Stuttgart Electronic Study Bible.

Stuttgart Electronic Study Bible (Deutsche Bibel Gesellschaft, 240 EURO; Libronix, $280). The German and Dutch Bible Societies have combined to produce this handsome computer-based electronic research aid (SESB) for students of the Bible who use the Windows operating system. One of its most distinctive features is that the critical apparatus for the Hebrew and Greek texts is provided in electronic format. Click on a hyperlink in the Hebrew Bible for example and you get the full textual note from Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, with Latin words spelled out fully, but not translated. The apparatus is also searchable. You can find the 812 occurrences where the apparatus refers to the Greek version of Symmachus! The font for the biblical texts themselves is the best I have seen in a computer program. A right mouse click on a Hebrew word parses the form and suggests a meaning (in English and German) and also facilitates a search on that word. A search on the word Elohim came up with 2,601 occurrences in 587 "articles" (articles here means chapters). A similar search in Bible Works came up with 2,602 occurrences in seventeen different forms. The WIVU database permits searches involving both morphology and syntax, at least for Genesis-2 Kings. SESB will do very complicated searches, but I also found the learning curve for using the program quite high. Once you search for a word, it appears in bright blue. Only two English versions are provided (NRSV and NIV), the most commonly used in churches today, but competitors offer many more options. RWK