Accordance is a Bible study program for Apple Macintosh and iPhone, and now Windows and Android, developed by OakTree Software, Inc. Reviewers consider it a premium program. Although originally written exclusively for the Mac OS, Accordance was then released in a Windows-native version, although it was available prior to this by using the Basilisk II emulator. Since 2018 there has also been an Accordance app for Android. The program is used for both private 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. Version 8 was released in May 2008 and introduced a universal binary for Intel-based Macs. Version 9 was released in September 2010, version 10 in 2012, version 11 in 2014 and version 12 in 2016. Version 12 also saw a complete refreshing of the packages available, where, apart from individual modules, users must purchase collections from a specialized stream. Accordance for iOS was released on December 30, 2010 as a free app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. After running through an emulator for many years, 2013 saw Accordance released as Windows-native software, with upgrades and updates generally running in parallel with the Mac software. After a beta in 2017, Accordance for Android was released in early 2018.
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, with a unique cross-reference system to interconnect the Biblical text with entire libraries of ancient extra-biblical material . Some modules available include:
