Bible Software on the Workbench of the Biblical Scholar: Assessment and Perspective

This article pursues two objectives. First, it tries to explain why Bible software is still not accepted as an indispensable tool for textual analysis. Second, it suggests that modern Hebrew databases can truly impact the analytic methodology of biblical scholars and help to verify and falsify interpretative suggestions. To achieve these two objectives, I will first describe the role Bible software plays in today’s scholarship. By contrasting the aids that Bible software offers with the analytic needs of biblical scholars, it is possible to show clearly what current electronic tools need if they are to play an essential methodological role in the analytic work of the scholar. The second part of the article will then illustrate, in some detail, what the Hebrew database of the Eep Talstra Centre of Bible and Computer (ETCBC) could offer today to the Old Testament scholar and how a future implementation into Bible software could deliver an electronic tool that becomes indispensable for Old Testament scholarship.