Bible Software Review Weblog

This morning, somebody pointed me to Codex: Resources for Biblical Studies. The site is maintained by Tyler F. Williams, Chair, Religion & Program and professor of Old Testament at Taylor University College, Edmonton, Alberta (Canada), and includes a section on software for biblical studies. In it, you will find some general comments on Bible software packages, and also some information on the availability of digital editions of standard Bible study tools and resources.

You might want to check out this useful and well presented website, which includes lots of material that should be of interest to anyone in the biblical studies field.

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New information on QuickVerse Mac has been made availabe. Still no screenshots (at least none that I could find), but we now know that the official shipping date is 6/01/2005 (that would be 01/06/05 over here in Europe -- i.e., June 1, 2005). There are some pretty interesting details that you can read about here, as well as a comparison chart with the full contents list for the two editions that will be made available.

This paragraph caught my attention:

Distinctive "Tiger" Features
QuickVerse Mac will incorporate at least two new elements found distinctively in Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4, also known as "Tiger" is on schedule to be released mid-April, 2005). 1) A "Verse Widget" to find any Book/Chapter/Verse in any Bible translation, and 2) Spotlight links for searching through any/all QuickVerse Mac books.

This sounds like a good step (no pun intended) in the right direction. Apple's next generation OS promises to bring quite a few significant improvements, and it is good to see that there will be early adopters who are going to take advantage of them in developing their software. Your mileage may vary on this, but it seems to me that "Spotlight" is going to be a real treat.

UPDATE (April 4): I meant to add that apart from the default file formats supported by Spotlight, data files from any application can be searched, provided a Spotlight plug-in is developed. I guess that's what QuickVerse Mac will do.

I have updated the reviews and the users sections of BSR. Please let me know if you find any oversights or come across other links that you feel should be added to the list. Thank you!

Contributed by guest blogger Ken Ristau

Accordance: News reports a spring sale is on until May 31, 2005. There are significant discounts on many of their CDs including the Anchor Bible Dictionary, Essential IVP Reference Library, the Catholic Collection, and Library 6. Check it out.

Just to let people know... Tyler Williams has moved his Codex website, which Rubén Gómez posted on, to biblical-studies.ca. Please update your bookmarks and links.

Also, on the topic of site updates, I recently updated my Bible Software Webstore to call attention to other items I haven't previously featured, including products from Brill and the Egyptological Bibliography from the Netherlands Institute.

Contributed by guest blogger Ken Ristau

Oak Tree Software has just announced the release of Accordance 6.5 as well as support for the Basilisk II Emulator, which they will start to distribute. The latter seems like a decision coming on the heels of Logos and QuickVerse announcements. I wonder if it is a sign that Oak Tree is thinking about a PC version, though I doubt that.

A couple of months ago, the editor of Religious Product News, a magazine that reaches 30,000 US churches each month, asked me to write a short article on Bible software. I ended up with a general and brief overview of the advantages of using Bible software for studying, teaching, and preaching, coupled with some advice on the key elements that should be kept in mind at the time of purchasing one particular software package.

It is not a deep and comprehensive article, but some of you may find it helpful, so I have posted it here.

UPDATE (April 28): The online edition of Religious Product News now includes the article, which is available in PDF format.

Bob Pritchett, CEO of Logos Research Systems, Inc., has added a couple of interesting video tours to his blog. Nice way to get to know the people behind the software we use, as well as the place where they work. More clips are on the way...

Contributed by guest blogger Ken Ristau

For users of Basilisk II (the Mac emulator for Accordance PC users), there is a new version of the emulator available. The update was posted Mar. 22, 2005. I have not tested the new update but, if you do, please do let us know here at Bible Software Review in the comment thread. Thanks!

UPDATE: You'll also need to get an SDL.dll for this release, which you put in your WINDOWS directory. I've been playing around with the new version of Basilisk II a bit but I can't get it to load so I'm sticking to the older v.0.8 for now... make sure you backup your older files before installing this release.

I have posted a new review of BibleLink. This program can work on any Wintel system as well as on a handheld device (Palm or Pocket PC), and offers some interesting features. Check it out.