ὁ βλογος

Although students of the Bible have been doing it for centuries, I don’t think I would have succeeded in first-year Greek without the help of certain software. Below I have outlined some of that software in the hope that it might be a help to current students. All of the software outlined on this page is free.

Unicode

Although it is not actually software, but rather a standard for software, Unicode has eliminated the need for special fonts and other non-standard solutions when writing in other languages. You do not need to know what Unicode is, or how it works. If your computer is new enough that it still works, your operating system probably supports Unicode.

For a long time, even Bible scholars were forced to use “trick fonts” (fonts that replace a with α, b with β, and so on) when authoring documents containing Biblical languages. Many still use them. But what if someone wants to view your document who does not have the same font? What about sharing information on forums or websites where your editing is restricted to plain text only? Unicode solves that problem by assigning every character in every alphabet its own code. Having an entry for every character results in a much larger codebase, but larger hard drives and faster Internet connections have made this trade-off practical.

Dr. Rodney Decker maintains an excellent introduction page for Bible students interested in Unicode and how it can help them.

Anki

By far the most valuable piece of software I have found is Anki, a flash card program for Windows/Mac/Linux which schedules cards based on how easily you remember them. This means you spend less time reviewing easy words and more time learning new material. Flashcard sets are available from a number of sources, but I recommend creating your own flashcards. Such is how I learned to type in Greek, and it gave me a head start on learning each word.