Chart on Latin texts available in BibleWorks and other software

Another plug for a helpful post by Mark Hoffman. Earlier I posted a link for downloading a couple of versions of the Latin Vulgate and I mentioned that I am no expert in the Vulgate. Well I stand by my word on that, but in case you are interested in different versions of the Vulgate, Mark compiled a table which shows some of the Latin text versions and what Bible software programs have them.

Link: Accordance8, BibleWorks7, Logos3, VulSearch4: Latin Bible Texts Available

Helpful list of modules

I've referenced his blog numerous times before, but Mark Hoffman provides another great post on his blog in which he creates an organized list of BibleWorks versions available and breaks them down into different groups in order for you to see what is all available. As the number of user databases have grown, the list has become quite long and so it's nice when others reorganize the data into ways which make it easier to see what's all out there.

If you want to download some of these lists check out the following links:

List of BibleWorks7 Texts: XLS spreadsheet / PDF:grouped / PDF:A>Z

New Versions - Vulgata Clementina and Glossa Ordinaria Migne (UPDATE 8/30)

UPDATED FILES BELOW (8/30)

These versions were actually available a couple of years ago, but I missed the boat on properly recognizing them. Here's some info on them:

This zip file contains two different versions that will need to be compiled. First is the Vulgata Clementina of 1598 (VUC) and the other is the Biblia Vulgata Clementina 1598 with end notes "Ordinary Glossa" (GLO).

The text originates from The Clementine Vulgate project. This is what they have to say about it:

After the Council of Trent, which declared in 1546 that the Vulgate alone was to be held as "authentic in public readings, discourses, and disputes, and that nobody might dare or presume to reject it on any pretence" (Sess. IV, De editione et usu sacrorum librorum), the Holy See undertook the task of producing a corrected, standard text of the Vulgate for the use of the universal Church. In 1590, an edition was duly produced in Rome by a commission of scholars, revised further by Sixtus V, and finally approved by him. After his death a further revision was carried out under the Jesuit Franciscus Toletus, and finally the work was printed in 1598 during the pontificate of Clement VIII, whose name has been attached to it since 1641. The Clementine text was the offical version of the Vulgate until 1979.

As a non-expert in this field, I'll leave it open for anyone to add more comment on the significance of either of these texts.

DOWNLOAD! -- Re-download updated files (8/30). The VMF (Verse mapping) files were updated for both databases. These files need to be placed in the subfolder called "databases" of BibleWorks 7.

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Addendum: As a commenter on Mark Hoffman's blog noted, the Clementine Vulgate project group seems a little bit questionable from a religious-political perspective. While the texts here are still apparently public domain, the nature of the source may or may not disinterest you in using them. I bind no one's conscience on the matter, but I know some are more sensitive on these issues.

New Version - Barclay's Translation of the Talmud

Thanks to Jay on the BibleWorks forums for a wonderful version: Barclay's translation of the Talmud. He also included footnotes to the text! Here's an example: You will note that this makes the second version of one of the texts of the Talmud, the Pirke Aboth (spelling variances abound) -- here's the first version. But this version, the BVT, also includes notes.

Say it with me now, sweeeeeeeeet!

DOWNLOAD!

New Version - Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War (English)

Fortunately we have now passed through the dark side and our blog has been restored. Thanks again to users for helping us out with lost files. The digital age has only further underscored our need for redundancy. Lost zeros and ones are just as hard to replicate as are lost pieces of paper.

Now a new version for the history majors and fans of Greek classical prose: Thucydides! Thucydides forms half of the two-part Greek historian combo that is famous even in our day (Herodotus is the other half, duh!). Of course these were not the only historians around, but their works have established them as pillars of the study of history. Thucydides writes about the history of the Peloponnesian War which took place in the 5th century BC in Greece. If you want to read more about Thucydides or this work I would suggest Wikipedia as a good starting point (I liked the basic outline contained therein). Maybe it's biased and inaccurate, guess you'll have to compare what you learn there with other sources! See. Wikipedia encourages further study! :)

Now there's good news and bad news. First the good news: This release contains two different English translations of Thucydides. Now you can have more than one viewpoint in order to work through the text.

The bad news. I have been unable to find a public domain source of the Greek text of Thucydides. Perseus contains a nice Greek text, but it is from a 1942 Oxford Press edition, which to the best of my knowledge would still be in copyright. Now you can still make for your own personal use a Greek edition from the Perseus text, but that is a rather complicated process. However, if someone can come up with a public domain Greek text, I will see about converting it and making it available on the blog here. Until then, I hope something is better than nothing!

