We wanted to see all the decent translations on one page in a simple interlinear format for word by word comparison.
We wanted to see all the decent Greek and Hebrew texts on one page in a simple interlinear format for the same reasons.
We wanted to see all the stems and parsings of the Greek and Hebrew texts on one page.
We wanted to look up all the best lexicons at the same time and have all the relevant entries displayed on one page.
We wanted the one page for all the 4 objectives above to be the same page.
We wanted to see at a glance, in an instant, all of the best information that mankind had about a bible verse.
At the start of this project our view was that the best Hebrew Lexicon was that of Benjamin Davidson (Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon), and the best Greek Lexicon of the New Testament was that of Bill Mounce (Analytical Greek Lexicon of the New Testament) and the best general Greek Lexicon was that of Liddell and Scott, and the best bible research software was that of BibleWorks4. The best Hebrew Interlinear was that of Kohlenberger, the NIV Interlinear Hebrew English Old Testament and the best Greek Interlinear Bible was the Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Watchtower Society. Indeed these were the tools that we used prior to 2012February14.
At the end of it we would add Gesenius' Lexicon and Thayers to the list above. But we reject entirely the lexicon of Brown Driver Biggs which is a naricistic exercise in pointless and gratuitous over-abbreviation which we spent days unabbreviating to reveal a book which translates Abimelek
(%l,m,ybia]) which plainly means [Father of King or Father-King - Gesenius] as [noun
proper masculine ( Melek ( = Malik , Molech ) is father ) - BDB]. This is rubbish. Melek is not the false God Molech. Furthermore BDB abbreviates God's name to either a yod
y or a J. This is an totally unacceptable insult to our creator. One letter for him and a million letters for the rest of their lexicon? BDB is supposed to be based upon Gesenius but the spirit of the two books could not be more different in our opinion. Ben Davidson's lexicon is based on that of Gesenius. We wholly recommend Gesenius but counsel against BDB.
There is so much valuable information in these out of copyright lexicons from the 1800 and 1900s. But they were massively abbreviated in those days in order to save paper. Today of course it is time we are short of, not virtual computer screen paper! So we have unabbreviated Gesenius and Thayer and
Strong's substantially. The electronic copies of many lexicons today are spaced out for easy reading rather than cheap paper printing! One has to be careful because the
abbreviation tables for each lexicon have many errors in them and one abbreviation such as gen. can mean several things when unabbreviated (genitive, generally) or conj. (conjunctively,
conjunction, conjugation) or part. (particle, participle) etc.
Strong's Lexicon although on occasion hardly any better than a couple of bible translations so thin being its entries, is still of value because Strong was an innovative chap in his day. He makes some interesting connections between words and has
good things to add to the mix. Strong's numbers are great for looking things up in books, but the new way is to click a link. So his great invention is now almost obsolete if your bible research software is designed correctly.
In general with most churches and most Lexicons and most bible translations, the holy spirit has worked with the people involved and so they all have a unique perspective to offer which together gives you the widest possible picture. But Satan is not asleep. There is always corruption and discernment needs to be used to avoid it.