At its heart, a Bible software package consists of two closely integrated parts:
A computer program is very useful at gathering, organizing and arranging facts about a passage:
Although the computer does not make any interpretive decisions, it makes it easier to organize and analyze facts about the passage and provides ready access to secondary study tools:
A Bible program is least useful in the application stage, since this requires personal decisions based on your life situation. Nevertheless, it can be helpful in several ways:
Many Bible-search programs include the numbers assigned in Strong's concordance for each the Greek and Hebrew words. You can then search for a given word number to find all occurrences of the word. This method requires no knowledge of Greek or Hebrew to do a word study based on the original languages.
This approach has several limitations:
This direct approach is best if you know enough Greek or Hebrew to recognize the word you want in the original language text.
However, it is not enough to search the Bible text for a word in the original languages. The spelling of a Greek or Hebrew word depends on the function of the word in the sentence. To find every occurrence of a word you must have a Bible text in which each word is internally tagged with the lemma (dictionary form) of the word. Programs that do not have a tagged text (e.g. the Online Bible) are inadequate for word studies in the original language, because you can only search for the exact spelling of a word as it occurs in a given context.
If the text is tagged with lemmas, you can search for the dictionary form of a word to find every occurrence of a word, regardless of its spelling in the Bible text. Gramcord (DOS or Windows), Accordance (Macintosh), Logos 2 (not 1.6), Bible Works, Bible Windows and TheWord are capable of lemma searches.
Bible Works makes searching on lemmas particularly easy. Right click on any word in the Greek or Hebrew text and you have the option to search for the lemma or the exact form in the text. Bible Works searches are extremely fast, usually less than a second even on the CD-ROM. Logos 2 has a similar feature, but the search is not as fast and the procedure is a bit more awkward.
A few programs link every word in the English text to the corresponding word in the original Greek or Hebrew text. Logos 2 links the NASV to the Greek text and the NIV PC links the NIV to the Greek text.
This useful feature makes it easy to do a complete original language search with little or no knowledge of the original languages. Click on a word and instantly see the corresponding Greek or Hebrew word highlighted in the original language text window. In Logos, you can then display an information window with the lemma, parsing and dictionary meaning. From there you can click on the lemma and perform a word search on the lemma.
See the further notes on doing word studies with Logos Bible Software
There are several levels of context that affect a word meaning: sentence, paragraph, book, author's corpus, whole NT or OT, Septuagint, non-biblical writings of that era, usage in other eras. These contexts affect the meaning of a word in a given sentence in decreasing order of influence.
A native ancient speaker of Greek or Hebrew would have been aware (possibly unconsciously) of these shades of meaning from the word usage in his culture. Bible and theological dictionaries give you some of this broader background on word meaning and culture.
The immediate context and the author's own personal usage habits are always the most important factors which determine word meaning.
When you do a word study, try to understand how the word is used in each passage. Then look for a context similar to the passage you are studying. This will help you determine the exact shade of meaning in a particular passage. A lexicon is created by studying how a word is used in every available passage.
Cognates are various parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective) which come from the same root (e.g. agapao and agape). Studying these related words gives you sense of the semantic domain of a word. They also give insight into word meanings of words that occur rarely in the Bible.
Synonyms are words with the same basic meaning, but slightly different nuances. A careful study of related words can help you distinguish the exact shade of meaning in a passage.
For example, you might want to know the significance of the shift from agapao to phileo in Jn 21, where Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you love me?" This can only be determined by a study of how John uses these two synonyms. The distinction between words for love is not as simple as is often assumed, since agapao can be used of human love (such as when Jesus says the Pharisees love the praise of men). There are also times where phileo is praised as a virtue. Only a careful study of these synonyms in context would resolve the question of why the word usage shifts. A careful study should consider how each author uses the words and not assume that the usage of one author applies to another.
Most Bible programs only provide abridged lexicons, rather than complete works. One exception is Logos 2, which includes the entire BAGD lexicon, the standard for New Testament Greek research and translation. A few programs include the complete text of the Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains
Many popular programs use the outdated Thayer's lexicon. This was a fine lexicon in the 19th century, but the scholarly knowledge of Greek has advanced considerable since that time. It was written during a time when it was assumed that NT Greek was basically the same as classical Greek. Discoveries such as the Greek Papyri (everyday Greek writings from the time of the NT) have shown important distinctions between classical Greek and the Hellenistic Greek or the New Testament era.
Several types of Greek lexicons are provided with many Bible programs:
Some programs come with a limited Hebrew dictionary, which is abridged from the Brown, Driver, Briggs or Holladay lexicons. Most of the detail is omitted and only word meanings are listed. In general the Hebrew study tools in Bible programs are not as complete or up to date as the Greek references.
A Bible dictionary is not a dictionary in the pure sense of defining word meanings. Rather it provides cultural, historical and theological background information to aid understanding the Bible. It should be used as a supplement to a lexicon, not a replacement. It is also useful for an introduction to important theological words if you do not know much Greek or Hebrew.
Typical Bible dictionaries included with Bible programs are:
Phrase searches are almost impossible or very tedious with a printed concordance. You must look up every occurrence of one of the words and then manually check each verse to see if the whole phrase occurs in the verse.
Even a computer will find some false matches, which you must manually eliminate. For example, there is no way to know without checking the context whether a reference to "in Him" refers to Christ, God the Father or someone else. However, a computer will give you far fewer matches than a printed concordance.
Topical Studies With Bible Software:
The following techniques can help you do topical studies with
a computer:
Greek and Hebrew Language Learning Programs:
Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) Programs
CALL programs are used for studying a language with a
computer. The following are useful for students of
biblical languages:
Using a Bible-search Program to Practice Greek and
Hebrew
A Bible-search program with the Greek and Hebrew
biblical texts can be useful for improving your
knowledge of the biblical languages. It is much more
convenient to practice reading with one of these
programs than a printed Bible in an original language.
Here are some useful techniques: