Ben Chayyim (Hayyim) Hebrew Old Testament in Bible Software

As far as I know, SwordSearcher is the only Bible study software currently available that has the Ben Chayyim Hebrew Old Testament.  The Ben Chayyim text differs from others like the Westminster Leningrad Codex or the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia in that it much more closely represents the Hebrew text used by the King James Bible translators. The Ben Chayyim Masoretic text was essentially the de-facto Hebrew Bible for several hundred years before losing favor to the Ben Asher Masoretic text in modern scholarship. It is, basically, the “Received Text” of the Old Testament.

When studying original languages of the Bible it makes sense to combine the Textus Receptus Greek New Testament with Ben Chayyim’s Masoretic Old Testament, so I combined the two into a single TR module for SwordSearcher 6. It’s convenient to be able to switch seamlessly between the Hebrew OT and the Greek NT.

The SwordSearcher Hebrew text includes vowel points, and the Bible search function of the program allows you to search either with or without them.  So, for example, you could do a search for יהוה (the Tetragrammaton) in the SwordSearcher TR with the Consonant search option selected and get results including יְהוִה יְהוָה יְהוִֹה יֱהוִֹה. Might be useful to someone.

The Hebrew portion of the TR module should be considered a work in progress and feedback is welcome.

For comparison, the Westminster Leningrad Codex is also available for SwordSearcher.

Published by

2 thoughts on “Ben Chayyim (Hayyim) Hebrew Old Testament in Bible Software”

  1. Is there a way to reverse the text in the Ben Chayyim so it can be read right to left? why is the hebrew written left to right?

  2. The Hebrew language is read from right to left. Asking to read it from left to right would be like asking to read English from right to left. Technically possible, but hard to fathom…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *