The BibleWorks Blog

Gee. You’d think that I’d post to this blog more often, wouldn’t you? Michael Hanel has been the driving force behind the Unofficial BibleWorks Blog for some time, and I am quite thankful for all the work he’s done - posting his own work and highlighting the works of others (even Shakespeare).

Anyway, I’ve been poking around my feed reader, and came across a few interesting blog posts on BW.

• Daniel R. Street (Associate Prof. at Criswell College & a former classmate of mine at GCTS), at καὶ τὰ λοιπά has started a series on BibleWorks and Communicative Greek. He’s reviewing the program in light of his pedagogic convictions on teaching Greek as a living language in an ‘immersive’ way [he must be a Baptist]. The series promises to be fun: he’s got a great sense of humor, and he’s already advocated a “tools” approach to language acquisition.
• YirmeYAH.net has posted a new BW version, the Tagalog ang Biblia (1905). According to the post, “Ang Biblia is the Bible for the traditional Tagalog Bible reader. Ang Biblia is written in the old Tagalog. First Published in 1905 by American Bible Society, revised 1915 & 1933. Typed By Richard & Dolores Long, Dec. 2004.”
• David Instone Brewer, at Tyndale House, has an excellent guide to “Getting the Most Out of BibleWorks 9“. I highly recommend giving it a looksee.

Due to the release of the movie Anonymous, people have been talking around their water-coolers about the speculation whether William Shakespeare is really the author of the works that bear his name. Obviously this isn’t one of those rigorously researched movies that aims to the tell the truth. Instead it joins the legion of movies that play on our old-fashioned love of the conspiracy theory. But on the plus side, perhaps it will inspire renewed interest in the works of the long-dead bard.

If that’s something that appeals to you, or maybe you’ve always wanted to have an index of Shakespeare’s works so you can look up words, phrases or lines, then you’re in for a treat. BibleWorks user Bob Venem has put together William Shakespeare’s complete works into a BibleWorks version. Granted it’s not Biblical studies or anything like that, but it does make good use of the BibleWorks engine for anyone out there who’s interested in digging deeper into Shakespeare’s stuff. Enjoy!

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1. Unzip the files to the \databases\ subfolder in your BibleWorks folder and restart BibleWorks. The new versions will use the version IDs SHKS1 and SHKS2 (it was so big it had to be divided into multiple versions)

2. In order to get the book names to show up correctly you must also add the following lines to the file books.bna (found in the BibleWorks subfolder called \init\)

Son,The Sonnets,The Sonnets,The Sonnets
ALC,A Lover’s Complaint,A Lover’s Complaint,A Lover’s Complaint
AWT,All’s Well That Ends Well,All’s Well That Ends Well,All’s Well That Ends Well
AAC,The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra,The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra,The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra
AYL,As You Like It,As You Like It,As You Like It
COE,The Comedy of Errors,The Comedy of Errors,The Comedy of Errors
TOC,The Tragedy of Coriolanus,The Tragedy of Coriolanus,The Tragedy of Coriolanus
CYM,Cymbeline,Cymbeline,Cymbeline
HAM,The Tragedy of Hamlet,The Tragedy of Hamlet,The Tragedy of Hamlet
H41,The First Part of King Henry the Fourth,The First Part of King Henry the Fourth,The First Part of King Henry the Fourth
H42,The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth,The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth,The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth
KH5,The King of King Henry the Fifth,The King of King Henry the Fifth,The King of King Henry the Fifth
H61,The First Part of King Henry the Sixth,The First Part of King Henry the Sixth,The First Part of King Henry the Sixth
H62,The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth,The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth,The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth
H63,The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth,The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth,The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth
KH8,King Henry the Eighth,King Henry the Eighth,King Henry the Eighth
KJN,King John,King John,King John
JUC,The Tragedy of Julius Caesar,The Tragedy of Julius Caesar,The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
KLR,The Tragedy of King Lear,The Tragedy of King Lear,The Tragedy of King Lear
LLL,Love’s Labour’s Lost,Love’s Labour’s Lost,Love’s Labour’s Lost
MAC,The Tragedy of Macbeth,The Tragedy of Macbeth,The Tragedy of Macbeth
MFM,Measure for Measure,Measure for Measure,Measure for Measure
MOV,The Merchant of Venice,The Merchant of Venice,The Merchant of Venice
MWW,The Merry Wives of Windsor,The Merry Wives of Windsor,The Merry Wives of Windsor
MND,A Midsummer Night’s Dream,A Midsummer Night’s Dream,A Midsummer Night’s Dream
ADO,Much Ado About Nothing,Much Ado About Nothing,Much Ado About Nothing
OTH,The Tragedy of Othello,The Tragedy of Othello,The Tragedy of Othello
KR2,King Richard the Second,King Richard the Second,King Richard the Second
KR3,King Richard the Third,King Richard the Third,King Richard the Third
RAJ,The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet,The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet,The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
TOS,The Taming of the Shrew,The Taming of the Shrew,The Taming of the Shrew
TPS,The Tempest,The Tempest,The Tempest
TOA,The Life of Timon of Athens,The Life of Timon of Athens,The Life of Timon of Athens
TIA,The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus,The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus,The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus
TAC,The History of Troilus and Cressida,The History of Troilus and Cressida,The History of Troilus and Cressida
TWN,Twelfth Night,Twelfth Night,Twelfth Night
TGV,The Two Gentlemen of Verona,The Two Gentlemen of Verona,The Two Gentlemen of Verona
WIT,The Winter’s Tale,The Winter’s Tale,The Winter’s Tale

