learn/keep up with Greek (or Hebrew)?" B-Greek, of course, is one of such places. But this is also a popular subject with bloggers. Daveblackonline (look for the fourth entry under Wednesday, September 8), and ricoblog are two of the many examples I could point out.

Leaving aside certain differences in matters of detail, there seems to be universal unanimity on the need for daily/regular reading of the original texts. There is absolutely no substitute for that. Reading brings grammar to life and helps build up new vocabulary. And remember, this is an area where Bible software can be particulary helpful, since it offers an easy way to simultaneously read the text, look up any word in a lexicon, search for any other occurrences of the terms in a given body of literature, and see it all in context (among other things). So, whether you have a printed book or a computer screen in front of you, read, read, read. It's worth it!

As other fellow bloggers have already pointed out, Christian Origins has recently adopted the form of a weblog. Since Peter Kirby's blog has some excellent material and is very focused, it is now included in my blogroll (list of recommended blogs that appears on the right hand side column - following a strict alphabetical order!). It even carries some news related to the Bible software scene (look here, and here). Welcome to the Blogosphere!

Contributed by guest blogger Ken Ristau

One of the challenges that many junior (and for that senior) scholars may have in reading Hebrew is the non-MT texts that do not have vowels, like the DSS modules in many popular Bible Software programs or other manuscripts and inscriptions. This is a challenging affair. Still, it is apparently possible because Israelis read modern Hebrew this way all the time. I have just never quite understood how it's possible--until now. My brother-in-law recently posted this blog entry about a Cambridge study on his otherwise non-academic blog. If you are like me, this should give you some hope that it is possible!

If you want to see, at a glance, a very general comparison of different Bible software packages, this table by Mark Vitalis Hoffman may prove to be a good starting point.

Today is a bank holiday here in Spain, and I've managed to finish and post a new article entitled Advantages of Bible Software: Louw-Nida's Lexicon as a Test Case. I hope you find it interesting, and I will very much value your feedback.

I have also streamlined the main menu a bit. I've decided to mark with an asterisk (*) those sections of the website currently unavailable, so that nobody thinks the links are dead or something like that. As I've stated before (and it's been on the FAQ section of BSR for quite some time), these menu items are placeholders. The stuff will be posted as it becomes available, but it is a lot of work, and it takes time...

Update (October 18): As a result of the feedback, I have added a couple of explanatory sidenotes to the article. Hopefully, the Case Study section is much clearer now.

Ivan Jurik announces that a new Theophilos Discussion Forum has been set up. It is open to all people interested in Theophilos Bible Software, and will eventually substitute the current Theophilos Mailing List at Yahoo.

Also, there is a new Theophilos Online Library available. This means that almost everything contained in the Theophilos Library CD can now be downloaded online. There are a number of free add-on modules, while others require the purchase of an unlock code.

Eric Sowell recently contacted me to introduce his blog, The Coding Humanist. It's an interesting blend of comments on software programming and biblical studies, and you'll find a link to it under Recommended Blogs. For an explanation of the weblog's name, read here. It's good to see that the number of bibliobloggers keeps growing!

I have posted a new review of Palm Bible+. I want to thank the author, Holger Szesnat, for his valuable contribution to Bible Software Review.

This is the first in a series of reviews of different Palm and PocketPC products. Let me repeat, once again, that your feedback and suggestions are always appreciated.

Just like the use of different browsers can definitely affect our web surfing experience, so too the use of different Bible programs has more than a little bearing on our overall user experience. But the comparison breaks down in that Internet contents are the same for everyone. This is not always true of Bible software. As one of my recent articles pointed out, what appears to be the exact same book turns out to be not quite the same in all respects. Add to that the fact that programs can handle similar resources in vastly different ways, and you're in for a few surprises.

There are, then, two basic things we should factor in when we consider buying/using any given Bible software:

1. Despite all the advertising, not all the electronic books (let alone the various kinds of tagging associated with them) marketed under the same title are the same. Try to ascertain which one is best for your needs.

2. There can be dramatic differences in the search capabilities of each product, the way results are displayed, general intuitiveness and user-friendliness, etc. See which one better approximates the way you work (or simply your tastes!).

These two seemingly innocent principles can go a long way in saving you some frustrations. Keep in mind that, no matter what they tell you, programs and packages are never equivalent. Each one of them will give you a different "user experience." So, even if the contents are basically alike, make sure that a clumsy interface, a poorly tagged resource, or a less than adequate search engine don't spoil your experience of using and enjoying Bible software.

The following is from B-Hebrew. Since for some reason I can't link to the archived post, I reproduce it here in its entirety:

The Unicode/XML Tanach from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC) at http://www.cvkimball.com/Tanach/Tanach.xmlhas been substantially upgraded. Please advise of any problems encountered or suggestions.

1. Tanach text can be displayed without associated links by clicking on the book name directly above or below the text. This allows printing of the text and was requested by a student, Luana.

2. The books of the Torah, Genesis.DH.xml ... Deuteronomy.DH.xml, contain Documentary Hypothesis (DH) source markings by default. See the DH link on the index page for more details. The default display does not show these markings, however. Unmarked Torah files, Genesis.xml ... Deuteronomy.xml, continue to be available.

3. The former "About" link has been split into "About", "Installation", and "Technical" links and a general cleanup of the site has been made.

4. A new "Instructions" link has been provided to describe site capabilities.

5. The site now includes an updated and standard version (0.9.3) of the Sarissa XML library. Previous versions contained an earlier and specially-modified version of Sarissa.

Chris Kimball

This is the Torah with DH markings project I have already mentioned before.

Contributed by guest blogger Ken Ristau

At a wonderfully designed website, the Aleppo Codex is now online; this codex is the oldest extant Hebrew Bible. You can view the codex as a part of the flash animation or as PDF. The website also has an engaging section that provides all sorts of background information on the codex, though not all the links are accessible yet.

UPDATE (October 29) by Rubén Gómez: Wieland Willker emails the following:

I already reported this in September on the textualcriticism list. It is a bit tricky to get the actual large images, but here it is:

Start with: http://aleppocodex.org/images/x4/1.jpg And then go on by changing this to 2.jpg, 3.jpg and so on... 1.6 MB each! Currently it goes up to 234.jpg.

Thank you for the tip, Wieland.