Accordance: Learning the Bible Again with An Elegant Software

My Accordance
Workspace

I started using the Bible software for Mac, Accordance, less than a month ago and I'm enjoying every minute of it. Here are at least five reasons.

Although as a kid I was very much interested in the Bible, studying as I did in a Catholic school, it was mainly the stories that attracted me early on - the stuff that's fascinatingly foreign and somewhat mythic. They still are great stories which no amount of scholarly narrative analyses can exhaust, but they were put to use in boring and predictable ways in school and Sunday masses. So I became disinterested.

But sixteen years ago, I saw a curious book with Greek text in a local bookstore. It turned out to be the UBS Greek New Testament. Here were words I wanted to decipher. Books on Greek were hard to come by where I live (they still are), and there was no Amazon then. So I scoured every bookstore I could find and that led me to books by guys with fancy-sounding names like Kittel, Blass, Debrunner, Funk, Moulton, Milligan, Bultmann, and to various commentaries, never-ending introductions (they're always introductions!) to biblical books, and a variety of Greek NT grammars. When I finally had the chance to travel, the path led to Attic Greek and to some items in the Loeb Classical Library, Smyth's grammar, the big Liddell-Scott-Jones and Plato. My affair with Greek was naturally intermittent, nonprofessional and rudimentary because I was in school (not a seminary) and involved in a lot of other personal matters. Then came a hiatus because I had to earn a living, and I had to teach as well. (In the Philippines, one cannot live by teaching alone.) The Bible took second place to other interests and I had to do a lot of work on computers.

Now I can work on my computer and study the Bible with such a first rate tool as Accordance for Mac. That's the first reason I like Accordance. It has brought me back to studying the bible. It also works on the PC using the Basilisk emulator.

The second reason is Accordance encourages learning because I can look at the texts with little distraction. It simplifies everything and acts like an organizer for me. Although I'm a fast reader, I have trouble looking for books that get misplaced or waylaid everywhere I go. Accordance brings the important texts together in one sleek interface that is a no-brainer to navigate. I've tried Libronix Digital Library interface (thru the E-bible, the same that Logos bible software uses) on PC and it looked cluttered. On the Mac, Quickverse, while simple, has an inadequate library for my interests. In Accordance, you can customize the display to the barest minimum, bringing up the pallettes only when you need them. The Instant Display panel at the bottom is surely a great help for someone whose Greek has gone rusty like me, displaying grammatical and lexical information in a very unobtrusive way without pop-ups. It enables me to recall a lot of forgotten grammar quickly. One thing I wish though is a contextual menu since I hide the palettes to maximize the reading space. And I like to believe I'm learning Hebrew as well with Accordance, my Page Kelley grammar and Holladay's concise printed version of HALOT (Hebrew-Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament). I can't afford the other modules just yet.

The third reason is, as a search tool for words and verses, Accordance is superb and fast. More complicated searching using the grammatical construct tool takes sometime getting used to but is very handy as well. The resources are tightly integrated. Triple clicking a word brings up your favorite dictionary. And the rest of the resouces are never two clicks away. The workspace can be navigated in tabs and can be saved for easy access later. I have separate saved workspaces for several purposes.

The fourth reason is I finally have the Anchor Bible Dictionary. It's a work I've been wanting to read for years but couldn't afford in print. Amazon won't ship it here and it won't fit my luggage either. How I wish the other works I have grown to like would be available and affordable as modules: BDF grammar, the big Kittel, and perhaps, wishing for the moon, works by famous and/or current authors including the popular or controversial ones. (I'm thinking of EP Sanders, Crossan, Borg, NT Wright, Ehrman, and the whole gamut of believers and agnostics). Even books on comparative religion or best-selling popularizations. If books can be downloadable ebooks, why not Accordance books offered at a price cheaper than the printed version? And Accordance modules happen to read well on screen; the fonts are easy on the eyes.

The fifth reason is Accordance resources, though not as extensive as the Logos catalog, do not seem limited to particular denominational persuasions. Nowadays, having an open mind is one small step to peace. Even if it's only one's peace of mind.

The only drawback of my fascination with Accordance is the cost of assembling the library I like to have. And for those of us who live outside the US, shipping surely adds to the cost. One wish is that there might be more downloadable modules. The cost of three modules at present can be equivalent to my one month's teaching salary. But I'm not complaining. Instead, I'm grateful for the ease of use and resources that Accordance gives me.