Bible Explorer

Bible, Yes, Explorer, No

A Review of Bible Explorer

Ron Enderland

It’s a shame that everybody has a Bible, but not too many folks bother to

open it up. The

fact that it is widely available in digital form is encouraging, but once

again the initial

problem remains. Nobody actually reads it!

Bible Explorer is one offering that is out there that provides the Book of

books to computer

users. And, the fact is, it does offer a complete King James version on a CD

ROM for a

reasonable price. There are also a large selection of paintings, sound clips

of scriptural

readings, decent video that dramatizes Jesus’ life, and various commentaries

on the Bible.

Problems begin to arise, however.

For instance, the choice of paintings is good, but, often, the image quality

is not. There are

a few paintings that did translate well to disk. Fortunately, Michelangelo’s

Sistine Chapel

works look very nice. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by numerous other

classics that

looked blurry and smeared.

In addition, the authors seem to have a hard time with dates for biblical

events.

For example, on Biblical Timeline, the following dates are given:

“Jesus is born in Bethlehem-A.D. 4″

“Jesus begins his ministry-A.D. 26″

Note what Grolier’s Multimedia Encyclopedia has to say regarding these dates:

“The

dating of Jesus’ birth [is] toward the end of the reign of Herod the Great

(died 4 B.C.).”

“Jesus, or Jeshua ben Joseph, as he was known to his contemporaries, was a

Jew who

appeared as a prophet, a teacher, and a sage in Palestine about AD 30.”

What is ironic here is that the encyclopedia, which does not claim to be a

biblical

authority, is reasonably close to the Bible’s claim (at Luke 3:23) that

“Jesus himself began

to be about thirty years of age” when he was baptized. This also agrees with

the early

Jewish concept of a man starting out on a major mission at the onset of

adulthood, which

was held to be thirty years of age.

Bible Explorer, however, would have Jesus baptized at the age of twenty or

twenty-one.

This certainly doesn’t agree with the book that it claims to explore.

The maps that are featured are interesting, but many are of very little

practical value. The

sad fact is, you just can’t read the printed words on them! In addition,

there could have been some explanation of what the individual maps’ purposes

and specific uses were. I’m still scratching my head over what is meant by

“Empire of David and Adam.”

The access to the scriptures leaves much to be desired. Let’s say you wanted

to read the

150th Psalm. You could either hit “go to next chapter” 150 times, or open the

index screen, click “Psalms” as the search book, then type “psalm 150″ in the

search box. It would have been a relatively simple programming change to give

the user a chapter list to pick from when each book is accessed.

To sum up, in my opinion, the program simply doesn’t do justice to the great

work that is

The Bible.

School House Scorecard

Product:	Bible Explorer
Company:	Expert Software 800 Douglas Road Coral Gables, FL 33134 Phone: 305-567-9990 Express Fax: 305-569-1111

Cost:

$14.95

386 SX or higher computer,
Windows 3.1, enhanced mode,
Mouse, 8 MB free hard disk space,
4 MB RAM (8 MB recommended),
Printer (installed under Windows 3.1),
8 bit or higher Sound Blaster compatible sound card,
MPC compatible CD ROM drive and
256 color video display.