Last year at this time we were, to a degree, getting used to the concept of electronic publishing. The approach to Electronic books (E-books) included STEP (Standard Template for Electronic Publishing), LLS (Logos Library System), Adobe Acrobat and other proprietary Bible study software programs. E-books are now fairly common and the number of titles available continues to grow at a rapid rate.

Bible study software has evolved far beyond the original concept of having the scripture text in electronic format. The CD-ROM has made it possible to package an enormous amount of study resources with a software program. This past year has seen high capacity hard drives become standard equipment on new computers, making downloading E-books from the Internet a viable way to deliver to product to the user. Accessing unlimited resources on the computer is now reality and the benefit for the busy pastor is more productivity in much less time.

The number of Bible-related software products to choose from is extensive. The challenge is to get past advertising claims and to the nitty-gritty of which software products best meet a Christian computer user's needs. The answer is not easy because the deciding factors vary from user to user. I want to try to shed some light on the subject and give a brief evaluation of a number of these products. Not every Bible-related software company submitted its product for review, but those who did are reviewed in this article.

Bible software models

To evaluate Bible related products and decide which one may best meet your needs you must have a handle on the various concepts or "models" that have evolved over the years. The models for Bible-study related programs, from my perspective, fall into three basic categories. These basic "models" have variations and hybrids of the others. The three "models" are:

- Bible-centered (hub & spoke)

- Viewer, engine, books (library)

- Study tools

The Bible-centered approach is where the "hub" is the biblical text and the "spokes" are the additional resources viewed through the hub. An example is Biblesoft; they view their PC Study Bible as Bible-centered.

The second approach involves using electronic publishing capabilities as a library and involves a viewer, a search engine and books. This is the basic concept in the Logos Library System (LLS). The LLS standard has been adopted by a number of book publishers.

The third concept is seeing your software as "study tools." Hermeneutika Computer Bible Research Software want users to know that BibleWorks 3.5 comes with an "electronic" tool-box with e-tools for use in serious Bible study. The GRAMCORD Institute has a long and distinguished history of producing e-tools for scholarly research.

Parsons' QuickVerse 5 and NavPress' WordSearch 5 are hybrids of the Bible-centric and Library models. With STEP as their common standard they (and a number of others) have developed an ever-growing number of E-books. Other companies using the STEP standard to produce E-books include Companion Bible Software, Zondervan Publishing, Rainbow Bible Publishers and Kirkbride Publishers.