Greek and Hebrew in Google Docs and Windows Live SkyDrive

I've used Google Docs for some time and recently Microsoft placed a version of its Office suite online under the Windows Live SkyDrive banner. One of the important considerations for me is how well they handle Greek and Hebrew. I ran through a number of configurations, and if you want to see how they look, you can check them out HERE along with additional comments. For a simple summary of what works or not, here's what I've been able to determine.

• It makes a difference whether you use Firefox or Internet Explorer. There are some differences in line spacing, but more important differences are based on how you have your font settings. For my test, I had switched my default Greek font in Firefox to Cardo but had left IE8's Greek default to TimesNewRoman.
  In FF, use Tools - Options - Content tab - Fonts and Colors - Advanced. Choose Greek from the dropdown and choose your desired font.
  In IE8, use Tools - Options - General tab - Fonts - Choose Hebrew or Greek Language script and choose your desired font.
  I still recommend the free Cardo font.
• Google has acquired rights to Cardo, but it is not yet implemented with a full set of characters to do Greek/English editing.
• SkyDrive likes to use Microsoft's Calibri font as an English default for composing or editing. Calibri is not available in GDocs, and it uses Arial instead.
• If you have Greek or Hebrew Unicode keyboards installed, you can type directly in Greek/Hebrew in either SkyDrive or GDocs. It is also possible to copy/paste.
• Saving my mixed English/Hebrew/Greek file in SkyDrive regularly crashed it (i.e., the SkyDrive tab, not the browser.) It was an easy and quick matter to restart but a bit of a pain nonetheless.
• Note that the option to open and edit an online document in SkyDrive in MSWord on your computer requires that you be running it in IE8.
• If you have a Unicode Syriac font installed and a Syriac keyboard, you can compose in Syriac as well. 
• The only font you can count on for a consistent display of Greek (i.e., all the characters are in that font) is Tahoma.
• Other fonts may look a bit strange with the font substitutions for accented characters, but the Unicode is accurately preserved. So, when you apply an appropriate Greek Unicode font offline in your local word processor, everything will look fine.
• Note that some of the Hebrew does not display correctly (e.g.  אֱלֹהִים - the holem takes up its own space), but when used offline and a font like Cardo is applied, it will appear accurately.
• In GDocs, you can right align text, but it does not allow for right to left orientation. In SkyDrive, you can apply right to left orientation, so, if you are doing a lot of typing in Hebrew, SkyDrive is more helpful.

BOTTOM LINE: You can work in Greek or Hebrew (or Syriac) in either GoogleDocs or Windows Live SkyDrive. I don't see a huge advantage of one over the other. If you want to have multiple persons working on a document at the same time, however, use GDocs. If you are familiar with MSOffice and its editing ribbon, SkyDrive will be very familiar. If you are mainly working in Hebrew, SkyDrive is better.

Adding Bible Search Engines to the Opera Browser

Michael Ballai on his Theologica site describes steps one can take to add Bible search engines to the Opera browser. This provides a quick way to access online Bible resources like the ESV or NET Bible text or link to sites like Bible Study Tools. If you use Opera, check it out!

Hebrew Legacy Fonts Converters

Hebrew Legacy Fonts Converters

I have previously tried to list "Greek Legacy Fonts to Unicode Converters." Here are the Hebrew legacy fonts converters of which I am aware. If you know of others, please add a comment, and I will update this post.

Ken Penner's SPTiberian (SBL legacy TrueType) to Unicode (Word macro)

• This is a MS Word macro from Ken Penner, author of Flash! Pro Vocabulary Memorization Software
• You need to understand how to paste text into the Word Macro editor. This is a text file of coding to paste in.
• Thanks to Ken for sharing this!

Galaxie BibleScript (Word macro/template)

• Use the Windows Installer to install Galaxie Greek/Hebrew fonts and Word template
• Involves a two-step process converting legacy fonts to Galaxie fonts and then to Unicode
• Hebrew fonts handled: Hebraica/II,
  Bwhebb (BibleWorks), SuperHebrew, SHebrew (Bibloi)
• Greek fonts handled: Alexandria,
  Koine, Gideon, Mounce, Bwgrkl, SymbolGreekP, Graeca, WinGreek, GraecaII, SuperGreek, Sgreek

SHebrew (from Silver Mountain; used in BibleWindows and Bibloi)

• Bibloi 8.0 includes a Unicode Type Assistant for SHebrew to Unicode

SIL  (Word template and standalone SILConverters 3.1)

• This package provides tools through which you can change the encoding, font, and/or script of text in Microsoft Word and other Office documents, XML documents, and SFM text and lexicon documents. It also installs a system-wide repository to manage your encoding converters and transliterators.
• Among many others, it contains encoding converter map(s) for the following encoding/fonts:
  
  
  • SIL Ezra to/from Unicode
  • Hebrew Unicode 4.0 to/from Hebrew Unicode 5.0

Greek and Hebrew Encoding Converter (Ken Penner - online: copy/paste textbox)