DOWNLOAD - Thucydides English version 1

DOWNLOAD - Thucydides English version 2

Hebrew Accent Color File and Consonantal Text

Here are a couple of additions that arose from the BibleWorks forums:

1. Hebrew consonantal text (DOWNLOAD): This version is the same textually as the BibleWorks standard WTT text, except this is without any vowel pointings. See how good your Hebrew is now!

2. Accent Color file (DOWNLOAD): This colour file colourises the JDP version in BibleWorks so that conjunctive and disjunctive accents may be distinguished at a glance: conjunctive accents are shaded yellow, disjunctive accents are shaded green.

Both are offered by David Kummerow, see reference on the BibleWorks forums.

User-database: Miles Coverdale version (1535) of the Bible

Thanks to Bob Venem who has put together a few other great modules on the early English Bible we now have another version at our fingertips.

While I personally haven't much experience with Miles Coverdale's version, I was able to learn from Wikipedia that Coverdale was not proficient with either Hebrew or Greek (hardly the first!), and so made his translation from "'five soundry interpreters' in Latin, Enlgish and 'Douche' (German)." So while it may not be great for exegesis, it will be useful to those who are interested in early versions of the Bible in English.

DOWNLOAD!

User-database: Gorgias' Enconium of Helen Greek and English

It's been a busy summer and it may get busier once school begins. Jim has done a wonderful job of filling in for me while I've been busy this summer getting married, honeymooning, relocating, etc. I am about to start a new PhD program and I've been very busy preparing myself for all the demands that will make on my life, but I just finished a major translation project I had been working on so I figured it was a good time to pause and give something back to the BibleWorks community. (notice how many times I used "busy"??)

The latest release is a short, but good one. It is Gorgias' Enconium of Helen. Of course Gorgias is one of those famous names in classical history. He flourishes during the time of Socrates and is one of the sophists (teachers of rhetoric) who were rather looked down upon by Socrates but whom many associated with Socrates much to Socrates' detriment. One of the main things sophists were known for was their ability to make the lesser argument the greater, i.e. to be able to argue both sides of any issue. In our age, this sort of thing is connected with postmodern relativism and how everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but that there is no absolute right or wrong, black or white. While postmodernism is not the same as the line of thinking from Gorgias' time it is interesting to see how some things never change (how very un-postmodern?)

DOWNLOAD Gorgias in Greek and in English.
Instructions for installation in the readme files part of the .zip.

New! Coptic New Testament Versions

J. Warren Wells of Sahidica.org has graciously permitted BibleWorks users to use his suite of New Testament Coptic texts. Three new versions are available:

• Sahidic Coptic New Testament (SANT)
• Bohairic Coptic New Testament (BONT)
• New Testament according to the Egyptian Greek (NTEG)

Here's a screen shot that shows the Greek text reconstructed from the Sahidic Coptic version compared against the BGT. It also shows the Bohairic and Sahidic texts in parallel:Release notes:

• The two Coptic (SANT, BONT) databases do not use a standard BibleWorks font. Instead, you must install the Uncial Sans Serif font (UncialSS.ttf) into your c:\windows\fonts directory.
• Command line searches will work in the Coptic texts, but the command line will not display characters correctly.
• The Coptic texts have been defined as "English" texts. Unfortunately the VDC would not allow them to be compiled as "other," and it does not give a "Coptic" option. [This probably explains the previously mentioned problem with the command line.]
• The NTEG has been compiled for use with standard BibleWorks Greek fonts. This facilitates the comparison of the reconstructed Egyptian texts against other BW Greek texts.
• The compiler of these BibleWorks files does not know Coptic (yet), so those who do have facility with the language are welcome to make suggestions.
• To install:
  1. Unzip the coptic.zip into your C:\program files\bibleworks 7\userdb folder.
  2. Install the UncialSS.ttf font in your fonts folder (see above).
  3. Copy the .bww files in the unzipped "coptic" folder to your \bibleworks 7\databases file.
  4. Use the Version Database Compiler to compile the various texts. (The three .ddf files are each contained in their own folder, e.g. \coptic\sahidic_nt\sant.ddf, etc.)

Many thanks to J. Warren Wells for letting BibleWorks users explore his texts of the Coptic NT.

See also Plumley's Introductory Coptic Grammar for BibleWorks!

DOWNLOAD!

Jerome's Latin Psalter based on the Hebrew

Mark G. Vitalis Hoffman (MGVH) has uploaded Jerome's Latin Psalter, based on the the Hebrew text (VPH). For more information about the file, take a look at his post on the BibleWorks forum, and his blog.

