I’m about as happy as a kid on Christmas morning. When I popped home for lunch earlier this week, my wife hand me a shiny new copy of BibleWorks 9. If you’ve never heard of it before, you might want to check out their website. I think it’s the premiere resource for studying scripture in the original languages.

Over the next couple months, I’m going to dedicate some serious time to the instructional videos and offer some in-depth feature reviews. For now, I thought I’d share few of my first impressions:

• BW9 includes a staggering amount of content. It arrives on three DVDs, requiring about 15 GB of space for a full installation. Installation on a three-year-old Dell laptop took about an hour after all the web auto-updating was completed. A lot of the bulk of this software are actual images of original manuscripts.
• Despite the massive program, the interface is very snappy. This is especially noticeable as you drag your mouse over the Greek text. As the cursor grazes each word, the analysis window instantly updates with, well, whatever you want it to. Searching feels instant.
• The program is very keyboard friendly. I’ve already learned a number of keyboard shortcuts that makes a fast program even faster.
• The license allows multiple installations. A quick email to the BibleWorks 9 people let me know that I could install this program on any computer where I am the primary user. This saves me dragging my church laptop home every night to study.

Stay tuned as I explore those 15GBs in all their glory!

Part 2: Searching >