• From: SPTiberian, Linguist HebraicaII, B-Hebrew transliteration, Unicode, SPIonic, Greek BETA, SGreek, LaserGreek, AG, Greek Unicode NFD, Unaccented Greek Unicode, Greek Code Page
• To: Unicode, Code Page 1255 (Hebrew Windows), SPTiberian, B-Hebrew transliteration, SuperHebrew, Unaccented Greek Unicode, Greek Unicode NFD, Greek BETA, Unaccented B-Greek,

JBLC (paid conversion service for RTF files)

• Transforms texts with legacy fonts like SuperHebrew, SPIonic, SuperGreek, Bwgrkl, and others to any Unicode font

LaserHebrew Converter

• $79.95 available for Win or Mac from Linguist's Software
• LaserHebrew and LaserHebrew II to LaserHebrew in Unicode
• Note that the Jerusalem font uses the same key mapping as LaserHebrew.

Accordit from Accordance Bible Software (look for it near the bottom of the page)

• Check AccordIt 2.0 User's Guide
• Converts LaserHebrew (Linguist's) or Jerusalem (MacBible-Zondervan) to Yehudit (both are non-Unicode)
• Converts Hebrew to Hebraica II

BibleWorks BWHEBB to Unicode

• Section 59 on "OLE and DDE" in the BibleWorks8 Help file provides the MSWord macro text to conduct the conversion

Review of Thomas Naef's Holy Bits: A Guide for Using Computers in Biblical Scholarship

I've just completed a somewhat lengthy review of Thomas Naef's Holy Bits: A Guide for Using Computers in Biblical Scholarship. Instead of posting it all here, you can read/download the PDF. Though it is a review, I actually write more as a dialogue partner with Naef and suggest some alternatives to his suggestions. The title hints at the rather wide range of the topic, so I suspect you will discover some sites or applications of which you are now not aware. If you have other suggestions, leave a comment here or go to the book's site and leave a note for Naef himself.

Cambridge University Digitization Project

In case you had not already heard...
Cambridge University Library has announced plans to become a digital library for the world... The first collections to be digitised will be entitled The Foundations of Faith and The Foundations of Science. The goal for both is that they become ‘living libraries’ with the capacity to grow and evolve... The library also holds the world’s largest and most important collection of Jewish Genizah materials, including the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection – 193,000 fragments of manuscripts as significant as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Its Christian holdings include the Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, one of the most important Greek New Testament manuscripts, the Book of Deer and the Book of Cerne. [ChristianToday]  
Very nice... [HT: TW at ETC]

Quick Notes: Greek Flashcards and Glo Bible

Danny Zacharias over on Deinde has compiled a great list of Greek flashcard vocabulary options. (Previously discussed here with further info.) So I had to make a link to this Flashcard Scholarship opportunity posted HERE where you have the chance to win $500 by posting a video of you destroying your paper flashcards! (I suspect many students would be happy to do this for free...)


The Washington Post has an article today on: "Glo digital Bible designed to reach a younger generation". It provides some background and describes some applications of it in church settings. Founder of Glo's Immersion Digital, Nelson Saba, is quoted as saying that "it is currently available only for personal computers and laptops, but the intent from its inception was that it would be applicable to mobile devices." (I've posted my own reviews of the Glo Bible HERE and HERE.)

Typing Biblical Hebrew

What are the best ways to type biblical Hebrew? Personally, while I have strong preferences about how my polytonic Greek keyboard is laid out, I haven't typed frequently enough in Hebrew to have clear preferences. For example, 

• Do you want to use an English keyboard which matches the Hebrew phonetically? Or do you prefer an Israeli keyboard?
• Should the shift state serve to provide final forms or doubled forms? 
• Where do the vowel points go? Try to match them with English phonetically? Or put them all on special keys (123...)?
• Where is the aleph key? (I'm always searching for it if it's not on the "a".) Or the vav/waw? Or the het or tet?

That's only one set of issues related to the keyboards. You also have to consider whether/how Hebrew with its right-to-left typing is handled in your word processor. Or maybe you want to compose all your Hebrew in your Bible software and copy/paste it into your documents. Or do you want a system-wide switch so you can type in Hebrew in your word processor, email, web page...

I'll try to sort out some of the options, but in all cases I will assume that you are wanting to end up with Unicode Hebrew using a font like Cardo or SBL Hebrew. Even if you go with transliteration, you will need some help to get the special characters... I'm also providing screenshots of keyboard layouts where possible so you have a better idea of the layout philosophy of the various options. (Click on the graphics to enlarge them.)

System-wide Hebrew Keyboard

The idea here is that your operating system understands that you want to type in Hebrew and switches to a Hebrew keyboard and a Unicode Hebrew font using right-to-left formatting. (For Windows users, at least, this is going to mean enabling a buried regional parameter to allow the right-to-left typing.) Do note that most English users are not going to want to use an Israeli keyboard but rather one that is laid out for an English keyboard and optimized for biblical Hebrew needs. An advantage in using a Windows system keyboard is that you also can use the onscreen keyboard which is included for free. (It is part of the accessibility options in Windows. For WinXP see here or here and for Win7 see here. [HT: bkMitchell]) What about Macs? I don't have much experience with Macs, but I have noted some solutions below. 

TYNDALE UNICODE FONT KIT

One of the easiest ways to get started typing in Hebrew is to use the Tyndale Unicode Font Kit. It provides clear instructions for installing everything, the fine Cardo font, and an installer. It's available for WinXP, WinVista (& 7, I presume), and Mac. For the Hebrew keyboard, it uses a combination of sound-alike and look-alike positions. (E.g., note that the aleph is on the "x", shin is on the "w", and vowels go with their sound-alikes.) Cf. the graphic above. (A transliteration keyboard is included in the Greek keyboard using the Cardo font and activated by turning on caps lock.)

TAVULTESOFT KEYMAN

Another excellent way to type in Hebrew (and other languages) is Tavultesoft's Keyman program. (Pricing is $19 for 2 keyboards. Windows only) Once you have the program, then get Galaxie's BibleScript Greek and Hebrew Keyboard. (Here is a PDF of the installation manual and keyboard layouts.) As you can see in the graphic above, the shift state is used for doubling and most of the vowels are on the shifted number row. It's a bit of a trick finding the final form. A nice feature is that it does include a pop-up keyboard if you need help.

SBL HEBREW SIL KEYBOARD

In addition to the fine SBL Hebrew font, SBL also provides Hebrew keyboards. Here is the SIL keyboard manual. It's mainly phonetically based, but the aleph and ayin are on the shifted angle brackets, and you'll find the het on the "x" and the tet on the "v".

SBL HEBREW TIRO KEYBOARD

SBL also provides a Tiro Hebrew keyboard. Here is the Tiro keyboard manual. It's mainly based on the Israeli standard keyboard, so it is probably not a preferred keyboard for those not familiar with that layout.

HEBREW QWERTY KEYBOARD

Based on a Hebrew keyboard for the Mac, this Hebrew QWERTY keyboard has been made available for Windows. (Link is to a ZIP file. Extract all files and run the .msi file. [HT: Mikhtav]) There a few 'qwirks' to this layout, but it may work for you...

LOGOS KEYBOARDS

Logos provides a Hebrew keyboard for use in Windows. The placement is  largely phonetic (but the aleph on ") and the shift state is used for finals and for related letters. (E.g., t is tav, and Shift+t is tet. A transliteration keyboard is also available on that page.)

MULTIKEY

MultiKey by Stefan Hagel is a free program that supports Unicode input in many Windows programs. (I.e., it isn't exactly a system keyboard like the ones listed above.) It includes keyboard tables for Hebrew and 17 other languages using Unicode and 3 older Hebrew keyboard tables. (WL Hebrew, WinGreek Hebrew, BWHEBB) You can customize your keyboards, but it will take some work since it's primarily geared for modern Hebrew. (E.g., I can't find the final forms...) 

DO IT YOURSELF (OR MODIFY EXISTING ONES)

Don't like a keyboard layout? Tyndale provides some instructions for changing the layout using SIL's Ukelele program for the Mac or the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator for Windows. Basically these allow you to assign Unicode characters to keystrokes, but matters are complicated with Hebrew (and Greek) because you will want to add vowels and accents and such and have the keyboard reference the proper precombined character. You will probably want to get familiar with BabelMap which is a great free Unicode character mapping program for Windows.

... and for Macs
TYNDALE UNICODE FONT KIT 
Cf. the description above.

HEBREW QWERTY KEYBOARD

Here is a good place to start for some basic information on installing and using a Hebrew keyboard. Info is given on how to activate the Keyboard Viewer. Instead of using the standard Hebrew keyboard layout, it is recommended that you use the Hebrew QWERTY keyboard displayed above.

SBL HEBREW KEYBOARD DRIVERS

SBL provides Hebrew keyboard Drivers for SIL and Tiro (OS X) Cf. graphics above for these keyboards.


HEBREW-ZC KEYBOARD

Bill / Ze'ev Clementson provides his own well-considered Hebrew-ZC Keyboard. It's well-considered, because he has tried to incorporate the best of both the SIL and Tiro keyboards as well as frequency of Hebrew character and vowel stats. The keyboard download, installation instructions, and layout diagrams are on that page.

Independent Hebrew Typing Aids

SHIBBOLETH

Shibboleth is a great free tool from Logos I have previously mentioned for entering text in 10 languages as well as a transliteration mode. Logos states:

Shibboleth is a tool for typing Unicode text in ancient scripts. It was designed to help people unfamiliar with a script easily enter the correct characters, and then copy text to the clipboard in Unicode or another format.
While a keyboard layout is provided for several scripts, the emphasis is on helping the user recognize and select the proper characters. To that end, user input is shown in both typed and rendered format, with multiple font options, and all of the characters for each script are selectable from a well organized palette on the right side of the application window.

You can enter text using your keyboard or pointing/clicking on the characters you want. This is particularly helpful if you need to include cantillation marks and have trouble remembering where to locate them on a keyboard. Do note that the output is actually in XML, so when you paste your text you will see the XML Hebrew encoding indicators. In a word processing document, you will probably want to delete those. It works great in a web page since you will only see the text, as I am demonstrating here: בּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִם. (In a word processor you would see angle brackets enclosing "he" and "/he" codes.)
Note also that Shibboleth does require Microsoft's .NET Framework 4 Client to run. Also available on the download page are other fonts you can install to use your output in other applications.

KEYMAN WEB

Keyman Web is a free, online notepad from Tavultesoft for typing in just about any language and then copy/paste into your document. For Hebrew, you can choose to use the Galaxie Hebrew keyboard described above as part of the Tavultesoft Keyman program. As you can see in the graphic, you can activate an onscreen keyboard. (But it won't show you all the vowels on the shift state.) You can see that the אֱלֹהִים doesn't look correctly spaced, but when you paste it into your word processor, it will be fine.

HEBREW KEYBOARD BOOKMARKLETS
Here's a clever idea if you are needing to input Hebrew on a web page, and you are not using your own computer. Hebrew Keyboard Bookmarklets from Bill (Ze'ev) Clementson provides your choice of four Hebrew keyboards (Tiro, SIL, QWERTY, or his own ZC--cf. above) that you can activate (using javascript) as a bookmarklet. You are also provided bookmarklets to turn off the Hebrew keyboard and adjust LtR or RtL text direction.

AM HA-ARETZ

Now only available on Internet Archive, Am ha-Aretz is another notepad type of online app that allows you to type / copy / paste. There is an Internet Explorer version that works well and an "other browser" version that works with Firefox but not very well.

Integrated English-Hebrew Word Processors

Another option is to use a word processor that is designed for scholarly work that requires a variety of  fonts including a mix of left-to-right and right-to-left languages.

NOTA BENE LINGUA

Nota Bene Lingua is much more than a word processor, but it is incredibly easy to use for typing in Hebrew and handles mixing typing direction well. It has popup keyboards and smart characters that automatically convert to final forms as you type where appropriate. It uses a largely phonetic layout, but vowels are accessed through using F6 and then selecting the one you want.

DAVKAWRITER

DavkaWriter is "the world's most innovative Hebrew / English Word Processor." I personally have never used it, but I have only heard positive comments from people who do. (It appears to be Windows only.)

MELLEL

"Mellel is the leading word processor for Mac OS X designed especially for creative and technical writing, scholars and anyone who wants a reliable word processor." "If right-to-left languages, or languages related to biblical studies are important to your work, Mellel is probably what you need."

CLASSICAL TEXT EDITOR

Classical Text Editor is "the word-processor for critical editions, commentaries and parallel texts..." Allows for any number of notes and apparatus, bidirectional text. Created by Stefan Hagel. (Cf. MultiKey above) For Windows and Macintosh with emulated Windows.


MICROSOFT WORD

You can actually do quite well in MSWord using a system keyboard as described above. The graphic shows how I can type in Hebrew mixed in with English and Greek. I have activated the on-screen keyboard (also described above) and am using the Logos Hebrew keyboard which I activated by using the ALT-SHIFT strike to toggle through my available keyboards. (Cf. the "HE" for Hebrew in my system bar at the bottom near the right.)

OTHER WORD PROCESSORS [UPDATED]
As indicated in the comments, Nisus Writer Pro (Mac) reportedly does well with right to left fonts and NeoOffice (Mac) is also usable. OpenOffice (Windows, Mac, Linux) is also an excellent choice.

UNITYPE

I have no experience with Unitype, but you can buy this program (starting at $150USD) as part of either the standalone Global Writer or Global Office which integrates with MS Word.

ANTIOCH

Antioch "is a utility which allows you to type classical Greek and Hebrew in Word. It includes fully programmable Greek and Hebrew keyboards, a uniquely simple and flexible system for handling diacritics and vowel points, an elegant font with all necessary characters, and converters for documents in many other formats." It works with all versions of MS Word (including 2010) for Windows. Vowels are on the number row and also on the keypad. It allows for personalization of the characters. Cost is US$50.

Bible Software Editors

If you have one of the major Bible software programs, you can use their built-in editors and then copy/paste into other applications or documents.

Accordance

Accordance provides a good explanation of font usage in this PDF file. The font used for Hebrew is Yehudit. Keyboard diagrams are provided. Accordance does not actually use Unicode, but it can export Unicode.

BibleWorks

BibleWorks has a rather robust editor that allows for typing either in its own BWHEBB font (shown above) or in Unicode. (When using the Unicode Hebrew, it actually uses the Hebrew system keyboard you have installed.) The 'busy' buttonbar shown can be simplified, and the editing works for both the editor and chapter/verse notes entries. The files are actually RTF files, so you could do your work in the editor and then open the file in your word processor.

LOGOS

Logos works entirely with Unicode, so anything you type will use the system keyboard you have installed (cf. the choices above), and you can easily copy/paste text into documents outside Logos in full Unicode beauty.

BOTTOM LINE
Well... pulling this info together took way longer than I anticipated, but I am gearing up for a writing project that does involve a lot of Hebrew, and so I wanted to get myself properly situated. For that project, I may try to do everything in Nota Bene. For now, I've been using the Logos Hebrew keyboard in MSWord and also in the BibleWorks editor. When I've gotten frustrated with finding vowels or other markings, I've pulled up Shibboleth. Keyman Web is another quick option, and I am considering whether I should go ahead and buy the Keyman Desktop program, since it really does the best job with polytonic Greek. I've provided graphics of the keyboard layouts, because that really is the most important factor.

