My first class of the day was cancelled today so I went to the library to complete an assignment for another class. We had to spend an hour working with the BibleWorks program to familiarize ourselves with it. So I spent my hour playing around with the program and found out that it is incredibly powerful and also incredibly un-user friendy in my opinion. I somehow got the display changed from showing a single version of the Bible to showing a parallel display of 5 different versions and couldn't change it back. I ended up exiting the program and getting back in. Granted I only spent an hour of the program but it just didn't impress me all that much. I much prefer e-Sword. While e-Sword does not have the tools for grammatical analysis and the like (which I probably wouldn't use outside of class requirements anyway) it has one MAJOR advantage over Bibleworks. Bibleworks 6 runs $299 while the new version 7 is $349. e-Sword is free! That's right boys and girls, you can download it for free from the internet. There is also a huge user community on the web which provides support and additional modules. There are several user groups on Yahoo! Groups that are devoted to e-Sword. Just go the the Yahoo! Groups page and do a search for e-Sword.
I'm sure that if I were getting into incredibly detailed exegesis of a certain Bible passage, or if I wanted to know how many times a certain form of a word appeared in the Greek New Testament, then BibleWorks would be the program I would go for. But since I'm using my computer to read the Bible and possibly do some research in commentaries or dictionaries e-Sword more than meets my current needs.
5 comments:
I have a few Bible software on scriptures. I did use them a lot at one time, but I like the feel of the Bible in my hands. It's more like a tunnel vision to me where my focus has no chance to stray. It is a good feeling to be called by God for ministry. I'm trying to get together a project for sorrow on the computer. I am not computer literate, therefore this is a long drawn out session. I read you were once in the ministry. I wanted to be a nun when I was in junior high. God Bless you and your family.
Bible software is the way to go!
I use http://www.biblegateway.com/ a free online source for quick lookups.
Is is easy and has many translations available.
I'll take a look at e-sword, thanks.
Thanks for the info on e-Sword! I'm going to check it out right away.
Wow. If I'd known posting about e-sword would produce this much reaction I would have done so a long time ago.
Allan - I use biblegateway.com too. It's a great resource and has some translations that aren't available in e-sword. The advantage of e-sword is that it can be used when you're not connected to the web. I use it in my seminary classes all the time.
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