3. Right click the .bna file and use the Open With command with a text editor (like Notepad) to paste in the text above at the end of the file.

4. Save the file and re-start BibleWorks.

As I continue cleaning out files that I’ve had around but don’t have enough time to perfect, I am now releasing a CHM module that contains Gildersleeve and Lodge’s Latin Grammar.

For this version I wanted to try something a bit more experimental, so I used one of the public domain scans of the grammar and used the images for the content of the CHM file. I don’t think it’s a completely adequate solution, but it was something to try out. The image quality leaves something to be desired, but it seemed that when I had higher image quality, the file became prohibitively large. So you can see whether you like it or not. Obviously it’s better to have text rather than images, but sometimes having this beats having nothing.

DOWNLOAD! [90 MB!]

As I continue cleaning out files that I’ve had around but don’t have enough time to perfect, I am now releasing a CHM module that contains Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar.

The e-text is taken from Perseus under PhiloLogic. I have added a few things to it, like better visibility of section numbering, but I’ve never had enough time to do better editing of the text to include more features. The notes do not link, but they are provided in case anyone else ever wants to work on this.

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As I continue cleaning out files that I’ve had around but don’t have enough time to perfect, I am now releasing a CHM module that contains Richard Trench’s Synonyms of the New Testament.

Although it lacks Scripture tagging, I’m sure you’ll still find it useful in your study of the Greek New Testament.

This text was digitized by Ted Hildebrandt in 2006 and is used by his gracious permission. I have simply converted it into a form BibleWorks can use.

The main downside to the text is that I have not attempted to do Scriptural tagging and the font used is not Greek Unicode but an older font that is provided in the .zip file. For best results, make sure you install the font files on your computer before using the module.

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As I continue cleaning out files that I’ve had around but don’t have enough time to perfect, I am now releasing a CHM module that contains Adolf Deissmann’s famous book Bible Studies. Deissmann, of course, is famous in being part of the “new era” of New Testament Greek study which drew upon discoveries of papyri and inscriptions in order to better understand New Testament Greek in light of the overall historical and cultural landscape of the Greek language.

Although it may not be as useful as other grammars in BibleWorks because it lacks Scripture tagging, I’m sure you’ll still find it useful in your study of the Greek New Testament.

This text was digitized by Ted Hildebrandt in 2006 and is used by his gracious permission. I have simply converted it into a form BibleWorks can use.

The main downside to the text is that I have not attempted to do Scriptural tagging and the font used is not Greek Unicode but an older font that is provided in the .zip file. For best results, make sure you install the font files on your computer before using the module.

DOWNLOAD!

I am happy to announce the release of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical (Church) History as a new version for BibleWorks! This is a combo release in that the download contains both the Greek text of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and an English translation.

About the English Text:

The English translation is the same one that is found in the Schaff Early Church Fathers module that is provided in BibleWorks, only I have stripped it of all notes. If you want to read along with the notes and such, I suggest using the CHM module. This English translation is provided only to help ease of use for those who need both English and Greek in the Browse Window.

