Books and eBooks by the Director
This page provides a review of a reference work that was consulted while working on the Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament (ALT). To purchase a copy of the third edition, click here.
BibleWorks™ for Windows™
Invaluable for translation work and in-depth Bible study
Back in 1999, I believed God was leading me to produce my own translation of the NT. So I looked into several different Bible software programs to help with the translation work. I decided on BibleWorks, and it was a very good decision. This program was invaluable in translating my Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament (ALT), now in its Third Edition (ALT3).
I believe the Byzantine Majority Text (Robinson and Pierpont’s text) is the most accurate of the currently available Greek NT texts, as detailed in my book Differences Between Bible Versions. So I would naturally want my ALT to be based on this text. BibleWorks contains not just the Byzantine Majority Text, but full parsing details for every word. So this enabled me to be sure I was accurate in my parsing of Greek words.
BibleWorks comes standard with four different Greek lexicons: Friberg, the UBS Dictionary, Louw-Nida, and Liddell-Scott, along with Robertson’s Word Pictures. Of these, I’ve found Friberg’s to be particular helpful.
BibleWorks also comes with numerous different English translations of the NT. These can be arranged in parallel fashion. So I could easily compare how different versions rendered a particular word or verse. Having all of these resources in one place makes it very easy to do in-depth word studies.
BibleWorks also makes it easy to do searches on Greek words. So once I studied a word, I could search for every occurrence of it in the NT. That way, I could then render the word in a consistent manner throughout the ALT.
Along with the MT, BibleWorks also contains other Greek texts. I used Scrivener’s 1894 Textus Receptus and Nestle-Aland’s 27th edition for translating the list of textual variants found in my Companion Volume to the ALT.
So for my translation work, I had my BibleWorks set to show in order: Byzantine MT, Scriveners TR, NA27, NAU (NASB 1995 edition), NKJV, ESV, KJV, NIV, NLT, NRSV, the Geneva Bible, and YLT. Many other versions are available as well. But the more literal of these were indispensable in helping with the main text of my ALT, and the less literal ones gave me ideas for the bracketed “figurative” renderings found in my ALT.
BibleWorks also contains Fausset’s and Easton’s Bible dictionaries and the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. These were very helpful in producing some of the explanatory notes in the ALT, such as modern-day equivalents for measurement and momentary units.
I have many other Bible resources in hardcopy format that I referred to in my translation work, but without BibleWorks, the whole process would have been much more difficult. As it was, with this program, I believe I was able to a produce a very accurate, literal NT. So I cannot recommend this program enough. Yes, it is pricy, but worth every penny.
Review of BibleWorks for Windows. Copyright (c) 2008 by Gary F. Zeolla.
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