Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 46:3 (Sep 2003)
Article: Windows Software For Bible Study
Author: H. Van Dyke Parunak

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JETS 46:3 (September 2003) p. 465

Windows Software For Bible Study

H. Van Dyke Parunak

[H. Van Dyke Parunak is chief scientist, Altarum Institute, 3520 Green Court, Suite 300, Ann Arbor, MI 48105–1579.]

I. Introduction

Bible software has come a long, long way. The procedure for doing computerized biblical studies in the late 1970s began something like the joke about the recipe for elephant soup: “First, catch an elephant.” There were no publicly available texts of the Bible, so one had first to devise a coding scheme and type in the data to be searched. There were no standard search mechanisms, so one had to code the search program in a language such as Fortran, C, or Pascal. Many computer systems were batch processors; running a query meant loading a stack of punched cards into the hopper and going out for lunch while waiting for the program to reach the top of the queue and execute. This process required prolonged residence at the computer center, and turnaround was often measured in hours. The field was accessible only to scholars who combined philological and computer skills, or who could form a close team to bring together the needed capabilities.

Today, the standard biblical texts are widely available, along with programs that offer a wide range of search capabilities. The user confronting this embarrassment of riches faces a challenging decision. In comparison with the state of the field 25 years ago, there are no bad decisions today. We would have given our eye teeth for any of the offerings now available. Still, a Bible student contemplating the expenditure of several hundred dollars for one of the leading commercial packages may hesitate among the alternatives, or wonder whether the difference in functionality over a freeware package is worth the price. This review is intended to help in such decisions.

Due to the hardware environment available to me, this review is limited to packages for Microsoft Windows. Unfortunately, this restriction means that it cannot include the highly acclaimed Accordance package from Project Gramcord. In addition, the Gramcord package itself is in the midst of a major technical migration from a 16-bit implementation to a state-of-the-art 32-bit implementation, and at the time of writing is not available to include in the review. (Disclosure #1: I am a long-standing fan of Gramcord, since learning of it in 1980. The first installation of the mainframe version of Gramcord outside of Paul Miller’s personal environment was at the University of Michigan under the auspices of my postdoctoral work there. Paul

JETS 46:3 (September 2003) p. 466

and I spent many evenings together translating from the native Univac Pascal in which the program was originally written to the compiler...

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