Bibleworks to cease operations

What a loss. I hope someone will buy Bibleworks. I use Logos & Bibleworks. For work in the Biblical text, I much prefer Bibleworks, simpler & easier than Logos. Logos is excellent for research using commentaries, etc. but awkward for just Biblical textual work. Not surprised this happened, but what a loss.

I fully agree. Bible Works is the easiest tool for translation work of which I’m aware.

I love BibleWorks. Much easier than Logos for translation reference. Thankfully, I have BibleWorks 10, but I’m guessing it won’t work well after a few years. The technology will pass it by rather quickly.

This is a sad loss. Please pray for those who were employed and now are out of jobs.

It sounds like they plan on continuing compatibility updates for years to come. I hope that works out as I have two monitors on my desk and every day Bibleworks is on one and Logos on the other.

[TylerR]

I love BibleWorks. Much easier than Logos for translation reference. Thankfully, I have BibleWorks 10, but I’m guessing it won’t work well after a few years. The technology will pass it by rather quickly.

Hopefully this works this time… having internet issues.

I have a PIM software that ceased development in 1995. Still runs just fine. Use it everyday. (there have been some minor hiccups from time to time, but nothing that can’t be overcome)

I suspect that BW will continue to run for many decades to come, although it is a shame to see them go.

I hope you’re right. I’m mainly worried about comparability issues beyond Windows 10. But, I think I’ll probably be safe for years to come. However, the textual resources will become out of date eventually. For example, what happens when the new BDAG is released, or the NA-29 comes out? Then, BibleWorks will begin to lose it’s value.

Obviously some value will diminish in resources like this, but really, even for the scholar, how many significant changes will occur in the next thirty years? I still use Thayer with profit. He hasn’t been upgrading for a long time! The changes between editions of these resources are not quantum leaps.

For the pastor, I doubt there will be any significant diminishment in their life times. The more likely areas where difficulty will occur is in Windows development, but I think even that will have minimal effect for decades to come.

This is an opportunity for the folks who own Bibleworks to release the source code and allow community based development into the future.

[pvawter]

This is an opportunity for the folks who own Bibleworks to release the source code and allow community based development into the future.

That’s an interesting idea.

This is all so very familiar to those of us who were/are PC Study Bible users. I have a few thousand dollars invested in PCSB. They’ve never officially said they’re folding, but they stopped releasing new versions a few years ago.

I’ve been trying to switch to Logos as our church has graciously paid for accounts for each of the pastors and I am building my library. I know it’s much more powerful, but it’s SO cumbersome and counter-intuitive to use, even after watching most of the training videos. PCSB was so user-friendly that often I still use it for quick study work because I just don’t want to bother with navigating around Logos. (Not to mention speed issues with Logos, I had to upgrade my computers hard drive and RAM just so I didn’t have to wait forever to do basic searches in Logos. But it’s still hard to navigate.)

I feel terrible for the people who develop and support BW. I don’t have any Hebrew background, so it wasn’t really for me although it is light-years better than Logos in speed and ease of use.

Greg, what you are talking about with PC Study Bible has been my experience as well, and I rely much more heavily on eSword and now Olive Tree than I do for Logos. Both programs are much easier to work with and not nearly as slow and cumbersome as Logos is. I would encourage anyone getting started to look at those software packages first unless they want or need to go ‘all in’ for heavy textual or Biblical study. Accordance also looks very promising, and a lot of the major commentaries or books I want are also available for all of those platforms, and are usually cheaper to boot.

Logos is offering some solutions to BW users: https://blog.logos.com/2018/06/helping-bibleworks-users-transition/.