The Software We Used

We tried out three programs. The first was QuickVerse 2.0 (produced by Parsons Technology of Hiawatha, Iowa), with the KJV and optional Greek and Hebrew transliterations; it is now available in version 4.0. QuickVerse is in English with Greek nouns and verbs transliterated in a lemma (a dictionary reference tagged to each word so that you can look it up in any grammatical form, even if you don’t know how the verb is conjugated or the noun is declined).

The second was Bible Windows 5.0, a Windows-based CD-ROM program by Silver Mountain Software of Cedar Hill, Texas. It contains full concordances for Hebrew, Greek and Latin, as well as English and several modern languages, bundled with many grammatical tools, including interlinear translations with grammatical lemmas attached to each word so that one can search for specific tenses or cases as well as different forms of the same noun and verb. Bible Windows also allows you to copy a verse easily into a word-processing document.

The third program was Logos 5.1, another Windows-based program very similar to Bible Windows, which tags the Greek, Latin and Hebrew texts with lemmas, allowing a wide range of interlinear translations, bundled with various lexica and other grammatical tools. Logos 5.1 is currently the most comprehensive program of Bible aids, with three possible disks containing a virtual library of supplementary information, including the church fathers, Philo and Josephus, scholarly works, maps and a plethora of devotional works, all available for “unlocking” at extra cost. On the other hand, Bible Windows is more specifically geared to scholars and is rapidly catching up in terms of the number of additional works available.