Today I’m at the Accordance Training Seminar at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. I have used the Accordance software on my Mac for the past 4 years and love it. The software has been an indispensable resource to me for personal study and for professional lesson preparation. I am very much looking forward to finding better and more useful ways to maximize my Accordance experience. Oh yeah… and this seminar is FREE! Woo-Hoo!

Check out the Accordance Software website for more information. If you have a Mac and are looking for the absolute best Bible program look no further.

Live Blog of the Seminar

9:12am: And… here… we… Go!
9:15am: Intro. from Mark Allison. Working with Accordance for 10 years.
9:17am: Latest version is 8.2.1. (I’m up-to-date!)
9:22am: In Accordance the Bible is central. Searching is also central.
9:32am: 4 seconds to search for every word in Bible (for given translation). Hit details and see a concordance for each translation.
9:37am: To amplify. Select/highlight a word in a given translation and choose a new translation or tool (Anchor/Eastons/Dictionary) to find the word in that selection. Super cool.
9:38am: This truly is Instant Access. Everything is linked to everything.
9:40am: Highlight “heavens.” Amplify it to the Hebrew dictionary to find the Hebrew word and definition
9:45am: Geek Out! Amplify “heaven” in a tagged text. Hold option key. Click search and perform an all out search for “shamayim”. Click details and see how “shamayim” is used throughout the text:heaven, sky, highest, etc.
9:50am: Just amplified search “phileo” with the NT range in my NASB. Includes love, kiss, loved. Interesting.
10:03am: Now… on to the Resource Pallette
10:10am: In Parallels you can add a Greek/Hebrew text to compare
10:20am: Each English tool has information under Browser and can be searched alphabetically… or you can just search.
10:21am: oooh… I can do this in my Greek/Hebrew dictionaries too.
10:30am: At break I updated my library to Premier 8 and added the ESV Study Bible. Sweet!
11:30am: Who would have thought I could use the search commands? I can search by Chapter, verse, sentence. I can search a word in one text and display it in another translation.
11:33am: COMPARE TEXTS!!! Wow!
11:37am: CMND Shift _____. Keyboard shortcuts for search commands.
11:45am: Fuzzy Search- you can kinda remember it but not really. Search FUZZY COMMAND and find phrase you were looking for. This will be great when I can’t remember anything but the MJFV- The Micheal J Felker Version.
11:50am: Inference Command. Look at things like similar or exact phrases found in different books. We searched for similar phrases in Micah and Isaiah. Example: compare Micah 4:2 to Isaiah 2:3.
12:15pm: That’s Lunch
1:45pm: Creating charts and graphs on the fly. Searching in 1Samuel of where Saul, David, and Jonathan overlap.
1:50pm: Creating a list of every word in a given translation. Search the entire text. Click details and then click analysis. Can display in alphabetical order or by frequency of use. Example: Inheritance is used 244 in the NASB.
1:59pm: Find all the Greek words you don’t want to memorize by searching in the Greek text by search range Count 1 to find all the words used only once in the Greek. Increase the Count # to see words that are used more frequently- those are the ones you want to memorize!
2:05pm: Ok, I don’t need to get this technical in the original languages. I set up my default windows. My TNIV and ESV are displayed with their respective notes. I have quick access to the Anchor Bible Dictionary. I also have some personal notes and commentaries opened and ready to go every time I launch.
3:20pm: Dozens of ways to search through my various resources. So much information.
3:40pm: I think I’m nearing my information saturation point for the day.
4:10pm: Alright. Great day. I got a ton of new resources and I learned how to use the ones I already had even more! Whew! I am going to be a teaching/learning machine!!! Thanks to the Accordance team for their help and insights today. I’m headed home to help my wife prepare for her dinner party tonight. Peace!