Do you ever find yourself in a stage of life where you are comparing something you want to something you don't know if you need? I tend to find this is most frequent when people are buying cars.
When I was shopping for my first new car, I had test driven a couple of mini-suvs with a smaller engine than what I ended up with. I can still remember my mom telling me not to bother test driving the more expensive ones if I was happy with the slightly cheaper one, because it would be too hard to turn back. She was right. Moms have a tendency to do that.
Now, it is Bible software. I've been hoping to find a manageable Bible software to meet my Seminary and future Pastoring needs. I have been trying to find one that isn't the most expensive. That tends to mean I need a free one. There isn't a lot of middle ground with Bible software.
Unfortunately, all of them I have experimented with fall well short of the standard I feel I need, and even further from the best Bible Software out there. I continue to compare with the elite, knowing that I can't pay for the elite. I wonder if any of the others would have sufficed for me had I not ever seen the best one.
This is slightly different than cars, at least, in the fact that I tried the best Bible Software first.
Okay Nate we have to talk.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a single lad, back in my seminary days I bought all of the Bible software. I was addicted, do not worry I had three years of therapy so I am good.
I bought logos (scholar edition) with the anchor Bible dictionary, Word Biblical Commentary 58 volume set, New American Bible Commentary, and the BDAG. Yes I know, this software totals over $1800. However Fuller hooked us up and gave us 50% off. And I also saw this as a lifetime investments and I did not buy all of the NT required books, namely lexicons, dictionaries, commentaries, because I had them all digitally. If I were you I would see if Bethel has discounts for students.
I also have Bibleworks 6.0. I know I am a freak. This program was about $350.
I am a huge advocate for Bible software. Seriously, this software saved me sooooooo much time parsing, researching, and translating. Literally probably about 100 hours.
Logos is great for researching especially when in commentaries and dictionaries.
Bibleworks is great for the languages of german, hebrew, greek, and latin.
Are you rolling a PC?
If you are lets talk.
j
I am looking at PC. I'm highly interested in Bibleworks (I think there at 7.0 now).
ReplyDeleteI haven't caught the Logos bug because I like to have commentaries in book form. I'm still old school like that and like to see the book on my shelf, so i'd buy commentaries seperately.
Bethel doesn't have any discounts for logos. If I go Mac (Jenny and I have both) you can get a discount of Accordance (their closest thing to Bibleworks) just for being a student. Bibleworks only gives discounts to students orders of 10 or more. Bethel does this almost every year, but that time has already passed.
So i'm looking at somepoint trying to find the $350 for Bibleworks. I know it will help my Hebrew a ton. And it will help my ease of nerd research for verse topics and keywords more than I can imagine.