Category: Christianity & Religion

My Mac Adventures: Addendum

As readers of this blog probably know, in 2005 I embarked on an ill-fated voyage to create a native Mac version of my Bible software. I was unable to complete my quest and disappointed several of my users who had already switched to Mac and were hoping I would be able to give them SwordSearcher on their own platform.

Well, nothing has changed with regard to development — I won’t be resuming work on the Mac version of SwordSearcher in the foreseeable future as all of the reasons I suspended work on that project still stand — but I received an email from a long-time SwordSearcher user who wanted to share his success at using SwordSearcher on his Mac with Crossover.  Here’s an excerpt:

“And I’m pleased to announce it WORKS! And it actually integrates so well, I wouldn’t even know I was using a mixed setup of Windows and Apple, they BOTH seem native mode in operation, and I use them at the same time.”

Complete details have been posted on the SwordSearcher Mac website.

Additional thought: do software compatibility layers like Crossover for Mac and WINE for Linux make native development irrelevant?

Well, certainly not irrelevant in every case.  But in my case, it certainly reduces the need to expend development energy targeting multiple platforms when Linux and Mac already have excellent “emulation” alternatives. (And yes, I know WINE is not an emulator!)  A single developer like myself, on a project as complex as SwordSearcher, is better off focusing on doing the best on Windows — where almost all the customers are — rather than trying to spend time writing multiple versions of the software, or worse, using cross-platform development tools that invariably result in a “lowest common denominator” feel for the application. And with WINE and Crossover Mac, a viable solution already exists that allows me to continue to focus my efforts on one platform.

Of Populsim, Envy, and Identity

The debate last night showed Edwards and Huckabee getting ready to try to win the presidency on typical class-warfare, envy politics. Edwards is the worst, but he’s only being honest about his goals where his Democrat counterparts are being quiet. But Huckabee isn’t much better. Both are running on the notion that the middle class is being oppressed and that the government needs to “balance” the economy and classes. Central to both of their campaigns is the tenet that the “rich are getting richer” while the poor and middle class pay the price.

However good that is for votes, it’s not reality. As George Will points out:

Economist Stephen Rose, defining the middle class as households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $100,000, says a smaller percentage of Americans are in that category than in 1979 — because the percentage of Americans earning more than $100,000 has doubled from 12 to 24, while the percentage earning less than $30,000 is unchanged. “So,” Rose says, “the entire ‘decline’ of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder.” Even as housing values declined in 2007, the net worth of households increased.

What I think both of these candidates have in common is the recognition that acknowledging prosperity for the country hurts them as politicians. After all, when you’re doing well and know it, who needs a politician to pick someone else’s pocket on your behalf?

Huckabee’s envy, populist politics is more insidious than Edwards’, though.  Whereas Edwards is simply a Marxist and easily identified as such, Huckabee is counting on his identity as a conservative Christian to really ratchet things up for his populist message. Huckabee is running on the platform that he should be the one to reform the federal government in order to facilitate “Christian Duty.”

Bruce Walker writes:

…as a Christian, Huckabee can be a witness to Christian behavior; he can exhort others to themselves become a witness to Christian behavior; but he cannot demand the enslavement of others to do those things which, as a Christian, he feels that he should do. The term “enslavement,” of course, is relative. Americans are comparatively free. But everything that Huckabee feels government should do requires a loss of freedom for every American. Moreover, Huckabee is not just asking for the greater enslavement of Christian Americans, but he is asking for the greater enslavement of all Americans. This is most un-Christian. Does my verdict sound extreme? Substitute “Rome” for “America” and substitute “publican” for “tax dollars.” […] Despite the ways in which Roman power could be used to improve the world, Christ never looked to Rome to bring paradise or earth or even to be the agent of doing good in this world.

Both Huckabee and Edwards share the same basic philosophy of government: use it to make everyone do what you think they should be doing.  Or to at least make everyone pay for those things.

What was really missing in last night’s debates, both Republican and Democrat, was a sense of individuality and freedom as the underpinning of what made our country great. The closest anyone came was Fred Thompson, but the fact is, I just don’t think many people are interested in hearing about personal responsibility (because that is what freedom means).

SwordSearcher 5.2 Released

A new version of SwordSearcher Bible Software is now available: version 5.2.

As I mentioned before, this new version adds “words of Christ in red letters” for the KJV, and also gives the ability to restrict a Bible search to just the words of Christ. The Deluxe study library also adds the following modules:

  • Morrish Bible Dictionary
  • Calvin’s Commentaries
  • Sketches of Jewish Social Life and The Temple: Its Ministry and Services

See the revision history for a complete list of new features.

Bible study spotlight: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (TSK in SwordSearcher) is probably one of the most important Bible study aids ever published. Many Bibles have cross-references in their margins, but these are typically anemic.  The TSK is like a Bible margin as wide as the Bible text column itself. I love this resource because it is all about interpreting Scripture with Scripture.  It does contain some commentary text, but that is limited, as the focus is on showing how words and phrases from each verse are used elsewhere in the Bible.

It’s part of SwordSearcher (shameless plug), but if you want a printed version, be sure to get the old (not newly revised) version. You might be able to find it at a bookstore, and it’s available used on Amazon for a few bucks. My Revell printing of the original TSK has ISBN number 0-8007-0324-3.

The Bible in Klingon?

Shakespeare is best in the original Klingon, as every Star Trek fan knows.  The Bible… not so much.

Joel Anderson has used a lexicon to “translate” the Bible into Klingon and compiled a SwordSearcher “Klingon Language Version.” Tranlsate is in quotes because as Joel says on his website, “It is useful for for entertainment value, not linguistic purity.”

Here’s John 3:16 in the KJV:

John 3:16 vaD  joH’a’  vaj loved the  qo’,  vetlh  ghaH  nobta’  Daj  wa’  je  neH  puqloD,  vetlh  ‘Iv  HartaH  Daq  ghaH should  ghobe’  chIlqu’,  ‘ach  ghaj eternal yIn.

Here you can see the difficulties of using a lexicon-based translation system (heh — lots of people try to do that with a Strong’s dictionary on a routine basis!). Should and eternal don’t seem to have corresponding entries in the English-Klingon lexicon.