Which software is better?

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I AM INTERESTED IN BUYING SOME BIBLE SOFTWARE. THE CHOICES ARE DIFFICULT. IN YOUR OPINION WHICH PROGRAM IS BETTER BIBLESOFT'S COMPLETE REFERENCE LIBRARY, THE SCHOLAR EDITION BY LOGOS OR BIBLEWORKS 4.0? MY PURPOSE IS TO DO SOME IN DEPTH STUDYING. IF YOU THINK THAT MY LATTER 2 CHOICES ARE THE BEST, WHICH OF THE 2 WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WHY? HOW DO YOU THINK BIBLEWORKS 4.0 COMPARES TO THE SCHOLAR'S EDITION?

SINCE MONEY DOES NOT GROW ON TREES, I NEED TO MAKE THE WISES CHOICE POSSIBLE. ANY HELP YOU CAN GIVE ME WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. THANK YOU. JOHN.

-- Anonymous, October 09, 1999

Answers

I read from the New Jerusalem Bible from Navpress. I am happy with it and it is inexpensive. Are you really going to research all those books in an electronic form?

-- Anonymous, October 10, 1999

Biblesoft is one of the easiest to use, most intuitive programs available... But, how in depth do you want to get into the greek and hebrew. Do you just want to look up the original Greek & Hebrew words and what they mean... If so Biblesoft will work.

If, however, you want to get into the grammar of the greek & hebrew and be able to search by tense, voice & mood of the verbs, and do your own grammatical anaylis, you need Bibleworks or Logos.

I will forward you an in depth comparsion between the 2 programs.

Logos holds it's own on grammar and hermeneutics. It also offers you access to a wealth of other Christian Books and commentaries in Logos Electronic Format. Bibleworks is primarily a hermeneutics program. It is a closed system. If you want more resources or books then they have you will have to open them in a different program.

The other issue is publishing format. Think in terms of beta and vhs. vhs eventually took over. Currently in bible software there is step, logos and biblesoft.

Logos is proprietary, you have to pay to publish to their format. And the price of their books reflect that.

Biblesoft has an open publishing format. In version 3.0 they have released authoring tools to let anyone publish in their format. Plus they have a macro that works with word 97 to help you convert electronic books in other formats, into biblesoft format.

Hope tha

-- Anonymous, October 21, 1999


I have had Bible Works 4 for about six months and I have been incredibly impressed with it. It has helped me in sermon and sunday school prep immesurably. I used to translate with five or six different lexicons and grammars and tense, voice and mood charts, now I hardly use anything else. Be warned though, I would suggest that you take come Bible college classes of about two years of Greek and Hebrew before using this tool, because then you will have the basics down in order to use this more effectively.

-- Anonymous, December 02, 1999

Definitely Accordance if you have a Mac. It is an ellegant yet powerful software especially if you're doing a lot of work with the original languages. If you don't have a Mac, I strongly suggest that you consider switching to Mac. Otherwise, Bibleworks 4.0 looks pretty good.

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

I have used Logos sincer early release. I used to be a programmer in the corporate world before entering full time ministry. From that angle, I have been extremely impressed with the Logos software. Powerful and easy to use. God Bless!

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001


Okay, I own most and have at least used all the programs mentioned thus far in response to your question. I'm not a tech geek, but I am a Seminary Grad who has studied both Greek and Hebrew. Since you asked about Bibleworks and Logos, I can tell already you will be disappointed by almost anything else on the market. These are the two strongest language programs going. But there is a couple key differences. Bibleworks is heavy on language study, and while some people will find it very helpful, I have found only the few do language studies that in depth, but you may be one! Logos has recently made an incredible forward step with there new Series X software, by far the easiest in depth software to use. It is really quite an amazing piece of code! And it comes packed with many solid reference works, much more than Bibleworks, and the availability of almost 2000 more titles to add on. It will do almost everything Bibleworks will do, but mainly only in Greek and Hebrew. So, in the end I would say if you are a language person, and that is what you want, Bibleworks, but if you are more interested in Bible study overall, then go for Logos Series X, and the scholars edition at that.

-- Anonymous, May 18, 2002

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