You don’t see a lot of posts here because neither Jim nor I is paid enough to be constantly at work on this material, but lucky for you Jim still continues to pay for the web hosting. Lucky for you that also means even if we’re not always adding new material, the old stuff is still here and quite functional. But that brings me to two questions that are constantly being asked.

1. People have said when they try to open zip files they are corrupted. I have no logical explanation for why this is. The files are not corrupted, they are quite functional. There are only two solutions I have to this problem. Either try re-downloading the files or else use a different program to unzip them. Windows has a built in zipping function now, but sometimes that doesn’t work. You can try downloading 7-zip or Winzip and see if you can work it out that way. Beyond that there’s not much I can do to help. The files work fine for us, so we can’t troubleshoot a problem we don’t have.

2. People have problems using the modules because when they open they appear as though they do not work. These files need to be unblocked usually in order to use them. Instructions for doing this are clearly stated at the top of the modules page.

I’ve added links to two New Testament textual criticism modules that have previously been available on LaParola’s website. They are entitled New Testament Manuscript Variant Readings and an alt. version with variants sorted by text type and they are both compiled by  Pasquale Amicarelli.

Finally, I also added a link to a timeline of the publication of English Bibles made by Mark Hoffman. This file can be saved in the BibleWorks 8\timeline\ folder and must be opened in BibleWorks Timeline. You can read more about it here.

A little over two weeks ago, on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog Dirk Jongkind announced the release of a digital edition of the Tregelles Greek New Testament. Thanks to his contributions, as well as the other people who worked on this project, the team was able to produce a digital edition of Tregelles’ text as well as a secondary text which consists of corrections to Tregelles’ text.

Because they produced the text under the attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license,  I was able to re-compile their texts for use in BibleWorks. If you want to know more about the Tregelles text itself or the Tregelles project, check out the official website and the Introductory PDF. The PDF is especially valuable because it documents the 469 changes they made to the original Tregelles text.

As far as the BibleWorks implementation, I only have a few things to say.

1. Whereas the Tregelles project noted section and paragraph breaks, I have simply dumbed those breaks down into paragraph breaks which are marked by the ¶ in the text.
2. The Pericope of Adultery (John 7:53-8:11) is not part of the main text of Tregelles, but he does include in the note readings according to the D codex and Stephanus. There wasn’t a great way to include these, but both are given one after another (first D and then Stephanus) in the BibleWorks text under the same verse. Example John 8:1 reads [[ Ιησους δε επορευθη εις το ορος των ελαιων.]] [[Ἰησοῦς δὲ ἐπορεύθη εἰς τὸ ὄρος τῶν ἐλαιῶν ]]. Both readings are in double brackets to show that they are not part of the main text. The first set of double brackets is the D text, it does not have accents and smooth breathing marks. The second text is from the Stephanus reading.
3. There are two versions (TNT1 and TNT2) available for download here. TNT1 represents the original Tregelles reading and TNT2 represents the corrected version. You will most likely want to use TNT2, but TNT1 was provided for the sake of comparison.
4. These files are also being released with verse mapping files thanks to the kind and efficient work of Mark Eddy.
5. The re-use of these files still remains under the Creative Commons License of Dirk Jongkind and the Tregelles project.

DOWNLOAD TNT1 (Uncorrected Tregelles Greek NT) (unzip all files to your \databases\ subfolder)

DOWNLOAD TNT2 (Corrected Tregelles Greek NT) (unzip all files to your \databases\ subfolder)

Another module by Pasquale, this work includes Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments by Hermann Freiherr von Soden, images of the pages of the real book arranged in order of the New Testament.

• The electronic edition of von Soden’s Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments pages 102-289 used by permission of Clint Yale
• Table 1 - it came from L.Vaganay - An introduction to New Testament textual criticism - pag 156 - Cambridge University Press 1991
• Von Soden images used by permission of www.csntm.org - Center For The Study Of New Testament Manuscripts

It can be used in tandem with the Tischendorf Critical Appartatus that is already in BibleWorks 7.

DOWNLOAD! 170 MB file!

Thanks to Bob Venem who has put together a few other great modules on the early English Bible we now have another version at our fingertips.

While I personally haven’t much experience with Miles Coverdale’s version, I was able to learn from Wikipedia that Coverdale was not proficient with either Hebrew or Greek (hardly the first!), and so made his translation from “‘five soundry interpreters’ in Latin, Enlgish and ‘Douche’ (German).” So while it may not be great for exegesis, it will be useful to those who are interested in early versions of the Bible in English.

DOWNLOAD!

J. Warren Wells of Sahidica.org has graciously permitted BibleWorks users to use his suite of New Testament Coptic texts. Three new versions are available:

• Sahidic Coptic New Testament (SANT)
• Bohairic Coptic New Testament (BONT)
• New Testament according to the Egyptian Greek (NTEG)

Here’s a screen shot that shows the Greek text reconstructed from the Sahidic Coptic version compared against the BGT. It also shows the Bohairic and Sahidic texts in parallel:Release notes:

• The two Coptic (SANT, BONT) databases do not use a standard BibleWorks font. Instead, you must install the Uncial Sans Serif font (UncialSS.ttf) into your c:\windows\fonts directory.
• Command line searches will work in the Coptic texts, but the command line will not display characters correctly.
• The Coptic texts have been defined as “English” texts. Unfortunately the VDC would not allow them to be compiled as “other,” and it does not give a “Coptic” option. [This probably explains the previously mentioned problem with the command line.]
• The NTEG has been compiled for use with standard BibleWorks Greek fonts. This facilitates the comparison of the reconstructed Egyptian texts against other BW Greek texts.
• The compiler of these BibleWorks files does not know Coptic (yet), so those who do have facility with the language are welcome to make suggestions.
• To install:
  1. Unzip the coptic.zip into your C:\program files\bibleworks 7\userdb folder.
  2. Install the UncialSS.ttf font in your fonts folder (see above).
  3. Copy the .bww files in the unzipped “coptic” folder to your \bibleworks 7\databases file.
  4. Use the Version Database Compiler to compile the various texts. (The three .ddf files are each contained in their own folder, e.g. \coptic\sahidic_nt\sant.ddf, etc.)

Many thanks to J. Warren Wells for letting BibleWorks users explore his texts of the Coptic NT.

See also Plumley’s Introductory Coptic Grammar for BibleWorks!

Ewan MacLeod has made available the Peshitta New Testament with Hebrew letters and vowel pointing.

In contrast to the current PEH database, this text contains vowels, which makes it a useful addition to BibleWorks. The presence of vowels makes it easier at times to understand the text, and it helps one learn how to pronounce the text. In addition, there are some minor differences between the two texts. For best use of this text, use the Text Comparison facility in BibleWorks to highlight the differences when you are studying the Peshitta.Text downloaded from the web archive of www.peshitta.org. It is unclear who (if anyone) owns the copyright for this text. An email to the site to request permission to use the text bounced. The current peshitta.org site gives blanket permission to use its materials.

DOWNLOAD

**NOTE: Unzip files, and place in your /BibleWorks/databases/ folder. You do not have to use the Version Database Compiler.**