Julian

Is BibleWorks any good? Is it worth getting? Are there any competing products? Does anyone here use products like this?

I am looking at it but with a steep price tag I am not sure if it is worthwhile.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Julian

S.C.Carlson

It depends on what you need it for. There are plenty of sites on the web that have the Greek text. If you want to do sophisticated searches, e.g. for grammatical analysis, then such a product may be useful.

Other products include Accordance and BibleWindows (now Bibloi, after they got demand letter about a certain company's trademark).

Stephen

Disclaimer: I don't use any of these products.

Phlox Pyros

I don't know anything about Biblewindows. Accordance, I believe, is only (or was only) for the MacIntosh, but it also has a steep price tag. I have heard that it is the best bible software.

I, personally, have Bibleworks and have upgraded once (to the previous version). I have found it an invaluable resource. However, if I had the opportunity (not to mention the money), I would have purchased a laptop to put it on. Then, I would have much of my reference material with me whenever I would take trips to the library. It had a steep price tag, for sure, but it has been well worth it to me. I also purchased the DSS addition and it has been a fun resource, too.

Julian

As an add-on question, how do people who do not have such software do word counts, for example? Or look for combinations of words? Regardless of tense, conjugation and so on.

Julian

Julian

It is Mac only. They recommend an emulator to run it on PC.
It does seem rather useful. I wouldn't need a laptop since I hardly ever go anywhere...

Julian

Chris Weimer

Could you give an example?

Julian

Example questions somehow might want answers to:

1) How many times does Paul use the word <blah>?

2) How many times does the historical present appear in GMark?

3) How often is an aorist tense used versus a perfect tense in 1 John?

And so on and so on...

I could think of a thousand questions like that. And frequently do...

Julian

Ben C Smith

I use BibleWorks 5. I recommend it, though I have never used Accordance (which AFAICS appears to be its main competitor). All of the above searches (except maybe #2... not sure about how to distinguish an historical present from a regular present) are possible with BibleWorks, though there is some search syntax that takes some getting used to. My version came with a lot of demo videos that are really helpful for complex searches and such.

Another example of a very useful kind of search possible with BW: In how many and which verses of the OT does the Hebrew word [fill in the blank] appear in the MT and the Greek word [fill in the blank] appear in the LXX?

All of this software is pretty expensive, of course.

Ben.

Julian

I have been looking at that as well as BibleWindows but BibleWorks seem far stronger.
Present tense in a sentence with past tense (and/or aorist indicative) although some false hits will occur, e.g. direct speech.
I know, hence this thread. Otherwise, I would just have bought it.

Julian

Chris Weimer

1. Paul does not use the word <blah> at all. I just checked.

3. a. aroist - 63 times
---b. perfect - 62 times