Accordance is Bible Study Software for Macintosh developed by OakTree Software, Inc.

As well as a standalone program, it is the base software packaged by Zondervan in their Bible Study suites for Macintosh Although Accordance has been written exclusively for the Mac OS, it also runs on PCs using the Basilisk II emulator.

The program is sold for private use and academic study. The translators of the Holman Christian Standard Bible, completed in 2004, used it for word studies, comparisons and instant searches. Commenting on the use of Accordance, the HCSB's editor Ed Blum said, "This project used far more computerization than anyone else has ever been able to do.

OakTree Software

OakTree Software, Inc. is based in Altamonte Springs, Florida, USA. The company has focused on areas of special interest, particularly the study of Biblical texts.

OakTree Software claims three specific goals:

• Offering innovative and powerful features which cannot be found anywhere else
• Providing the most intuitive, elegant, and easy-to-use interface possible
• Providing a wide range of useful resources like texts, dictionaries, & commentaries, for Bible study.

Program history

Roy Brown, OakTree Software's president and application developer, created one of the first Bible programs available for the Macintosh, known as ThePerfectWord, in 1988. ThePerfectWord was later bought by another company and renamed MacBible. By the early 1990s there were a number of good general Bible study programs for the Mac. However, Brown saw the need for a new program which would make it easy to engage in more sophisticated kinds of Bible study, enabling scholars and pastors to do in-depth analysis of the original Greek and Hebrew texts of the Bible. Accordance 1.0 was released in February 1994, and welcomed for its power and ease of use.

A version of Accordance 5.0 rewritten to run natively under Mac OS X was released at the start of 2002. The company has continued to add and improve features, such as the native Quartz rendering system. The latest version 8.x was released in May 2008 and introduced a universal binary for Intel-based Macs.

Modules available

The program is centered on the Biblical text, but has many additional texts. There are many optional modules, detailed study tools for the original Hebrew and Greek, commentaries and reference dictionaries.

Some modules available include:

• Mishnah, Targums, Pseudepigrapha, Josephus and early Christian writings such as the Didache
• Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia with the Groves-Wheeler Westminster Hebrew Morphology
• Louw & Nida Semantic Domain Lexicon
• GNT Robinson Byzantine
• Dead Sea Scrolls
• Bible Atlas
• Bible Lands Photo Guide

Although the product has many modules, purchasing is simplified by packaging these into standard bundles e.g. Starter Package, Library 7, Scholar's Core Bundle, Jewish collection and Catholic collection

External links

• Accordance Home
• Accordance Blog
• Accordance Forums
• Accordance Exchange (unofficial forum)

Reviews

• Review of Accordance 6 by the Society of Biblical Literature
• Premier Bible Software – A Comparative Overview at Bible Software Review
• Bible Study Software at Christian Macintosh User Group
• Accordance 5.5c review in Macworld
• Independent reviews listed on Accordance site

References