About the Greek Text:

The Greek text is that of Kirsopp Lake, J.E.L. Oulton, and H.J. Lawlor, which is found in the old public domain edition of the Loeb Classical Library and provided at the Perseus Digital Library. The Greek text is optimized for use in BibleWorks 9. It makes use of special characters that were not available in earlier versions of BibleWorks, so while you can use the files in older versions of BibleWorks, you will likely not have an optimal text (the use of quotation marks for instance will cause problems). If this text is of interest to you and you don’t have BibleWorks 9, it might be worth considering upgrading for. This text is available as a free download here, but other Bible programs have it available only for an additional cost. This text is the bare Greek text only without morphological tagging, but using an Internet connection, it is possible to get morphological help from the Perseus website.

There will likely be small updates to this version released at later dates. Special thanks for this precision goes to Mark Eddy who has done a lot of the micro-editing to make sure the versions line up properly.

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1. Unzip the files to the \databases\ subfolder in your BibleWorks folder and restart BibleWorks. The new versions will use the version IDs EUSEBE (English version) and EUSEBG (Greek version))

2. In order to get the book names to show up correctly you must also add the following lines to the file books.bna (found in the BibleWorks subfolder called \init\)

EH1,Ecclesiastical History-Book 1,EH-1,EH-1
EH2,Ecclesiastical History-Book 2,EH-2,EH-2
EH3,Ecclesiastical History-Book 3,EH-3,EH-3
EH4,Ecclesiastical History-Book 4,EH-4,EH-4
EX5,Ecclesiastical History-Preface Book 5,EH-5preface, EH-5preface
EH5,Ecclesiastical History-Book 5,EH-5,EH-5
EH6,Ecclesiastical History-Book 6,EH-6,EH-6
EH7,Ecclesiastical History-Book 7,EH-7,EH-7
EH8,Ecclesiastical History-Book 8,EH-8,EH-8
EH9,Ecclesiastical History-Book 9,EH-9,EH-9
EHX,Ecclesiastical History-Book 10,EH-10,EH-10

3. Right click the .bna file and use the Open With command with a text editor (like Notepad) to paste in the text above at the end of the file.

4. Save the file and re-start BibleWorks.

As I continue cleaning out files that I’ve had around but don’t have enough time to perfect, I am now releasing a CHM module that contains James Moulton’s famous book A Grammar of New Testament Greek. Although it eventually became a four volume series, the first volume called Prolegomena still covers a lot of important ground including historical and linguistic background to koine Greek as well as syntactical notes on parts of speech. In other words, there’s a lot packed into this volume even if there are three other books that were later published in this series. Although it may not be as useful as other grammars in BibleWorks because it lacks Scripture tagging, I’m sure you’ll still find it useful in your study of the Greek New Testament.

This text was digitized by Ted Hildebrandt in 2006 and is used by his gracious permission. I have simply converted it into a form BibleWorks can use.

The main downside to the text is that I have not attempted to do Scriptural tagging and the font used is not Greek Unicode but an older font that is provided in the .zip file. For best results, make sure you install the font files on your computer before using the module.

DOWNLOAD!

WORDsearch is offering a free download of a BibleWorks module of Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology. In order to download this, go to this page and add the Charles Hodge module to your shopping cart and check out.

I’m not sure if this is a limited time offer or not, but if you think you’d be interested in it, might as well get it while it’s still hot.

Tomorrow (10/25/2011) marks the 200th birthday of C.F.W. Walther. If you’re knowledgeable of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, you will likely know who Walther is, but if you aren’t I’m sure you have no idea who he is. That’s okay. He’s probably not going to be nearly exciting as Martin Luther, but there is now a movie produced that covers his life. Fortunately the actor cast to play him in the movie is a bit easier on the eyes than Walther himself, but that just goes to show you that we don’t judge our theologians by their looks, only by their books.

The work known as The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel is a series of lectures that Walther gave during his time as a professor at Concordia Seminary. Through the series he introduces a set of theses regarding the proper distinction of Law and Gospel, particularly as it relates to the pastoral ministry, and explicates them. This is how theology used to be done, you know, before blogging and such. This work was put together based on notes from his students who attended the lectures.

This release still has a few errors here and there in tagging and such, but since I’ve been sitting on these files for a while and haven’t got around to fixing them, I thought that the occasion of Walther’s birthday was one that shouldn’t be passed up. Note that this is an older (public domain) translation. If you’re really into Walther, you’ll probably want to check out the revised and re-translated version here.

Special thanks go to Chris Sansom for his work in cleaning up these files from their original state and preparing them for Bible verse tagging.

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