Steve Ray’s New Discount Bible and Catholic Software
Steve’s Article “St. Jerome and Bible Software”
Following is a short description of the software I use and recommend — most of which you can buy on my store at the absolute best prices available. My goal is not so much to make money, but to help Catholics start using Software to study the Bible and Catholic History and Theology.
There is a lot going on with software — new products arriving and old products disappearing. For my money these are the best currently available. Logos Research Systems, Inc. Logos is on the cutting edge of Bible software technology. Their new Logos 3 is stupendous.
There are many packages available. Pick one of the Logos 3 products. Then, you can add thousands of books that can be purchased and incorporated into the program. Their web site is http://www.logos.com but Steve Ray’s store sells them at greatly reduced prices–the best prices available guaranteed.
Test Drive Logos, click here.
What about Catholic Resources for Logos?
Logos is Catholi-friendly and most of their reference works are very helpful for Catholics. They also have good Catholic material with more Catholic resources being added all the time. Once you buy a Logos package, you can then add the following Catholic translations and books:
- New American Bible
- New Jerusalem Bible
- Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition
- Collegeville Catholic Reference Library
- Early Church Fathers Catholic Edition (38 vol. set)
- Catholic Principles for Interpreting Scripture
- An Introductory Bibliography for the Study of Scripture (Catholic)
- Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church
- Ancient Christian Commentary (12 vol. set: Quotations from the Fathers)
- Apostolic Fathers in Greek & English
For Mac users: Check out the spectacular Bible and Catholic software designed for Mac, but in my experience is very ineffective with PCs. Visit www.AccordanceBible.com and check out their video demo. Logos will soon offer a Mac version. Check it out here.
For handheld users: Check out the cutting edge www.OliveTree.com. Though a Protestant product, it is very powerful and helpful for handhelds. I use it every day!
E-Bible by Nelson
This is a great program for those who want easy-to-use basics with a lower price tag. This package runs on the Logos (Libronix) platform, so I think you can add additional Logos books as you wish. Comes in Platinum, Discovery, Standard, and Delux versions — all under $100. See the product and the best prices here.
Logos really doesn’t any competition, but there are other Bible software programs. You can check out Bible Works ($299.99 discounted) which specializes in biblical languages but I don’t think it has anything Logos doesn’t have. The other programs can be seen and purchased at the lowest prices at BibleTheology. Other programs are cheaper but no comparison to Logos which is expandable as new e-books are published.
Logos Bible Atlas
I use the Logos Atlas almost every day. Another one you may want to check out here.
Free Bible Software that is downloaded from the internet. Seems to be a very nice program with many features and translations. Also Spanish and Dutch versions. No dictionaries, commentaries or other books — only the biblical text.You may also want to check out www.e-sword.net. Protestant sites but helpful for free Bible Study.
Steve Ray’s Store: Bible and Theology Discount Software (BibleTheology.com). Best prices anywhere and quick service.
Welcome to the Catholic Church, version 4
Version 4 is a vast improvement over version 3 with added documents and a useable menu. And now you can cut and paste — finally! It contains the the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Catechism of Trent, the Illustrated Catholic Bible, all Vatican II documents, The Way of the Lord Jesus by Grisez, The Sources of Catholic Dogma by Denzinger, Lives of the Saints, Fr. Hardon’s Catechism of the Catholic Church, maps of historic periods and places, Liturgical music, Catholic Church History, Daily cycle of readings, Chart of Church Structure, and hundreds of color illustrations and much more.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
There are two programs available that I know of, besides on-line Catechisms. First, Harmony Media has a Catechism. It has a good search engine and the Scriptural index which is very useful for Bible study. One great advantage: it also contains the Introduction to the Catechism and the Companion to the Catechism with all the source material.
Good news! Harmony Media now has the Catechism bundled with their Welcome to the Catholic Church, version 4 and it is now possible to cut and paste!
Text file of the Catechism can be downloaded from mobilegabriel.com.
Catholic Encyclopedia by Our Sunday Visitor — excellent and easy-to-use resource.
Church Documents (discontinued)
This program had over 100 Church documents including all of Vatican II, Documents of Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, and documents from congregations. This program had a nice search engine and I find it very useful. I just found out that the Daughters of St. Paul discontinued this product but you might still find it on EBay or somewhere else.
Ages Software presents the Ultimate Christian Library on one DVD loaded with Bibles, reference material, atlases, commentaries, dictionaries, and much more. It is truly an incredible library on one disk. It uses Adobe Acrobat as its format and it is mainly Protestant, but the Catholic will also find incredible resources — Bibles, Lexicons, Aquinas’s Summa, Church Fathers, Atlases, and much much more. Plus, this program is quite affordable for the over 1,000 resources it contains.
Lectionary for the Mass (by Liguori)
Teaching of John Paul II
Harmony Media has a CD with the teachings of JPII which you can buy at big discounts from BibleTheology.com.
Church Fathers
Harmoney House as the 38-volume set of the Apostolic, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers. It includes Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Eusebius, Augustine, Athanasius, John Chysostom, Basil, and many more. Excellent set.
