by Harry Hahne

Bible Windows 2.2.2 (BWin) is easy to learn and makes good use of the Microsoft Windows interface. It offers a movable icon bar, multiple windows for displaying different passages or Bible versions, and point-and-select grammatical searching. Those who are familiar with Windows will master this program very quickly.

BWin includes KJV, RSV (with Apocrypha) and NRSV English translations, morphologically tagged Greek New Testament (UBS3/CCAT text), tagged Septuagint (LXX), tagged Hebrew Bible (BHS) and Latin Vulgate. It also includes the UBS Greek lexicon and a Hebrew lexicon based on Holladay and Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB). Scalable Greek, Hebrew and Coptic fonts in TrueType and PostScript/ ATM Type 1 format are included. An optional module includes the complete 1200-page text of Louw and Nida's innovative, two-volume Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains. Add-on "Workplace" modules allow one to search the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae and Packard Humanities Institute CD-ROMs, which include Greek classical texts and documentary papyri, Coptic biblical texts and Nag Hammadi texts.

BWin displays multiple windows, each of which can contain a different version of the Bible or a different passage in the same version. One can link windows to scroll through several versions simultaneously. Unfortunately, one cannot set search results to link multiple versions automatically. One must open a window to the context of the matching verses, then link this window to a window with another Bible version. Greek, Hebrew and English screen-font sizes can each be set with a menu option. Bookmarks can be set simply by clicking on a menu item.

Even though the multiple-window interface is flexible and easy to use, there are several rough edges in the way that windows are displayed and manipulated. Because open windows can contain only a single biblical book, there is no way to browse through the whole Bible without opening a window for each biblical book. (The "Jump to Reference" option allows one to enter a chapter and verse, not a new book name.) Moreover, displayed text does not automatically wrap to fit a resized window. This leaves three options: (1) scroll horizontally to see part of the verse; (2) enlarge the window; or (3) change the font size.

When viewing search results in English, one can click on a reference and the verse will be shown in context. Clicking on a reference in the Greek or Hebrew Search-Results window displays the verse in an interlinear display format, with encoded grammatical information beneath each word. For Greek and Hebrew searches, the matching term is highlighted in the interlinear-display format only. Highlighting is incomplete. If more than one term is included in the search, or there is more than one match in a verse, only the first matching term is highlighted.

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Silver Mountain Software (http://www.silvermnt.com)
1029 Tanglewood, Cedar Hill, TX 75104-3019 USA
Phone: (800) 214-2144;
(214) 293-2920
FAX (214) 293-6641

System Requirements:

Windows 3.1, 95 or NT, hard disk. Distributed on floppy disks or CD-ROM.

Version:

Latest: 5.0 (CD-ROM only)
Reviewed: 2.2.2

Availability:

Commercial software available from the publisher.

Demo:

A free demonstration program can be downloaded on the Web.

Quick Summary:

Bible Windows features very good grammatical searching of the Greek and Hebrew Bibles. The Greek searching is nearly as powerful as Gramcord for general use, although it lacks some refinements necessary for advanced searches. Hebrew grammatical searching is better than any other IBM PC Bible program. Convenient, adjustable interlinear displays and quick parsing are useful for people with limited knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. Although the collection of reference works is more limited than some Bible programs, this is an excellent, low-cost tool for serious Bible study.

Screen Capture:
(Click for larger image)