Tuesday, September 27, 2011

BibleWorks9 Texts and English BIbles

I have completed updated listings of the texts in the recently released BibleWorks9. (Here is the previous list for BW8.)

I have compiled in a spreadsheet (what I think is) a complete list of texts for BibleWorks9 that are in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Greek, Latin, Coptic, or English. I've organized them according to Language, Content, Source (whether they are included in BW9, available for purchase as an Addon Module, or as a downloadable User-Created resource), the Abbreviation for each resource, a Description of the Text, whether there is a Morphologically-paired text or a Translation-paired text, and if there is any other Related text. This resource should be particularly helpful if you are trying to find a resource or if you are trying to recall a resource's abbreviation.

BW9 TEXTS
HERE is the XLS spreadsheet you can download. 
  • The first page has things organized largely according to content: OT&LXX, Targums, Intertestamental, Composite OT&NT, Greek NT, Greek NT Manuscripts, NT Peshitta, NT Misc, Latin, Early Christian, Other Jewish, English Versions, Islam, Classical, Doctrinal, and Miscellaneous. (Note that the Greek NT Manuscripts is one of the new features in BW9. Seven manuscripts--Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, Bezae, Boernerianus, Washingtonianus, and GA 1141--have been transcribed and appear as regular texts in BW9's browse window. Sinaiticus is even morphologically tagged.)
  • The second page alphabetically organizes the abbreviations used for the resources. 
The benefits of downloading this file are that you can have the listing available offline and can organize things as you wish. The drawback is that you'll have to keep it updated. I have also posted an online version HERE, and I will try to keep it updated. 

ENGLISH BIBLES INCLUDED IN BW9
HERE is the DOCX file you can download. HERE is an online version of it. I compiled this resource particularly with BibleWorks users in mind, but it may prove helpful to anyone who is working with English Bible versions.This document consists of the following sections.
  • English Bibles included in BW9: The is an alphabetical listing by the abbreviations assigned to all the English Bibles available for BW9. It lists those included with BW9, user-created versions you can download/install, a listing of other important English versions and their online locations so that you can link to them using BW's External Links Editor, and some related English translations (e.g., for NT Peshitta, Targums, apocryphal and pseudepigraphical works, DSS...) In addition, I adapted a helpful list I found online by Bruce Terry which provides an approximate rating of each version from literal (or using formal equivalence) to dynamic or paraphrase. I edited this list and added a few evaluations of my own. The scale used is such that a "1" would be an interlinear Hebrew/Greek to English and a 10 would be a loose paraphrase. (The Cotton Patch Version gets a "10.")
  • The second section takes the alphabetical listing of the first section and puts them into "A Literal to Paraphrase Scale of English Bible Versions."
  • The third section is my listing of "Recommended Versions to Consult and Compare." This is the list I provide to my students. 
For BW users, I have, however, already set up these versions in a logical order and saved it to a file you can download. These texts appear in the program in the order of most literal to most dynamic. For such an ordering, you need to specify a Version Display Order (VDO) file. Save this VDO file in your BibleWorks9/init directory.  In BW, then, you can open the Version Display Order option and choose this Literal2Dyanmic.vdo file.

I hope you will find this useful. Let me know if there are any problems.

1 comment:

  1. One small matter: the NIV included in BW9 is the new, NIV 2011. However, the NIB (British) module is still the old 1984 NIV (British).

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