Review of Verbum 10

INTRODUCTION

By Rev. John P. Cush, STD

When I published my first book, The How-to-Book of Catholic Theology (Our Sunday Visitor Press, 2020), I was asked to schedule an interview with Mr. T.L. Putnam, who ran a weekly radio program entitled “Outside the Walls.” Through this interview, I found Mr. Putnam to be a fine interviewer, a thoughtful and intelligent interlocutor, and a genuinely good Catholic young man.

In 2023, at the Academy of Catholic Theology, which was held at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.. I once again encountered Mr. Putnam, this time in person. Then, very soon after that, at the convention of the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors, held that year in Huntington, New York, at the former Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, I met Mr. Putnam again. By this time, I was able to recognize Mr. Putnam by his shorn pate, trimmed beard, bow-tie, and wonderfully welcoming personality.

After being offered a pair of Saint Jerome socks, Mr. Putnam made me (and, by extension, HPR) an offer for an article. He was also involved in Verbum, a program which offers scriptural, theological, and spiritual resources to subscribers. I have to admit that I was somewhat familiar with Verbum, but, to be honest, I had never used the program, as my field of study is fundamental and dogmatic theology and having earned my doctorate in theology at the Gregorian University in Rome. My associate editor, Sister Mary Micaela Hoffmann, RSM, who earned her license in Sacred Scripture (which is one of the most difficult degrees to obtain in the Pontifical universities), was a bit more familiar with Verbum.

Mr. Putnam asked me if I would be willing to ask a busy pastor to consider using Verbum for a period of time and to do a review of it. I stipulated that this would not be an endorsement by HPR or Ignatius Press of this app, but that I would be grateful to Mr. Putnam if he would supply a busy pastor with access to the Verbum software with the hope that a pastor with a parish or two would review how helpful (or not) he found Verbum in his parochial ministry.

It took me no time at all to think of the pastor whom I would ask, namely Fr. Peter Heasley, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, HPR’s current host diocese, the Archdiocese of New York. Fr. Heasley is pastor of pastor of Corpus Christi and Notre Dame parishes in Manhattan. He holds a doctorate in biblical theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University and he also is an adjunct professor of biblical theology at Saint Joseph’s Seminary and College in the Archdiocese of New York.

Below, please find Fr. Heasley’s review as a pastor and a biblical theologian of the Verbum software. I am very grateful to Mr. Putnam for allowing us to examine Verbum and to Fr. Heasley for his review.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Rev. John P. Cush, STD

Editor-in-Chief, Homiletic and Pastoral Review

Professor of Dogmatic and Fundamental Theology, Saint Joseph’s Seminary and College, NY

Review of Verbum 10 (Version 31.3.32) by Faithlife, LLC

By Rev. Peter A. Heasley, S.Th.D.

Verbum is the Catholic incarnation of Logos Bible Software, a digital library application for Bible study that has been on the market for over thirty years. It brings together vast troves of scholarly, homiletic, and pastoral resources, from critical editions of the Masoretic Text and Septuagint of the Old Testament, through patristic and medieval commentaries, to twenty-first century criticism, all in a searchable format. In fact, Bible passages are cross-linked to their mention or allusion in the available books — a preacher could easily find many sources of inspiration at the click of a mouse. The foundation of this library is a user-friendly and customizable interface full of templates for building homilies, Bible study sessions, and even personal reading plans.

Access to this virtual Alexandria comes through six specialized “tracks” — with focused helps for Eastern Catholics, Spanish speakers, and advanced scholars (Verbum Biblicum) — though most users will likely choose among the eight price packages available in the standard Verbum track (from “Fundamentals” and “Starter” to “Diamond” and “Portfolio”). For this review, Faithlife has given me a trial period of their Gold package and an hour of one-on-one orientation. I have also watched over an hour of helpful instructional videos available, for free, on YouTube.

I have used the mid-level Gold package, over the course of a month, for Sunday and daily Mass homily preparation, an intensive Bible study series, and scholarly work on patristic interpretation of the Psalms and Gospels. For homiletic preparation, I am able to bring up a Scripture passage in one of the many Bible translations or Lectionaries available. Side-by-side with this is a Passage Guide, which provides links to commentaries in my digital library, to the passage’s use in the liturgy, to cross–references in the Bible, to patristic and modern sermons and commentary, and to thematic guides curated by Verbum. Digging deeper, if I click on the word “rock” in Psalm 18:31, for instance, a Factbook comes up with archaeological information on use of the word in ancient Israel (pictures included) and links to other Bible verses with the word “rock.” With these and other helps laid out on my screen, I can start a new homily document within Verbum itself, complete with topical headings and a timer.

The Gold level has been most useful for the parish-level Bible study. I do not shy away from giving my parishioners a little Greek and Hebrew, and I have made use of interlinear texts for passages with which I am less familiar. In an interlinear, I can choose to see transliterations, lemmas (root words), and Strong’s Concordance numbers, among other options. The software parses the word for me and if I click on “rock” again, another pane reveals theological dictionaries and Hebrew lexicons. When I copy and paste any of this into my word processor, Verbum generates a footnote in my target document.

Scholarly work begins to strain the system at the Gold level. I can read Augustine’s complete commentary on the psalms, but there are many patristic references available only for additional purchase. Standard references for critical treatment of the biblical texts, like the BHS or NA28, are only available in the pricier Diamond and Portfolio packages.

There are many Verbum packages available, and it may not be easy to discern how best to invest in Verbum. As a professor of Scripture, I like to pass on the advice given to me during my studies, and warn students against using software that parses original-language words for them (one of my professors once called another, now defunct Bible software the “greatest program for never learning Hebrew”). When solid learning habits take hold in a student, he or she may tend to hold onto a few valued resources. This may not be the case with everybody, and as I continue to lose wall, floor, and table space to my own multiplying print library (a collection a young priest may expect to schlep to a new assignment every few years), an all-inclusive digital version becomes tempting. I can also foresee a student, preacher, or teacher overwhelmed by too much information, and lost, at least for a time, in Verbum’s seemingly endless array of tools and resources. Without practical guidance from the outside, one might not know how to weigh what information is really useful or to put patristic works in their proper context. Verbum includes textbooks for Hebrew and Greek, but no number of grammars stack up against a good teacher.

That said, Catholic preachers, theologians, and educators must become more comfortable with Scripture, and Verbum 10 — with its wealth of lexical aids, thematic guides, and patristic and modern commentary — may be the best resource for ongoing engagement by the initiated with the enduring word of God.