At least now you know many of your choices, but I have to suppose I've missed other options out there. Please post a comment on your preferred way of typing Hebrew, and I will try to update this entry. Thanks.

Greek Legacy Fonts to Unicode Converters

This is an update of a post from 2008.
Everyone should really be using Unicode for Greek fonts now, but there are still a few publishers who request Greek be rendered in one of the older legacy fonts. You may also have some older documents with non-Unicode Greek fonts, and you want to convert them to Unicode. The problem with the older TrueType fonts (e.g., Sgreek, SPIonic, Graeca, etc.) is that they each have their own character encoding, so there is no single way to convert these fonts to Unicode. What's the solution? I have gathered all the Greek font converters of which I am aware. Many of them allow conversion to/from Unicode. Note that it is possible to convert from a legacy font to Unicode back to a different legacy font if necessary.
Also note that most of the converters are Microsoft Word macros or templates. If you try to convert a file that has footnotes with Greek, the footnotes might not get converted.
Let me know if I missed any.

Greek Transcoder (Word document template) - excellent, free converter; handles the following fonts

• Beta Code (Betaread)
• GreekKeys (Athenian, Bosporos, Kadmos, Xanthippe)
• Ismini
• LaserGreek (GraecaII, GraecaUBS, GreekSansII, GreekSansLS, Hellenica, Odyssea _/F/UBS, Payne, Payne Condensed, SymbolGreekII, UncialII)
• Paulina Greek
• SGreek (SGRead, SGreek, SgreekFixed)
• SPIonic (SPIonic, Tadzoatrekei, Takeros, Talaurinos)
• SuperGreek (Achille, Graeca, GreekSans, SSuperGreek, SuperGreek, SymbolGreek, UncialLS)
• Vilnius University (Anacreon, Attica, Corinthus, Corinthus Lector, Grecs du roi, Greek Old Face V, Greek Grotesque, Hellenica, Hierapolis, Milan Greek V, Odyssea)
• WinGreek and Son of WinGreek (Aisa, Angaros, Athenian, Grammata, Grecs du roi WG, Greek, Greek Garamond, Greek Old Face _/C, Korinthus, Milan Greek, Standard Greek)
• Unicode

Galaxie BibleScript (Word macro/template)

• Use the Windows Installer to Galaxie Greek/Hebrew fonts and Word template
  
• Involves a two-step process converting legacy fonts to Galaxie fonts and then to Unicode
• Greek fonts handled: Alexandria, Koine, Gideon, Mounce, Bwgrkl, SymbolGreekP, Graeca, WinGreek, GraecaII, SuperGreek, Sgreek (also Hebraica/II, Bwhebb, SuperHebrew, Shebrew)
  

BibleWorks BWGRKL to Unicode (Word macro)

• Look for the Word macro on this forum thread. (An alternative macro here.)
  
• There is also a Unicode > bwgrkl posted here.
  

BibleWorks BWTRANSH to Unicode (Word macro)

• Look for the Word macro on this forum thread.
  

Sgreek (from Silver Mountain; used in BibleWindows and Bibloi)

• Bibloi 8.0 includes a Unicode Type Assistant for Sgreek to Unicode
• Silver Mountain also sells ($49) a Beta Export program for use with the Beta Code TLG and PHI data which converts those texts to Unicode.

SIL (Word template and standalone SILConverters 3.1)

• IPA93 legacy fonts (Doulos, Sophia, Manuscript) to Unicode
• Check here and here.
  

Meander's Nod (online)

• GreekKeys (Athenian, Attika, Sparta, Salamis)
• WinGreek
• Bosporus(GreekKeys format)
• Kadmos (GreekKeys format)
• ISO 8859-7 (Modern Greek)
• Beta Code
• > Unicode, Beta Code, GreekKeys, WinGreek

Logos3: Graeca/GraecaII to Unicode (within Logos program converting Word docs - I cannot find a similar converter in Logos4.)

Multikey (Word macro)

• Aisa
• Logos Gramma
• Athenian
• OldGreekSerif
• WinGreek
• WP Greek Century
• WP GreekTimes Ancient
• MgPolAplaM
• TimesTenGreekP
• Kadmos
• Grk

Greek and Hebrew Encoding Converter (Ken Penner - online: copy/paste textbox)

• From: Unicode, SPIonic, Greek BETA, SGreek, LaserGreek, AG, SPTiberian, Linguist HebraicaII, B-Hebrew transliteration, Greek Unicode NFD, Unaccented Greek Unicode, Greek Code Page
• To: Greek Unicode NFD, Greek BETA, Unaccented B-Greek, SPTiberian, B-Hebrew transliteration, SuperHebrew, Unaccented Greek Unicode

 JBLC (paid conversion service for RTF files)

• "...transforms texts with legacy fonts like SPIonic, SuperGreek, Bwgrkl, and others to any Unicode font"

Antioch ($50 for registered version: Word macro)

• includes keyboard and converter
• To Unicode from WinGreek / Son of WinGreek, SGreek, GreekKeys, Linguist's Software (also called LaserGreek), Vilnius University coding, SIL, SPIonic, Lector, Titus and Ismini.

