If publishers made content licenses portable it would take a lot of the risk and sting out of these situations. But the Accordance packages, to cross grade to their platform for original language research tools similar to core BibleWorks and add in HALOT/BDAG is cost prohibitive to many. I don't think Faith Life / Logos or Accordance has much leverage in these situations with the publishers. Unlike the book (which I also own), I don't own the content (the difference between a license and ownership) and the license is not portable to other digital programs even though it costs hundreds of dollars. I own a license for HALOT/BDAG for use in BibleWorks. The closure of BibleWorks does highlight one of the dangers with digital libraries.
I know many in the BibleWorks' community will appreciate Faith Life and Accordance looking into how to assist users.
To my knowledge, no other Bible software program has anything comparable.īibleworks 8 added two high-quality Hebrew Grammars (Waltke-O'Connor, Joüon & Muraoka), as well as Wallace's Greek Syntax, the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha in Greek, and Schaff's edition of the church fathers, among many other new features and resources. Before I get to what's new in Bibleworks 10, here are some features that made previous upgrades worthwhile, from my perspective:Īn array of New Testament textual criticism resources, including high resolution photos of major NT manuscripts, was the primary draw for Bibleworks 9, but the "fourth column" + "use" tab is probably the single biggest reason (aside from cost) why I haven't jumped ship for another program: Simply place your mouse over a word, and the fourth column performs an instantaneous search that gives you an immediate sense for word frequency and usage.
To make it worthwhile, an upgrade needs to provide new features and resources that I will use a lot, not simply a library of reference books that I may consult from time to time. Grammars Bibleworks is also cheaper than the major alternatives (see my overview here).
Languages, where you need easy access to concordances, lexica, and Unparalleled for nitty-gritty, day-to-day work in the original Although I am not an uncritical user, I still think Bibleworks is I upgraded immediately to version 6, and have remained current ever since. Technical post alert: I switched from Gramcord to Bibleworks in 2004, when I was given an unused copy of Bibleworks 4.