From Mark's description in the files:

The Vulgate: Liber Psalmorum Iuxta Hebraicum = Jerome's Psalter based on the Hebrew

Jerome's translation of the Psalter based on the Hebrew. Ca. 398-405CE. For more information, cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Psalters

Text derived from: http://www.musall.de/vulgata/index.html (also available here: http://bouwebrouwer.nl/vulgata/)

Text in the public domain. (Cf. http://bouwebrouwer.nl/vulgata/vulgata.html)

To install, download the file and unzip its contents into your /BibleWorks/databases/ directory.

DOWNLOAD!

Delitzsch Hebrew New Testament

Ewan MacLeod is at it again. This time he's proofread and compiled the Hebrew New Testament by Franz Delitzsch. MacLeod states:

This is a very good complement to the current Salkinson-Ginsburg Hebrew New Testament in BW. Both were made shortly before Modern Hebrew was created by Eliezer ben Yehuda, yet the Delitzsch HNT in particular flows very fluently, and still sounds good today. If you turn the Text Comparison facility on to compare HNT and DLZ, you will see that there is a great deal of similarity between the two.

DOWNLOAD!

To install, unzip the files into your /bibleworks/databases/ folder.

Peshitta NT in Hebrew with Vowel Pointing

Ewan MacLeod has made available the Peshitta New Testament with Hebrew letters and vowel pointing.

In contrast to the current PEH database, this text contains vowels, which makes it a useful addition to BibleWorks. The presence of vowels makes it easier at times to understand the text, and it helps one learn how to pronounce the text. In addition, there are some minor differences between the two texts. For best use of this text, use the Text Comparison facility in BibleWorks to highlight the differences when you are studying the Peshitta.Text downloaded from the web archive of www.peshitta.org. It is unclear who (if anyone) owns the copyright for this text. An email to the site to request permission to use the text bounced. The current peshitta.org site gives blanket permission to use its materials.

DOWNLOAD

**NOTE: Unzip files, and place in your /BibleWorks/databases/ folder. You do not have to use the Version Database Compiler.**

Version updates

Due to a couple of bugs in the previous posts, there are new files available for Bishops' Bible and King James 1611.

Also, a new update of Xenophon's Works changes a few book names which conflicted with the Horace files.

DOWNLOAD! King James 1611
DOWNLOAD! Bishops' Bible
DOWNLOAD! Xenophon's Works

Updates: Bishops', King James 1611, Wycliffe

As was promised earlier, Bob Venem with the help of others (especially Mark Eddy) have finished verse-mapping files (.VMF) for the three olde English versions Bishops', King James 1611, and Wycliffe, which are now available. The files will look the same if you have already downloaded them, but included will be a file that ends in the extension .vmf. You will want to place the .vmf file in the subdirectory/folder called "databases" in your BibleWorks directory. The verse-mapping file ensures that when you read a verse in these versions, even if their versification doesn't agree with another Bible version you are reading, that you will get that same verse as long as it is contained in that Bible version.

For instance if you look in the browse window in the ESV for Psalm 3:5 you will get: ESV Psalm 3:5 I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.

but if you also have the Hebrew WTT shown, you will see that the corresponding verse to that in Hebrew is not referred to as Psalm 3:5, but Psalm 3:6. The reason that you get the correct verse to show up (even if it is a different number) is because someone spent the time making a verse-map for the ESV and WTT.

Now this same feature will extend to these three Bibles.

DOWNLOAD KJV 1611!
DOWNLOAD BISHOPS' BIBLE!
DOWNLOAD WYCLIFFE BIBLE!

User-database: Horace's Works (Latin x2 and English)

Well it's been a quiet time lately, but both of your hosts have successfully completed major portions of their Master's degree programs. In addition to that, I have been very busy attempting to put together some major projects for BibleWorks users. Trust me, you'll love 'em!

But meanwhile, I was able to complete a first edition of Horace's works in two Latin versions and one English translation! The difficulty with finding English translations for poetical works is that line breaks never agree with the Latin line breaks which makes it impossible to line up texts without lots of work. But then again it takes a lot of work to translate the Latin into English in the same number of lines and still maintain a good poetic feel to the text.

In any event, Horace is a great poet who lived during the time of the great transition from Caesar of the name Julius to Caesar of the name Augustus. If you need some more basic material you can start at Google or perhaps Wikipedia.

DOWNLOAD Latin, Latin version 2, English!

Look for some more hints on how to use Latin in BibleWorks in the coming days!

Update: Wycliffe translation of the Vulgate

Bob Venem has finished an update of the Wycliffe Middle English translation of the Vulgate. He fixed the verse-mapping so that it will work smoother in the Browse Window and hopefully line up properly with other verses.