Cardo and Google Web Fonts

Google recently opened up 18 fonts that can be freely used on the web. (A selection is displayed above. More info here and here.) What is important about this is that it means you can reference those fonts on your web pages and be assured that they will show up as you intend even if the person does not have that particular font on their system. You can get the embed code by clicking on the font from here and following the links. There is a nice font previewer here that even generates the code you want with text effects applied. To download the fonts so that you can use them as you design web pages, grab them here.

Of particular interest is that Cardo--a long time favorite for those using biblical languages because it contains a complete set of Unicode Greek, Hebrew, and diacritical marks--is among those released. Cardo's designer, David Perry, has provided some additional information about this development. He's been working on a updated edition of his resource, and now book, Document Preparation for Classical Languages, which will be released in June. He is also going to provide an update to the Cardo font set which was last revised in 2004. This is all good news!

Now for the disclaimers...

For now, at least, the Cardo font that Google is providing is only a subset and does not include the Greek and Hebrew characters. (I don't know that they will ever do so, but it sure would be nice...) OTOH, Weston Ruter pointed me to FontSquirrel. For someone who is industrious and knows their way around CSS, it makes it possible to create and serve up your own font set.

BOTTOM LINE: Thanks to Google, the web should be a more attractive place and hopefully one more attuned to Greek and Hebrew. Thanks to David Perry, we can look forward to an update to Cardo and a great new resource.

Considerations for Translating New Testament Greek to English

A bit off-focus for this blog, but this is the best place I have for soliciting some help from others of you who regularly with the Greek NT. I am teaching an Advanced Greek class, and I have split the class into translation teams working on translating Luke 16:19-31, the story of the rich man and Lazarus. As one part of the course, we have spent nearly the whole semester working through each verse of the text. Now I am asking them not to simply translate the Greek but to compose a translation of the text. (There is a difference...) I was unable to find any resource that concisely described the types of things I wanted them to keep in mind as they worked. So, I have tried to compose and organize a list of considerations when composing a translation. Here's the introduction I wrote:

When translating New Testament Greek into English, we sometimes are seeking simply to confirm the accuracy of an existing English version. Sometimes we can look at the Greek and produce a translation in our mind that reflects our understanding of the text. In the considerations that follow, however, I am trying to note the kinds of things we should be thinking about if we are actually trying to produce a share-able translation. That is, we are trying to produce a translation that is faithful to the original Greek text, will stand independently from our explanation of it, and will communicate effectively to its readers.

HERE is the 3 page PDF of what I pulled together. If anyone is interested enough to read it and comment upon it (corrections, additions, suggestions...), I would be grateful. If you know of a similar sort of list to which you can point me, that would be appreciated too.

Google Maps > Google Earth

Google just announced this week that Google Earth views are now available within Google Maps. Here's their own video description:

Once you get to the location you want using Google Maps, it's a simple matter of clicking on the "Earth" button to gain the advantage of the 3D imaging available. (You may be prompted to install the Google Earth plugin if you don't already have it.) If you are already familiar with Google Earth, all the navigation will be familiar to you including the shortcuts for tilting and rotating. 

What's the advantage of having this new view available? 

• The dimensionality of Earth views can give you a better sense of a place.
• The integration of map, satellite, and earth views allows for fast and easy switching so that one can become more familiar with a place. (Also note that terrain view is still available under the More dropdown.)
• The earth view also includes 3D models that have been created. (In fact, I don't see how you can turn off the 3D models.) Some of these have actual photographic 'skins' wrapped around the objects. Take a look at some of these examples I made. (You can click on the link to go to Google Maps yourself.)
  Here is Athens >

•  Here is Ephesus with models of the theater and the Library of Celsus.

•  Using tilt and zoom, you can even stand at the threshold of the Ephesian theater and relive Acts 19:29-40!

•  And here's a view of Jerusalem.

• Also note under the More dropdown that you have access to links to Wikipedia references, photos from Panoramio, YouTube videos taken on location, and even live webcams where available.

There are still some extra things you can do in Google Earth (e.g., have indices of biblical sites [like this or this] or create tours [

BTW, one thing that Google Earth does not yet do is provide relief maps. To get that, either use the free Bible Mapper program or use the fine maps-for-free site. Here's an example of a relief map. Can you figure out what biblical region it's depicting?

˙pǝʇɐɔol ǝɹǝʍ uoıʇɐlǝʌǝɹ ɟo sǝɥɔɹnɥɔ ㄥ ǝɥʇ ǝɹǝɥʍ ʎǝʞɹnʇ uɹǝʇsǝʍ

iGoogle Home Page - Caesarea Aqueduct theme

I use iGoogle as one of my home pages. It's possible to customize the banner theme, and a long time ago, I stitched together a panoramic view of the aqueduct at Caesarea Maritima. I allowed it to be shared, and I see that it finally has become available. So, if you too want a Google home page that look likes this, just choose the "Change theme" option and search for Caesarea.

