The Essential IVP Reference Collection: The Complete Electronic Bible Study Resource [CD-ROM]

Book Description

Publication Date: December 5, 2003

The best scholarship. The most up-to-date information. Useful. Fascinating. Easy. Now for the Macintosh using the Accordance system from OakTree Software. Other CD-ROM reference libraries today make you pay for dozens of out-of-date, public domain books that do not give you the best and most recent scholarship--the timely and reliable information you want and need. By contrast, The Essential IVP Reference Collection includes only work from the best of today's biblical and theological scholars. You'll have instant access to IVP's award-winning New Testament dictionary series (Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments, Dictionary of New Testament Background), the immensely popular Bible background commentaries (IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament), and the New Bible Dictionary and New Bible Commentary, which have set the standard for Bible reference books for over a generation. And that's just the beginning! Does a particular verse trouble you? Hard Sayings of the Bible gives in-depth explanations of over 500 of the most difficult passages in the Old and New Testaments. Are you interested in the meaning of recurring images in Scripture? The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery will aid your exploration of the themes, metaphors, imagery and patterns of Scripture. New Bible Atlas, New Dictionary of Biblical Theology and New Dictionary of Theology will help round out your study of the places, peoples, interpretations and implications of biblical teaching. Finally, four convenient "pocket" dictionaries offer a quick-reference resource covering biblical studies, the study of New Testament Greek, theological terms, and apologetics and the philosophy of religion. On this single CD for the Macintosh you'll find

• over a dozen of IVP's award-winning reference books
• the equivalent of over 12,000 pages of printed material
• over 10 million words of the most up-to-date information on the Bible, Bible history, cultural background and theology
• the authoritative work of hundreds of today's leading biblical and theological scholars from all over the world
• a money-saving package that includes the equivalent of over $450 worth of printed books
• easy-to-use software that will have you up and going in minutes
• a free KJV Bible
• complete user's manual included right on the CD-ROM for easy access
• every book interconnected to work as a single reference source

This exclusive collection includes works you'll find nowhere else on CD-ROM, including many published during 2000-2002. The Essential IVP Reference Collection is ideal for pastors, scholars, students, Sunday school teachers and anyone who is serious about studying the Bible! System requirements: Macintosh System 7.1 to OS X (Not compatible with OSX Lion). (or PC with Macintosh Emulator). Runs on Accordance software from OakTree.

Product Details

• CD-ROM
• Publisher: IVP Academic (December 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830824758
• ISBN-13: 978-0830824755
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,526,780 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Before you purchase, read this., December 16, 2011

By 

Kariba (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Essential IVP Reference Collection: The Complete Electronic Bible Study Resource (CD-ROM)

There are two elements to this package -- the contents of the books from IVP and the software from Oak Tree which is necessary to read the books.

The books are a good collection of reference works, written from a generally conservative, evangelical position. I have no complaints about them and the price for the electronic version compared with the print version, makes this a good deal.

The software from Oak Tree is another matter. The version Amazon is selling has Accordance v.6, which does not run with the latest Mac OS Lion. However, even if you're running an earlier version of OS X, you may have problems with font corruption. Currently 4 of 14 of the modules (books) on my computer suffer from this, meaning that the headwords in the dictionary are a collection of random letters. This is a known issue and Oak Tree has a program that's supposed to fix it on their website. I ran it and still had font corruption. I manually went through my fonts, removing duplicates and reinstalled the software. Still font corruption.

I contacted Oak Tree and their "helpful" suggestion was that I purchase the latest version of their software for $69 or repurchase the whole IVP Reference Collection from their site. Oak Tree sells the IVP Reference Collection with the latest version of their software. Given that all I want to do is be able to access the books I purchased, I don't see why I should have to upgrade my software or re-purchase my books.

Blame here lies with both IVP (for selling a package with outdated software) and Oak Tree for sticking it to customers who are caught by a problem with their software. My rating for the package is one star because of the software, without which the contents are useless.

In summary, while I can recommend the content of the package, I can't recommend purchasing it because of unresolved software issues. It also serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of purchasing e-books that depend on proprietary software for you to access them. If it's not a PDF, you may find yourself in the position I'm in now, a few years down the road.