He provides the following notes with this release:

1. WYC contains the exact number of verses as the VUL, minus the Apocrypha.
2. The WYC.vmf (this is the verse mapping file) is the VUL.vmf file minus the Apocrypha references.
3. While the verses are aligned, the text used for WYC (from the Wesleyan Study Center) has some peculiar verse divisions compared to the VUL (or the KJV, for that matter). Not having a copy of Wycliffe available to see the original divisions (or if there even are divisions), and not knowing the reasoning used by those who created the Wyclif text files stored at the Wesleyan Study Center, I have left these peculiar divisions intact. If they
   prove bothersome, I can re-edit the file to match the Vulgate, but that will take a fair amount of time, so I am in no rush.

DOWNLOAD!

User-database: Suetonius (English and Latin)

It's taken a long time, but I finally put together a database of Suetonius' influential piece called the Lives of the Twelve Caesars. It doesn't much matter if you believe it's historical, fiction or a little of both, it is very fascinating reading for the bits and pieces of life that Suetonius decides to pass on to his readers. At times perhaps a little dry, but at other times very much like the soap opera culture of today. Maybe you won't catch all of his innuendo in the somewhat humane English translation, but it's there in the Latin. Trust me.

This is a very complex piece mostly because I chose to use a very complex (yet most excellent) source for the database, namely Bill Thayer's wonderful website Lacus Curtius.

Thus it's only fair to include a few notes before you get too far into the text itself in BibleWorks.

Here are a number of issues to be aware of:

1. Both the Latin and the English contain Greek characters (something BibleWorks is not yet well suited for). All of the Greek I have transposed into the BGreek Transliteration style (see this website for an explanation.)
2. Both the Latin and the English contain markings for notes. The note files themselves are included as Word documents. Perhaps in the future I will find a way to make them more functional within BibleWorks, but for now this will have to suffice. If you want the real deal with the notes experience, you should really use the website which carries this edition which I borrowed. Bill Thayer has spent who knows how many hours making this work very well annotated according to its initial publication with a few of his personal notes added. Once you have this database loaded into BibleWorks, if you click in the Browse Window area and press the letter "N" that will toggle Translator Notes on and off. This will show or hide the annotations which alert you to whether there are notes on a given portion of the text or not. In order to test this feature out go to S01 9:3 (Divus Julius). If you have clicked on the Browse Window and type N you should see a toggle on and off of a superscripted 2 after the word Ambranos. That is how the Translator notes work. If you want to find out what the actual note read, you will have to look it up in the accompanying Word file, or else you could visit the Bill Thayer website above.
3. In a few places in the text there are raised dots "•" These indicate notes/hyperlinks that were present on Bill's web page. If this interests you, go to his web page to find out what the note is.
4. Source. As I said, you will not find a better edition of Suetonius' Live of the Caesars than Bill Thayer's. This edition is drawn from his work. Thayer based his edition on the Loeb Classical Library public domain Suetonius book. The Latin text is that of Maximilian Ihm in the Teubner edition of 1907, with cosmetic changes as printed in the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1913-1914. The English translation is by J. C. Rolfe, printed in the same edition. Both text and translation are in the public domain. Once again, huge props to Bill Thayer and his work found at his website.
   

DOWNLOAD Latin version!
DOWNLOAD English translation!

Tomorrow I will comment a little more about using Latin in BibleWorks.

User-database: Bishops' Bible, 1568

Yet another addition by Bob Venem to the early English Bible collection is the Bishops' Bible edition of 1568. This version is a precursor to the King James Version and perhaps will be a little easier to understand than the Wycliffe edition. While the King James Version has become the gold star, the Bishops' Bible is an important piece in the history of the translation of the English Bible.

DOWNLOAD!

Note that both this database and the King James Version 1611 might have some verse mapping issues (mostly in the Psalms), these will eventually be fixed in further releases. Those will be released here, so stay tuned.

User-database: King James Version, 1611

Another great Bible version for those interested in the early English Bible, Bob Venem has now made available the King James Version of 1611 for users of BibleWorks. This will be a treat for people who can't get enough of their thees and thous.

DOWNLOAD!

User-database: John Wycliffe's Middle English Translation of the Vulgate (1388)

For fans of the (pre-)Reformation period, the history of the Bible, Beowulf, and Bible databases in general, Bob Venem, a fellow BibleWorks user, has made available to all BibleWorks users the text of John Wycliffe's translation of the Bible from the Vulgate into Middle English. This will be a fun one for the linguists and philological nerds out there including myself!

DOWNLOAD!

UPDATE: (4/11/07) Files were updated to include James (which was inadvertently missing from the first release)