I recently received a copy of BibleWorks 8 and have been familiarizing myself with the application. So far, the program seems very robust and useful. I am definitely looking forward to becoming well acquainted with its features and learning more about its tools. It would have been very nice (or very bad) to own while I was learning Greek and Hebrew.
I plan to write a number of posts on BibleWorks 8 once I know the program better. For now, I’ll just mention the first couple of changes I made after loading it on my computer. First, the Hebrew text was a little too small to read easily, so I increased the font size of the Hebrew to 24 in both the Search Window and Browse Window.
Second, I changed the default Display Versions. One of the real strengths of BibleWorks is the myriad of Bible versions and other texts in various modern and ancient languages. Yet for one reason or another, when BibleWorks is first loaded, the default translations are the KJV, NASB, and the Majority Text NT (Greek), in addition to the standard Greek and Hebrew Bibles (LXX/GNT and Lenigrad Codex). I quickly removed the KJV and NASB, and though the Majority Text edited by Robinson (1995) is interesting, I removed that as well since it’s not something I plan on referring to frequently. Then I added a number of other Display Versions, so here’s what I settled on for now:
Of course, this does not mean that I am restricting access to other versions, but these are the ones which will automatically show up in the Browse Window (main center window). Note also the order in which I have arranged these versions. I like to have the ancient languages at the top, English in the center, and German and French at the bottom, when applicable. For the English translations of the Bible, I chose the NRSV, since that tends to be the main version used by scholars and the TNIV, which I’ve heard good things about, but haven’t used much myself yet.
It would be nice to know what other users include in their Display Versions. What am I leaving out that should be included? For a complete listing of versions included in BibleWorks 8, see here.
Joel from the The Church of Jesus Christ blog has also recently acquired BibleWorks 8 and he gives his first impressions of the program here.
I have the KJV, NKJV, the BGT, and the NLT. I cannot get my pop-up versions to change, however.
Not that you aren’t popular, but if you want more interaction, you can try floating your questions at the BibleWorks forums site. Particularly, you might want to explore using the tabs to display versions (see this thread for instance on how to use them). Also, to avoid potential problems that can happen when you add new versions, when you have a display list you like, you can save it, so as to make it easy to load later. This is also helpful if you have different uses for the program. And if I haven’t plugged it yet, check out the unofficial BibleWorks blog. There’s free downloads, including a goodly amount of Classics stuff.
Thanks for stopping by Michael. I have viewed your blog (it’s in my RSS reader) and have seen a number of your posts on the BW forum. I’m definitely looking forward to downloading those classical sources and interacting on the forums myself.
I don’t use BW so much since switching to Mac, but still have BW7 (not 8) on a virtual machine – indeed, it’s the main reason I keep a Windows VM on the desktop Mac. I have several different display sets + search versions set up. Main, which is something like yours. English, which is all the available English translations + WTT and BGT and separate lists for APF/ APE etc, and I toggle between them. It makes setting up the display version list easier to manage, because as long as APF is above APE it doesn’t matter where they are in relation to anything else.
I assume version 8 has the same functionality
Michael, I believe that I did plug you site on a previous post on my blog. I have downloaded the e-cantena, and it is excellent. Like Brandon, I have your blog in my RSS reader, and look forward to more using more of those resources.
Hmmm, I have NRSV, New JPS translation, WTT Hebrew, BW Greek (BGT?), Targum Onqelos, Vulgate up. The non-biblical stuff (Josephus, Fathers, etc.) I display only when I need to look them over specifically.
Brandon, I hope you’ll find time to look at the parsing of morphologically tagged non-biblical sources in BW. I have BW 7 and several modules (e.g. Apostolic Fathers) contain many, many mistakes!
Awesome! Congratulations on getting your copy of BibleWorks 8! BW is just an incredible piece of software, with everything you could ever want to know about the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek language texts. The BibleWorks Forums have some really enthusiastic and helpful fans, so you will only be more amazed by the power of BW as time goes on!