BIBLIndex: Online Biblical Index for the Church Fathers

Biblindex should be your first stop for locating biblical quotations and allusions in the writings of the Church Fathers. Between 1975 and 2000, 8 volumes of Biblia Patristica were published which produced about 400,000 biblical cross-references from the following works:

• Beginnings to Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian
• The third century (except Origen)
• Origen
• Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius of Salamis
• Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Amphiloque of Iconium
• Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Ambrosiaster
• Didymus of Alexandria. Supplement, Philo of Alexandria.

In addition, about another 100,000 biblical references have been derived from:

• Athanasius of Alexandria
• John Chrysostom
• Theodoret of Cyrus
• Procopius of Gaza
• Jerome

They state: "The ultimate goal of this site is to permit the identification of biblical quotations in all Jewish and Christian literature of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages."

Access to the data is free with a free registration at the site. There is an English version of the site, but its French roots are evident throughout. (I.e., some of the English is a bit awkward, and once you get down to some of the deeper levels of the site, you will want to know some French or use a page translator.)

The search form allows you to select a biblical verse or passage. You then choose to search among author/work (or select all), provenance of the work, date of the work, or series. 

The results indicate provenance, author, work, and provide bibliographic information. As an example here is one of the references returned for Mark 16.8.

There are not direct links to the works, but in this particular case, I did a quick search on the Cramer title from 1840, found it at the Internet Archive, and, as the search result indicated, I went to page 446 and looked at line 25 and indeed found the reference to Mark 16.8. Clicking on the an author cited provides a link to additional information and bibliographical help at Sources Chrétiennes.

I'm not the first to blog about this great resource, but they have been seeking additional funding and just sent out a downloadable poster or brochure (from which I snipped the graphics here) that provides a quick overview of the site.


(BTW, they note on the site that "Biblical files of Biblindex are developed with the assistance of BibleWorks 8.")

Glo Bible - Review Part 2 - Easter Gallery Sampler

I started my review of the Glo Bible  here, and this time I'd like to say a bit more about the media included. I'm prompted by the Easter Gallery they have shared online, and it will give you a good idea of the type and quality of media provided. [HT: Todd Bolen at BiblePlaces] 40 images and a video will walk you through the events of Holy Week and are accompanied by relevant Scripture texts. The images are of high resolution, and you can see how helpful some of them are, such as the depiction of 1st century CE Jerusalem.

In the program, there are "Virtual Tours" that provide interactivity so that you can click on hotspots and delve deeper into the setting. E.g., the picture of 1st century Jerusalem above is provided with the hotspots off. Here's what it's like with them turned on:

Clicking on any one of them will zoom in and offer some brief information and further hotspots. In this way, one can pretty much 'walk' up to the Temple via the southern Triple Gate into the Court of Gentiles, via the Hasmonean Gate and around to the east, through the Beautiful Gate into the Court of Women, through the Nicanor Gate into the Court of Israel, to the Court of Priests, into the Temple, and even past the curtain into the Holy of Holies. All of this is done with the ability to zoom in/out and move around in a 360 degree environment. Tours like this are very helpful for giving a sense of place... Note that one can get to this resource through any number of paths: Scripture, maps, articles, etc.
According to their description, there are 550+ such virtual tours along with 3.5 hours of HD video, 2300+ photos, and 140+ maps. They don't list how many pieces of artwork are included. As an example, a search on "crucifixion" returned 32 photos, 21 artworks, 28 virtual tours, 1 map, and 2 interactive documentaries (in addition to the 11 Scripture links, 92 articles, and 11 web article links). 

• The photos, all of excellent resolution, include most of the Jerusalem sites one might hope to see, some generic pictures of crosses/trees, and, interestingly, a few pictures of the famous archaeological find of the heel bone of a person who had been crucified with the nail retained in the bone. (Many of the photos provided by BiblePlaces.)
• The artwork includes images, many of which are viewable on the web, by artists like Tissot, Doré, Brueghel, and others. 
• Some of the virtual tours are more along the lines of illustration with explanatory hotspots. [One such illustration provides a closeup of the sign above Jesus on the cross. The Latin comes from John 19.19, and the Greek is from Matthew 27.37. I can't make sense of the Hebrew at all other than it has "Jesus" in it, but it doesn't have "king."] Others are photos of actual spots with explanations. 
• The maps are based on satellite imagery with descriptive overlays, some of which are animated. (The images are the same as the ones used in Microsoft's Bing maps, such as this one of Jerusalem.) Glo's acknowledgment page indicates the Dr. Leen Ritmeyer worked on the maps and illustrations. 
• The interactive documentaries are indeed high quality video using a variety of experts and represent a range of historical and theological/devotional reflections.

It's very easy to take a 'snapshot' of any screen and save the image, but I am having difficulty finding information about what restrictions there are on using the photos and images and such in my own work. I'll report back when I find out...

