Not long ago Mike, my esteemed blog partner, began posting on the program Bibleworks. I am an Accordance user so I want to provide an alternative set of posts describing what I have come to believe over the course of over a decade and a half is the premier Bible program. I am asked by students what Bible program to purchase and while I tell them that Bibleworks is the best thing out there on the PC side, they should make the switch to Mac and get Accordance. Over the course of the next few weeks I want to tell the story of Accordance and Me. I begin with DTS and Accordance.
When I began seminary at Dallas Theological Seminary in the fall of 1993 I purchased my first home computer. I don’t remember much about it, perhaps it was a 386 or something, but it was a PC. During college I had gotten away with borrowing a friend's Brother word processor (it was just a big box). That first semester at DTS I had a Greek course with Dan Wallace where he introduced us to the latest and greatest Bible program called Gramcord. Desiring to have resources that would help me with biblical exegesis I purchased Gramcord. Back then the program came on about 10 disks that took probably an hour to load onto the commuter. I thought the program was the coolest thing and I hoped that it would be a great help to me as I progressed through seminary. At the time I had not yet envisaged pursuing Ph.D. I had purchased Gramcord simply because I was convinced that it would help me be a better youth pastor (OK so maybe the writing was on the wall, but I had yet to interpret it).
After several years of full-time ministry (about 7 in all), I came to realized that God was calling me into an academic ministry and at that point I reengaged the Bible program question. I had returned to DTS, after having been away for some time, in the summer of 1999. By that time the Bible programs had begun to come into their own with new products on the market. It was at this time that I was first introduced to Accordance, although it had been launched in 1994. I was a PC person, so it was not really an option at the time, but Bibleworks by that time had also come on the Market. Since I had already purchased Gramcord, I decided to contact them to see what was new and to acquire any upgrades. Gramcord began to discuss a new environment they were in the process of developing that they believed would rival both Accordance and Bibleworks. So rather than purchasing a new program I decided to wait it out.
Meanwhile, I was talking with my Profs about Bible programs and hands down they would each tell me that Accordance had no rival. One particular Prof, Harold Hoehner, could have been an Accordance Rep. Now if you knew Harold you will know that there were two topics he especially enjoyed discussing: Macs (and Accordance) and United Airlines. If you got him on either subject you would get an ear full. Other Profs had both a Mac and a PC and ran both Accordance and Bibleworks. I was consistently told that if you want the best Bible program get a Mac and get Accordance.
My next post will be "The Coming of the Emulator".
When I began seminary at Dallas Theological Seminary in the fall of 1993 I purchased my first home computer. I don’t remember much about it, perhaps it was a 386 or something, but it was a PC. During college I had gotten away with borrowing a friend's Brother word processor (it was just a big box). That first semester at DTS I had a Greek course with Dan Wallace where he introduced us to the latest and greatest Bible program called Gramcord. Desiring to have resources that would help me with biblical exegesis I purchased Gramcord. Back then the program came on about 10 disks that took probably an hour to load onto the commuter. I thought the program was the coolest thing and I hoped that it would be a great help to me as I progressed through seminary. At the time I had not yet envisaged pursuing Ph.D. I had purchased Gramcord simply because I was convinced that it would help me be a better youth pastor (OK so maybe the writing was on the wall, but I had yet to interpret it).
After several years of full-time ministry (about 7 in all), I came to realized that God was calling me into an academic ministry and at that point I reengaged the Bible program question. I had returned to DTS, after having been away for some time, in the summer of 1999. By that time the Bible programs had begun to come into their own with new products on the market. It was at this time that I was first introduced to Accordance, although it had been launched in 1994. I was a PC person, so it was not really an option at the time, but Bibleworks by that time had also come on the Market. Since I had already purchased Gramcord, I decided to contact them to see what was new and to acquire any upgrades. Gramcord began to discuss a new environment they were in the process of developing that they believed would rival both Accordance and Bibleworks. So rather than purchasing a new program I decided to wait it out.
Meanwhile, I was talking with my Profs about Bible programs and hands down they would each tell me that Accordance had no rival. One particular Prof, Harold Hoehner, could have been an Accordance Rep. Now if you knew Harold you will know that there were two topics he especially enjoyed discussing: Macs (and Accordance) and United Airlines. If you got him on either subject you would get an ear full. Other Profs had both a Mac and a PC and ran both Accordance and Bibleworks. I was consistently told that if you want the best Bible program get a Mac and get Accordance.
My next post will be "The Coming of the Emulator".
2 comments:
Who is going to stick up for Libronix in all of this?
not me i have Libronix and Bibleworks lets just say Libronix takes all your ram. Anyway Accordance looks really good, i enjoy Bibleworks8, but don't like my Toshiba Laptop, Do i wish i had a mac.
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