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.