For several years now, I’ve been using the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) as my primary translation. At the risk of offering an overly simplistic evaluation, I find it offers good, readable English while still preserving much of the wording and structure of the underlying Greek and Hebrew.
Another thing I like about the HCSB is that, in addition to footnotes and cross-references, it includes relatively inconspicuous bullets in front of terms which are likely to need a little explanation. In the print editions, you can look up these bulleted terms in an alphabetized listing of “Bullet Notes,” but in Accordance, these bullets are automatically linked to the included HCSB Bullets module. Hover over one of these “magic bullets,” and you’ll see a brief explanation of the accompanying term in the Instant Details box.
For example, in yesterday’s post I wrote about reading Psalm 83 with my family. The superscription of that psalm says that it is a psalm of Asaph, and the name Asaph is bulleted. By hovering over the bullet, I get a quick reminder that Asaph was appointed by David “to oversee the music used in worship at the Temple” and that eleven other psalms are attributed to him.
Other bulleted terms in Psalm 83 include “Selah,” “Yahweh,” and “Most High.” In each case, the bullet notes are clear, concise, and extremely helpful.
Now, if you prefer another translation, you can always look up terms like these by triple-clicking them, or by selecting them and choosing a resource to consult in the Resource palette, or by right-clicking and choosing a resource from the contextual menu. Any of these methods will look up the selected word in the chosen resource. Still, it’s nice that the HCSB anticipates the terms you’re most likely to look up, and the “magic bullets” give you more info without even having to click.
The HCSB (and other English Bibles) are currently on sale for just $19.99, and a version of the HCSB tagged with Strong’s numbers can be purchased for just $39.99.
By the way, the HCSB was actually developed with the help of Accordance. To find out more about the contribution Accordance made to this translation, open the HCSB Notes module and search the English Content field for “Accordance.”