The year was about 1980. While I was taking a Hebrew class, and thinking about all the tedious memorization, I wished that I could load a dictionary/lexicon onto a computer. It would be so much faster and easier. It was expensive for a student in those days, but I had the necessary incentive to buy a small computer, a very small one. It was a handheld TRS 80. I think it had about 1.5k RAM and an interface for a cassette tape player. It had one line to program with. I succeeded in programming a very small lookup tool for Hebrew. I realized that computers work well with numbers. I put the Hebrew alphabet in a number system and used multiplication to devise words. So, it worked something like a number character multiplied by 10,000 took the first place, then times a thousand took the second, and the number itself took the thirdplace position. (Hebrew stems have three place characters.) I could load somewhere between 50 and 100 words and do a lookup. Thus, I learned programming in a very simple way.

A while later I heard my Hebrew professor say (I respected him very much) that he got a personal computer, an Apple. So, I also spent way too much money and bought an Apple IIe. Personal computing required a small fortune in those days but it was an exciting investment for many interested people. I remember reading, when this was happening about how it was as if all one had to do was to announce a new product in hardware or software and interested people would as much as throw money at them.

When I brought my new computer home I began programming. Once again, expenses were so high I couldn’t afford software and programmed my own applications. On the new home computer, as I sat down to work I was overwhelmed with having 24 lines on the screen to program with. One line is simple and a good teacher. After getting used to a bigger display I discovered that programming gave me a good sensation. I would try something and would receive an immediate response from the compiler with details of what was wrong. This intense feedback satisfied me, and I could program and learn to program for hours and hours. I learned basic. Tried machine language. Learned Paschal. And learned C. The man who owned the computer store I shopped at said that he had only heard the words C and Apple II together once. This was because I had a C compiler for my Apple II that I had upgraded to a II GS.

In those days I was sitting in the library at seminary. I loved what I heard about the martyr William Tyndale who translated the Greek New Testament (and much of the Hebrew Old Testament) into English. I was reading his New Testament translation and I thought how more people should be reading this. And thought then that I could do that, make a publication and edit it for modern reading. The New Testament I read there was out of print. I copied the entire volume, page for page, on a copier (except for the introductory material). That work alone required much time. Later I did the same for the Pentateuch. Then I typed them into my computer’s word processor. I typed every word, starting on the Apple II, then migrating to an IBM PC clone. Over the years I hand typed these two volumes at a rate of about a chapter per day. Also, in my secular work as a layman, I finally gained a position as a database programmer. Then at home, after many laptop upgrades for my personal computer over the years, and then after being laid off from work, I devoted myself to the publications. I wrote and rewrote applications to work with Tyndale’s text and the ancient biblical languages. That work is now in the finishing process.

This guide features verse by verse reference with a parsing of each term. It joins related terms and gives a better sense of the case of the phrase.

With this guide a beginner in Greek has the lexical resources all together at a glance.

Each short story is accompanied by an attendant article with a commentary, or with related items. Although the crude writing in the composition of the attendant articles is unartful, and the wisely written stories of Hawthorne’s is high art, this form of publication may correspond to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s own wishes that a common setting would compliment his collections of short stories.