I recently realized to my horror that I wrote a review for Bibleworks 8 two years ago, and never posted it to my blog! Because my upgrade to Bibleworks 8 was given to me free of charge by Bibleworks, I feel that although my review is out of date, it is only fair that I do finally put this review online. I have also now purchased an upgrade to Bibleworks 9 so that I can review that too:
I had decided to not upgrade from
BW7 to 8, for financial reasons, but then Bibleworks very kindly sent me a
review copy. So, I’m writing this review now to help those who are considering
whether its worth upgrading to BW8.
One of the key things BW8 has done
is to make some of the features of BW7 more accessible. I have called this
version, the Puritan’s package, because this makes interpreting scripture with
scripture more accessible than ever before.
Installation:
Upgrading from BW7 was not as easy
as I would have liked. There is no upgrade option, instead I had to uninstall
BW7, and then install BW8 from scratch. Having done this, I needed to enter an
activation code for BW8, and then new activation codes for all the modules I
had previously purchased, plus Metzger now needed a code (Metzger is no longer
free, except to BW7 upgraders). The
problem here was that Bibleworks had sent me the new activation codes for my
previously purchased modules but not for Metzger. Bibleworks staff were swamped
with the new release, and I had to wait a few days to be sent the new code. I
also had to manually enter all my external links from BW7, and manually copy
the extra databases I had collected over the last 2 years. I understand
completely why BW implemented new activation codes (piracy), but they obviously
weren’t ready for the high demand of this release. I also think a smoother way
to upgrade would be nice.
What’s lost from BW7:
Some of the modules that were free in BW7, now have to be
purchased: Metzger’s Textual commentary, Barclay’s Lexicon, and Lust-Eynikel-Hauspie’s Septuagint
Lexicon. However there are free (activation codes are sent via email) for those
upgrading from BW7.
Robertson’s Word Pictures is no
longer included due to licensing issues, but I have this in e-Sword, so I’m not
that bothered by this. Mark Futato’s “Basic Hebrew for Bible Study” is also gone.
What’s new in BW8:
Browse tab:
One of the previous weaknesses of BW7, was that when you
viewed the browse window in multiple-version mode, you could not see the
context (or cotext) of the verse. The way around this was to toggle into
single-version mode, and scroll up a few verses, but this was frustrating when
under time pressure such as in a debate. Now in BW8 the browse tab will
display the whole passage in one version on the right of the screen, whilst you
have multiple versions displayed in the browse window (in the centre of
the screen). The browse tab will start the text 2 verses before the verse in
the browse window, and will highlight the browse window verse in blue. Furthermore,
you can put the browse tab in any version you want. This morning in my Bible
reading, I put the BGT Greek text in the browse window, with the NET Bible (with
notes) in the browse tab. Previously I had used Logos for this kind of set up,
but I prefer doing this now in BW8. During sermon preparation, I have found the
browse feature to be very useful. Before, when I was searching for how a word
was used, it would take too long to check the context of each verse, now that
is very easily done. This was one of the biggest appeals to me to upgrade.
Context tab:
This tab will display a frequency list of the words used in
the current book, pericope and chapter. For example today I was studying
Philippians 1:27 which contains the word euangeliou, and at a glance in the I
could see that Philippians has 6 instances of euangeliou, 2 instances of
euanglion, and 1 instance of euangeliw. This is also a great way of finding
cognates, for example 1:27 containts the verb politeuesthe, and by glancing at
the book context (which I listed in alphabetical order) I can easily spot the
cognate word politeuma. When I click on this it takes me straight to Phil 3:20.
There is also a chapter context window (bottom right), but this is limited due
to the sometimes bizarre nature of chapter division of the Bible (which were
not inspired). I would rather have had a version context window (but this can
be obtained by clicking on the Words tab). Under BW7, you could have found out all this
information by using the word list
manager, but it would have taken longer, and I found it quite fiddly. Now in
BW8 you can see this information at a glance without any knowledge of the word
list manager. This is a tool that I will probably use much more, now that it is
so accessible.
Words tab:
Now when you search on a word, the words tab will show you
the following:
1) a frequency word list of the version (in alphabetical
listing) so that you can see how often the word you searched for is used.
2) A word list for the current search results then shows the
most commonly used words found in the search, showing you if there are
significant words that repeat alongside the word you searched for.
3) The wildcard expansion list will gives lists of any of the
wildcard expansions made during the search.
These features are useful and welcomed, but personally they
would not have made me want to upgrade.
Search Statistics:
The bar chart search statistics is now displayed in their
own tab on the right of the screen. I didn’t think there was anything wrong
with the BW7 way of displaying these results, but again the BW8 makes them even
more accessible.
Cross references tab:
The puritans would live this, and I do too. You now have a
whole fat tab available for cross references. These can be easily changed (via
a pull down menu) to a number of different systems including Thompson Chain,
TSK, Torrey’s, the Biographical Bible (to see all the references to Bible
names). When these cross references are clicked on, they open in the browse
window. If you right click on them, they can be opened in their own window. You
can then open up any of those cross references in a new window. This means you
can go on a wonderful journey of looking at related verses.
Conclusion:
Bibleworks 8 is very useful software for using Scripture to
interpret Scripture – hence I have called it, ‘The Puritan’s Package’