Logos has the set with a top notch search engine, scripture hotlinks, etc. You can also see and purchase the set from Logos to work in the Logos system. You can purchase it in Catholic or Protestant editions. The difference is in the footnotes and comments.
Encyclopedia of Catholic History
Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine
The Heart of Catholicism
Published by Our Sunday Visitor. All very good, but I am not sure if they are still available. Contact them at Our Sunday Visitor, 200 Noll Plaza, Huntington, IN 46750. Visit their website at OSV, or contact them at osvbooks@osv.com.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Commentaries on the Gospels
The complete four volume Summa set is now available on CD. Includes Summa Theologica , Catena Aurea , Illustrated Catholic Bible , Summa Excursions , Audio Biographies.
Liguori Faithware Librarian
This product contains Catholic quotations, anecdotes and stories, including the Marian collection, the Preach and Teach collection with Liturgical cycle, saints, etc. Not sure it is still available but you can visit their site at www.ligouri.org.
The Collegeville Catholic Reference Library on CD-ROM
The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, The New Dictionary of Catholic Social Thought, The New Dictionary of Theology, Consecrated Phrases: A Latin Theological Dictionary and more.
The Documents of the Council of Trent
Excellent tool for only $25 from Catholic Software, PO Box 1914, Murray, KY 42071. Their phone is (502) 752-8198. They also have a boatload of other Catholic software, such as The Encyclopedia of Encyclicals, Douay Bible, Catholic Guide to the Internet, etc.
Butler’s Lives of the Saints
The complete four volume set is now available on CD. Contains The original Butler’s Lives of the Saints, Wisdom of the Saints, Lives of the Saints for Children, Church History, Historical timeline, The Saints and Us. Click here for their website and see their other software.
Catholic Encyclopedia (13 volumes)
This standard edition is available on-line or for purchase on CD. I have it installed on my harddrive and use it all the time.
Children’s Catechism
The completed two volumes arenow available on CD. Click here for their website and see their other software.
Inside the Vatican and Pathways through Jerusalem
These are both delightful interactive programs to “see” the Vatican and Jerusalem for yourself. Produced by Future Vision Multimedia.
Passover: The Exodus from Egypt
A great interactive game and learning resource. Produced by Danor Educational Entertainment as part of the Jewish Heritage Series.
Dove Booksellers & Software: Tremendous offering of scholarly software
Encyclopedia Judaica
The full 16-volume authoritative Encyclopedia of Jewish history, culture, and theology. 25,000 authoritative articles comprising more than 15 million words a powerful search engine a rich media gallery with pictures, audio and video recordings. The Encyclopaedia Judaica on CD-ROM unveils a treasure trove of information. Sold by Dove Books. Another source might be Davka Software, an excellent source for Jewish software.
Human Life International
Wanted to recommend a CD-Rom I have been using for the last two months. It is from Human Life International and you can read a little bit about it on their site, HLI.org on their bookstore page. Or just call their toll free phone 800-549-5433. It is hard to believe but for $40 you get: *Eleven versions of the Holy Bible (RSV, Latin Vulgate, KJV with Apocrypha, Douay-Rheims, etc.) Bible dictionaries, Greek New Testament, commentaries and concordances *130 books by the saints and modern Catholic authors *All four Baltimore Catechisms and St. Thomas Aquinas’ complete Summa Theologica *The complete Works of the Early Church Fathers (all 38 vols.) *More than 4,000 homilies of Pope John Paul II *All 288 encyclicals and the documents of all 16 major Councils *Many, many documents, quotes, and periodical articles on pro-life issues *More than 700 URL’s (Uniform Resource Locators) for pro-life, anti-life and research websites and there is still too much to list everything! I don’t work for HLI, but I think a resource like this is not getting enough attention. I’m not wealthy but have always wanted to have much of the Church writings that are included on that disc. Unfortunately, I have not had the several hundred dollars that it would cost to buy all those books and documents. But, $40? I can afford to buy a copy and give a couple of them away. Of course there is no search engine but, there is a file named CONTENTS.DOC that can be easily searched. It is MSWord and WordPerfect friendly. Cut and paste at will.
For the best Bible Study sites on the web, visit my Favorite Links page.
Wishlist for Catholic Bible Software by Vince Contreras
- NAB with footnotes
- RSV-CE with Navarre Bible Commentary
- Douay-Rhiems with Haydock-Challoner Commentary
- The Ignatius Study Bible Commentary
- The Catechism of the Catholic Church
- The Catechism of the Council of Trent
- Quotations of the Saints
- Early Church Father’s Commentaries
- Early Church Father’s Sermons
- The Baltimore Catechism
- Steve Ray’s Commentary on John’s Gospel
- The Jerome Biblical Commentary
- The Jerusalem Bible with Commentary
- Radio Replies 1-3 (or a contemporary equivalent)
Logos Libronix Software’s Dream List for a Future Software Program — Wow! Hopefully we can have this in a few years. Ignatius Press has just told me to pursue and partnership with Logos to produce such a product.
Bibles
New American Bible
The Catholic Study Bible
St. Jerome Bible
Revised Standard Version (Catholic)
New Revised Standard Bible
New Jerusalem Bible
Douay Rheims Bible
Latin Vulgate
Haydock Study Bible
Theology
Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas
Theology of the Body
Dictionaries
Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Dictionary, Peter M. Stravinskas (Editor)
Dictionary of Patron Saints’ Names
Dictionary of the Bible by John L. Mc Kenzie, S.J.
Catholic Encyclopedic Dictionary of Biblical Terms
Dictionary of Biblical Imagery Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, Tremper Longman
Catholic Dictionary by Donald Attwater
Encyclopedias
Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Encyclopedia (1 vol) by Rev. Peter M. Stravinskas,ed.
Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Catholic history
Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Catholic doctrine
The Catholic Almanac’s Guide to the Church
Commentaries
Navarre Bible
Rev. George Haydock (Haydock Study Bible/D-R in Bible section)
New Jerome Biblical Commentary
Ignatius Study Bible series
International Bible Commentary
Church Teaching
Teaching your Children (Catechesis)
Sources of Catholic Dogma (Denzinger)
The Way of the Lord Jesus
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd Edition)
Handbook of Catholic Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli
Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Dr. Ludwig Ott
Essentials of the faith : A Guide to the Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Sixteen Documents of Vatican II
Church Organization
Chart of Church Organization
Listings for all United States Dioceses
Ecclesiology: The Church of God (Bouyer)
Jesus, Peter and the Keys: A Scriptural Handbook on the Papacy
Mass and Sacraments
The Sacraments and Their Celebration
Liturgical Documents
Cycle of Readings (updated to new Lectionary)
Sacraments and their Celebration
Homilies of Pope John Paul II
Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite
The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist by Rev. James T. O’Connor
A Handbook of Catholic Sacramentals
The Encyclicals of John Paul II
Prayers and Spirituality
Catholic Prayers
Catholic Household Spirituality
Introduction to Spirituality (Bouyer)
My Daily Bread (Paone)
Catena Aurea (St. Thomas Aquinas)
Saints and History
Lives of the Saints (3 Volumes) (NOT Butlers)
Butler’s Lives of the Saints
Recently canonized Saints
Blessed Virgin Mary (Mersch S.J.)
Church History (2 Volumes)
Some Early Christian Fathers
Church Timeline
The General Councils: A History of the Twenty-One
Catholic Church History by Msgr. Eberhardt a two volume set
Miscellaneous
Lector’s Guide to Biblical Pronunciations: Updated
Logos Deluxe Maps
Other
The Catholic Encyclopedia (1908 version)
A Textual Concordance of the Holy Scriptures by Thomas David Williams (for Douay Rheim
Dahlgren and Rev. Mr. David Hess
Where We Got the Bible by Rev. Henry G. Graham
Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in the Early Church by Stephen K. Ray
Denzinger’s Sources of Catholic Dogma
The Faith of the Early Fathers by Jurgens
All Ecumenical Church Council Documents
The Church: Message of the Fathers of the Church ed. Thomas Halton
Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton
The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton
Imitation of Christ by Thomas A. Kempis
Wisdom of the Saints
Childen’s Book of Saints
Rule of St. Augustine.
Shorter and Longer Rules of St. Basil,
30 Novenas
Color illustrations
The Sources of Catholic Dogma
Church Documents: Nicea – Vatican 1
Cycle of Readings 1997-2006
The Roman Catechism (Council of Trent)
The Catholic Catechism (Hardon)
General Catechetical Directory (updated)
This Post Has 3 Comments
Steve –
Last year we started a high school youth group, “Veritas”. We outlined some things we wanted the kids to know but clearly toward the end of it we realized we needed some structure.
I recall listening to one of your CD’s and it mentioned a lady’s name that was re-writing Catechism studies. I believe the gist of your speech was that Catholic teaching of your people was insufficient. I am a product of that – I totally agree.
I do not want us to struggle with that again this year. Can you give me the name of that lady and/or her catechism study? I totally get what you are doing and want to share that same passion with our kids.
We live in the bible belt (Tyler, Texas) and struggle with our kids not knowing scripture well enough and as you suggest, are easy pickings or easily intimidated by their protestant friends. I do not want that for our kids. I want boldness!
Thank you for what you are doing and your help.
Albert Chabarria
Please advise before I purchase “Welcome to the Catholic Church, version 4 CD-ROM” can run on Windows 7 (64-bit) or is it for Windows 7 (32-bit) only?
Hello Philip
I looked on their website and it says Faith Database does work with Windows 7, but if you want the BEST Catholic and Bible Study Software, check out Verbum at http://www.Verbum.com/steveray
Albert,
while I don’t believe I have come across a rewriting of the catechism, A lady over at Our Lady of Good Council , Plymouth, MI has put together a powerful representation of this using primarily the works of Peter Kreeft and Fr. John Ricardo:
http://www.olgcparish.net/education/faith_resources.html
This is a recent addition to their resources, so I hope it might provide some help.