March 11, 1999

LIBRARY / BIBLE CD-ROM SETS

An Old Friend, the Family Bible, Is Dressed Up

By ARI L. GOLDMAN
The family Bible holds a special place in the American home and imagination. In many families, it is an heirloom, passed from generation to generation. Whatever the edition (it's usually the King James) and whatever the language (it's usually English), the family Bible is considered the authentic Bible, the very word of God. The current owners might not even believe that, but they imagine that once, long ago, someone in the family did.



Marilynn K. Yee / The New York Times
Overview

• An Old Friend, the Family Bible, Is Dressed Up

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Sometimes an ancestor's thoughts about Scripture are scrawled in the book's margins. Perhaps some of the pages are worn or dogeared, maybe at a place an ancestor turned to for solace or encouragement. And often at the back of the Bible is a family genealogy, where the names, births and deaths of relatives are recorded.

Just about everything that the old family Bible provided can now be found in Bible CD-ROM boxed sets. The Bible software on the market is distinctly Christian and includes both the Old Testament and the New Testament. It should be noted that in some of the supporting material in a CD-ROM called the Complete Multimedia Bible, there are a few not-too-subtle put-downs of Judaism and Islam. (There are numerous CD-ROM's of sacred text aimed at the Jewish and Muslim markets, but they are not included in the following reviews.)

Electronic Bibles may not become treasured heirlooms, but truth be told, they can run circuits around the old family Bible. Instead of one version, the electronic Bibles provide a variety of classic and modern translations, in English as well as Greek, Latin, French, Spanish and Dutch. The reader can divide the computer screen into segments and view the various translations side by side. Bible commentaries, maps and dictionaries are instantly accessible to help decipher and explicate the text.

And if you don't want to do the reading yourself, the Multimedia Bible will read the text for you, in the sonorous tones of James Earl Jones. Other electronic Bibles provide video scenes of sacred places in the Holy Land, like the Garden of Gethsemane and the Jordan River. Yet others offer classic religious works of art, like Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and Leonardo's ""Last Supper."" Others include such inspirational music as Gregorian chant and Haydn.

Giving new meaning to the term family Bible, the new electronic sets also include collections of lavishly illustrated children's stories, like Noah's Ark and the Good Samaritan, and a host of religious games, including one called Name That Hymn.

Feeling sad or lonely? Need inspiration or advice? No need to thumb through pages. The electronic Bibles will suggest verses to turn to in times of need. One recommended verse is Psalms 34:4: ""I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.""

The Bible software even gives the user an opportunity to write commentary, keyed to particular chapters and verses. These can be saved with the King James Version and labeled -- as ""Joe's Bible Commentary,"" for example.

What's missing, of course, is the feel of a hefty leather-bound or clothbound book in your hand, a book with a musty smell and a sense of family history. Computer software can never compete on that level, but the new family Bibles might inspire some people to take the old book off the shelf for a new look.

Ari L. Goldman teaches journalism at Columbia University. His book ""Being Jewish"" is to be published by Simon & Schuster in the fall.




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