Most of us would like to have a good tool for studying, interpreting, and understanding the Bible. If you're one of those folks (like me), look no further. PC Study Bible Reference Library Plus for Windows probably has every important reference tool you'll ever need, and then some. Biblesoft has a real winner on their hands with this product.

Their are several different versions of PC Study Bible, depending on individual preferences. I reviewed version 2.1B of the Reference Library Plus on CD-ROM which contains the greatest number of reference texts, including the complete text of four Bible translations (King James, New International Version, New King James, and New American Standard); exhaustive concordances (for conducting word searches); annotations; Bible Reading Plan; Nelson's Bible Outlines (providing an overview of the contents of each Bible book); Bible maps (9); Nave's Topical Bible (containing over 100,000 Scripture passages cross referenced under nearly 20,000 Bible topics); Bible photo collection (156); Nelson's Bible Dictionary (with over 5,500 encyclopedia-like articles); The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (containing nearly one-million cross references attached to the key phrases in every Bible verse); Strong's Greek-Hebrew Dictionary with the New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers (providing a clear definition for every Greek and Hebrew word in the Bible); Englishman's Greek-Hebrew Concordance (helps you find every Bible verse that uses a specific Greek or Hebrew word of phrase); Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words (provides detailed discussions of major Bible words); Brown, Driver & Briggs' Hebrew Definitions (helps you to easily find and understand the meaning of the original Greek and Hebrew words); Thayer's Greek Definitions; Matthew Henry's Commentary (6 volumes unabridged, containing over 5,600 pages); International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (the complete five volume set of 3,100 pages containing over 8,000 articles); The New Unger's Bible Dictionary (1,392 pages of encyclopedia-like articles); and Interlinear Bible (displays a pronounceable transliterated Greek and Hebrew text and parallel KJV text listed underneath). This is a LOT of reference material and provides a solid basis for serious Bible study. If you don't need everything that this version offers, smaller versions are also available with the option to add-on modules as needed.

I had no problems with installation. If you have Windows 95 the CD-ROM will autoplay. I chose the minimal installation (about 7.6 MB) which only copies the program files to the hard drive and accesses the reference materials directly from the CD-ROM.

The 120-page User's Manual provides instructions for getting started in using PC Study Bible, describes each of the reference tools included with the product, and provides guidance on how you can use this product in your personal Bible study. Because of the Windows interface, I was able to jump right in and start using the program without even cracking the manual. If you know Windows, you'll have no problems learning how to use this product.

PC Study Bible makes it easy to compare various Bible translations side-by-side; this is really neat, for example, in comparing the King James Version to the New International Version. The various reference materials discussed above are readily available by clicking on the specific "button" on the application tool bar. "Fly-by hints" to remind you of what each button does will pop-up when you let the mouse cursor rest over a button for a short period of time. The cross-reference buttons for each application are similar to the main buttons, except that they are slightly smaller and they appear on a local tool bar rather than the main tool bar. Information from any of the references may be copied to the Windows clipboard for use in a word processing program.

PC Study Bible comes with a Bible Reading Plan, a separate program that can be used to schedule and track Bible study and/or reading. The Bible Reading Plan allows you to schedule reading or study for one or more books of the Bible and to track your progress as you work through your plan. Another nice feature of PC Study Bible is the capability to attach your own personal study notes to any Bible book, chapter, verse, or verse range. These notes can then be viewed directly below the Bible text in a "study note pane".

The quality and clarity of the graphics (both photos and maps) is uniformly excellent, and they do a good job in covering the important sites in the Holy Land. The 156 full-screen color photos of important sites and ruins of ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Israel enhance study of the Bible, and a full-color collection of nine important maps help you to quickly find map locations and related information.

And how does all this stuff work together? In a word, seamlessly. When studying a passage from one of the Bible translations, you can immediately link to the related topic in any one of the other reference works. This also works for the photos and maps included on the CD. This feature in PC Study Bible is undoubtedly the best cross-referencing tool I've ever seen in any software product, making it a joy to use. The online help is excellent and includes a tutorial to quickly get you started. Biblesoft maintains a phone number for technical support, and also has an Internet e-mail address (techsupp@biblesoft.com).

Bottom Line:  PC Study Bible contains many of the best Bible-related reference works available for exploring and understanding God's Word. The whole family can benefit from this program, and it's something you will never outgrow. For anyone interested in studying the Bible, PC Study Bible is a valuable reference tool and I highly recommend it.

System Tested On:  IBM-compatible PC with a 133Mhz Pentium; Windows 95; 64-bit PCI-bus video card; 32 Mb of RAM; 8x CD-ROM drive; mouse

Minimum System:  PC-compatible, MS-Windows 95 or MS-Windows 3.1 or higher, mouse, 10 MB free disk space (if you plan to run the whole thing from your hard disk, you?ll probably need about 80 MB available space), 2x CD-ROM drive [Note: processor speed not specified, but it will probably run fine on a 486/33]

The retail price for PC Study Bible Reference Library Plus is $249.95. Other available CD-ROM editions of PC Study Bible include New Reference Library ($149.95), Discovery Plus ($99.95), and Discovery Edition ($79.95). Biblesoft also carries a 3.5" disk version of each of these editions. Details of each of these products are available at http://www.biblesoft.com.

Biblesoft, 22014 7th Ave. So., Suite 105, Seattle, Washington  98198; phone (206) 824-8360