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When Will BibleWorks Include a Certain Bible Version I Want?
Author: KB Admin Reference Number: AA-02745 Views: 10584 Created: 2012-08-05 19:00 Last Updated: 2018-03-07 16:59 0 Rating/ Voters
We thank God that, by the instrumentality of His faithful servants, the Bible is being translated into more modern languages every day. From time to time, therefore, BibleWorks receives the question, When will BibleWorks include the X Bible Version?

As a matter of corporate policy, BibleWorks doesn't charge for the Scriptures. For BibleWorks to include a new version, therefore, there must be enough people willing to order copies of BibleWorks, because it includes that new version, to cover the costs of our including that version. There are two ways this coverage can happen:
1. By having many people interested in that new version; or
2. By having a very small, or zero, cost to BibleWorks of including the version.

We've reached a point where there aren't a great number of versions not now in BibleWorks that have many people interested in them (situation (1) above). There are some such versions, and BibleWorks is continually working on obtaining them. But, for most versions not now in BibleWorks, situation (2) is the best answer.

If a person, therefore, would like to see the X Bible version in BibleWorks, the best way to accomplish that is for that person to seek a royalty-free or nearly-royalty-free electronic text of the X Bible and to make BibleWorks aware (click here for instructions) of its availability. To locate a text on the Internet isn't enough, because BibleWorks isn't allowed to copy texts freely from the Internet and include them in BibleWorks, even if they are in a usable format. Further, it streamlines BibleWorks inclusion greatly if this low-or-no-royalty text can be made available to BibleWorks in BibleWorks format, described in the "Compiling Version Databases" section of the BibleWorks Help.

If a royalty-free electronic Bible text unobjectionable to the mainstream church is delivered to BibleWorks in BibleWorks format, that text will normally be included in BibleWorks for free Internet download to BibleWorks customers in a matter of weeks. The more obstacles there are, however, in obtaining low-royalty rights to use the text and/or in reformatting the text, the longer it will be until BibleWorks can include that version.

A person seeking a text, Biblical or extra-Biblical, should always check the list of customer-submitted BibleWorks-compatible add-on resources available at no cost to BibleWorks customers in the BibleWorks Blog.

A final note:
BibleWorks hasn't added many texts usually classified as “contemporary” versions. Some contemporary versions have versification schemes that make difficult or impossible the alignment with the Greek and Hebrew texts on which BibleWorks tools depend. Contemporary versions sometimes are less literal and thus poor bases for detailed original-language study.  Finally, and most importantly, in almost every case publishers of contemporary versions require a stiff royalty that BibleWorks customers would likely be unwilling to have transmitted to them in the form of higher BibleWorks prices.

Last updated: RRG/March 2, 2017