We really do exist!
It's been a long time between posts! This is not completely by choice, but due to the nature of the academic cycle and being so busy! I have also noticed with other blogs on my blogroll that after a while many of them stop being nearly so active because blogs actually are a lot of work to keep up. Even more so with this one because it entails a lot of work before anything can even be posted. However, since things have been so quiet here lately, let me remind you of other helpful things.
First of all, BibleWorks has recently released A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew by Jacob Weingreen, available as a module add-on. BibleWorks' version costs $49, while I see the Amazon price for the print book is $53, so for a little less than the real book you get all the usual features of a digital module in BibleWorks. While I learned Hebrew using a different grammar, my professor did highly recommend Weingreen's grammar and when I had the chance to buy a used copy at a local bookstore (why they had a copy of a Hebrew grammar floating around sure beats me), I jumped at it and I can say that it is a very nice beginning level grammar. Definitely not in the league of Waltke-O'Connor or Joüon-Muraoka, but helpful nevertheless for those who like grammars.
Second, BibleWorks has recently started a section on their website for classroom tips. So far there are seven tips up and more expected to be added later. These are the sort of things Jim and I have hoped to have on this blog as well, but we have not been very successful at implementing this. Also, related to this, if you haven't added Mark Hoffman's blog called Biblical Studies and Technological Tools, please do so now. Mark has also helped fill a gap as he rather routinely highlights specific uses not only of BibleWorks, but also Logos software and often compares and contrasts the two, noting strengths and weaknesses of both pieces of software.
Third, BibleWorks has a sale going on until Nov. 30 for users of older BW versions. If you're not yet living in BW7, now is as good a time as any to sign on. Buy now and put it under the Christmas tree for later :) The sale has caused some on the BW forums to speculate whether this means BW8's release is imminent, but BW staff has assured customers that this is a special treat for users to upgrade and not a way to cop people out of money only to find out that a new release is just weeks away. So if the burning question in your heart is when is BW8 going to be released, the answer is: not for a while. However, when it is released, you can be sure there will be lots of new features, bells and whistles that make you drool.
Fourth, a question for the readers. As I have worked to provide a lot of classical Greek text resources, I am wondering how you find them helpful or whether you do at all. How do you use them? What else would you like to see added? Etc.?
First of all, BibleWorks has recently released A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew by Jacob Weingreen, available as a module add-on. BibleWorks' version costs $49, while I see the Amazon price for the print book is $53, so for a little less than the real book you get all the usual features of a digital module in BibleWorks. While I learned Hebrew using a different grammar, my professor did highly recommend Weingreen's grammar and when I had the chance to buy a used copy at a local bookstore (why they had a copy of a Hebrew grammar floating around sure beats me), I jumped at it and I can say that it is a very nice beginning level grammar. Definitely not in the league of Waltke-O'Connor or Joüon-Muraoka, but helpful nevertheless for those who like grammars.
Second, BibleWorks has recently started a section on their website for classroom tips. So far there are seven tips up and more expected to be added later. These are the sort of things Jim and I have hoped to have on this blog as well, but we have not been very successful at implementing this. Also, related to this, if you haven't added Mark Hoffman's blog called Biblical Studies and Technological Tools, please do so now. Mark has also helped fill a gap as he rather routinely highlights specific uses not only of BibleWorks, but also Logos software and often compares and contrasts the two, noting strengths and weaknesses of both pieces of software.
Third, BibleWorks has a sale going on until Nov. 30 for users of older BW versions. If you're not yet living in BW7, now is as good a time as any to sign on. Buy now and put it under the Christmas tree for later :) The sale has caused some on the BW forums to speculate whether this means BW8's release is imminent, but BW staff has assured customers that this is a special treat for users to upgrade and not a way to cop people out of money only to find out that a new release is just weeks away. So if the burning question in your heart is when is BW8 going to be released, the answer is: not for a while. However, when it is released, you can be sure there will be lots of new features, bells and whistles that make you drool.
Fourth, a question for the readers. As I have worked to provide a lot of classical Greek text resources, I am wondering how you find them helpful or whether you do at all. How do you use them? What else would you like to see added? Etc.?
Labels: BibleWorks7, blog, Hebrew, libronix, tips
posted by Michael Hanel at 12:24 PM
3 Comments:
Good post Michael! It's amazing. I've been "wicked busy" lately. (Using "wicked" as a superlative adverb is common in New England.) Anyway, between work, church and a class on theological librarianship, I'm swamped. I've dropped off of the face of the blogosphere on Old in the New as well. I'll have to dip back in soon. I'll be attending a BW workshop tomorrow, so perhaps I'll be able to bring a report to the blog.
I find using classical lit very helpful in my work. I use it primarily as comparative material for the first and second century CE. So, anything from that time period would be very helpful, Plutarch, Epictetus, etc.
This classical literature is very much appreciated. I grab at the new releases. Besides being quite nice to have in and of itself (from Homer, Plato, Herodotus, etc), it is quite wonderful to be able to do non-morphologically tagged searches. That is, you can find many different unique forms or expressions with the Bible Works second-to-none search capability, especially by using the cross-version search mode. I would like to emphasis the power of this for those of us who aren't a Smyth yet: I find it quite powerful to have such a large corpus of Greek texts to do form searches ... sometimes because you are not sure of the root of a strange word (though some may scoff at this, I have found it quite helpful in reading Greek texts), other times just to see that word's representation across such a wide range of texts.
Second, the small amount that has been morphologically tagged ... people should realize how amazing this is!!! These Bible guys just produced a resource that nothing in the Classical world of scholarship can even come close to doing in morphological searching. (The TLG, yes, but have you've ever used this for morph. searches...!!, you'll come running back to BW if it has the same text tagged. And besides there being no comparison in ease of use, TLG can't even come close to the power of BW search capabilities) Every bit of the power of BW can be used for any text that gets tagged. So I can only hope we keep providing these texts if and when we've got the time, and even tagging some more of the important ones. Thanks to you guys who have provided so much of this for us.
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