Glo does continue to update the program, now up to version 1.6. I occasionally encounter glitches, but it is basically stable. As noted before, the program is not 'fast,' especially when dealing with transitions to visuals. It is acceptable, however, and keep in mind that I'm running the media from an external hard drive.


All in all an impressive collection of media objects that are widely cross-linked. Take a look at the Easter Gallery for an idea of the range the Glo Bible offers.

New Book: Holy Bits: A Guide for Using Computers in Biblical Scholarship

Just received a review copy of Thomas Naef's A Guide for Using Computers in Biblical Scholarship. It's from Gorgias Press as part of their Bible in Technology series.

From the publisher's description:

Where on the internet can I find some reliable information about (or even images of) New Testament manuscripts? What should I consider before beginning to type a scholarly article about Pentateuchal Laws and their parallels in the Ancient Near East? You will find in this book answers to these and many other questions. It gathers information and experience in the field of "Biblical Studies and Computer". Some subjects being treated in the book are of a more general interest like hardware and networks, operating systems, textprocessors and others. The main focus however is on concise subjects for biblical scholars like Unicode, biblical software and websites in the field. Each chapter ends up with a list of URLs for further information about the subject. An online up-to-date link list is available.

I hope to have my review up soon...

Logos Search Exercise: A Response

It's time to earn my keep as a contributor here. Life has been busy and has taken some unexpected turns.

MVGH threw down the gauntlet when he posted his article BibleWorks Search Exercise. David Lang responded for Accordance here. Logos users were also issued the challenge but I haven’t seen anyone take it up yet.

Here’s my attempt to "try to find the Greek words used to express a concept in English."

Specifically to answer these questions, What happened to Jesus after he was crucified and buried? He ______ from the dead! What words might you put in that blank? Rose? Was raised? Is risen? What Greek word(s) are behind our English wordings? How will you determine this? There are a number of possible ways to do so...

Although there are a several possible ways to do this, like David Lang I offer the simplest way in Logos 4. (Caveat: I am running the latest beta of 4.0c so your screen may not match, but the steps should work in versions post-4.0a).

0. MVGH suggested using a version tagged with Strong’s numbers. Since Logos offers several Bible versions as “Reverse Interlinears” (currently, KJV, ESV, Lexham, NASB, NKJV, NLT and NRSV) and the goal is to discover Greek words for seminary students studying Greek, I recommend using one of those “Reverse Interlinear” versions.

1. Open a Search window, select Bible search, set preferred “Reverse Interlinear” (NASB to match MGVH) to search and, since we are specifically looking for a Greek word, set search range to New Testament.



2. Since I might put any of “rose”, “was raised”, or “is risen” in the blank of “He ______ from the dead!”, I enter the following terms in the Find box (raised, risen, rose) [133 results in 125 verses]. Separating the terms with commas is the same as using an OR operator to match any terms. Enclosing the search terms in parentheses makes further refinements to the search results easier.



3. Perusing the search results reveals the power and the limitation of the “Match all word forms” option. Results include “raised”, “raise”, “raises”, and “raising” matching “raised” as well as “risen” and “rose”. What is missing are the other forms of “risen” such as, “rise”, “rises”, and “rising”. “Match all word forms” enabled is the default setting, so I assumed above that it was already set. If not, click on the large magnifying glass icon in the top left corner of the search window and ensure that there is a check mark beside the “Match all word forms” option. However smart "Match all word forms" is, it doesn't get all conjugations.

4. To expand the search results to include forms of “rise”, edit the Find box to (raised, risen, rose, rise) [164 results in 156 verses].



Substituting “rise” for “risen” won’t work though, because searching for all word forms of “rise” will not find “risen”. A wildcard could be introduced such as MGVH and David Lang did; however, searching for “ris*” also finds “risked” and “risking”. While these can be filtered by other means such as the “death” term, I would rather not deliberately include false positives only to later filter them out. For example, I found that Philippians 2:30 where “risking” matches “ris*” is not filtered out with the “death” filter.

5. To focus the search results on those instances where “rise” is used in the sense of “resurrection”, I can include “death” and “dead” in the search terms by editing the Find box to (raised, risen, rose, rise) (dead, death). [132 results in 59 verses]



6. Perusing the search results reveals a few false positives (e.g., Matt. 10:21, Mark 13:12). These could be filtered out by using a WITHIN operator such as David Lang did; however, for me the medicine is too strong. Editing the Find box to (raised, risen, rose, rise) WITHIN 5 WORDS (dead, death) excludes relevant passages such as Acts 2:24, Acts 5:30, Romans 4:24, 1 Corinthians 15:13, 42.

7. To find the Greek word(s) behind our English wordings, select the Analysis search results view. Now the search results can be played with. By dragging the Result column heading to the top, search results are grouped first by the search result. By dragging the Lemma column heading to the top, search results are grouped second by the Greek lemma. Right-clicking on one of the group headings and selecting Summary view reveals that the relevant Greek verbs are ἐγείρω, and ἀνίστημι.



G1453 and G450 for the Strong’s Number crowd!



For those interested in Louw-Nida numbers that column heading can be dragged to the top to summarize the search results in that way, revealing that the relevant L-N number is 23.94, Physiological Process and States – Live, Die.