The Master Christian Library, Version 8 (CD-ROM)

AGES Software, Inc.

AGES has used the Adobe Acrobat system to create a searchable library of hundreds of works primarily for Bible study, church history, and theology in this two CD set. The KJV and AS Bibles are included as well as a few less-common translations such as Darby’s, Young’s Literal Bible Translation, and a Spanish version.

Among the commentaries are Clarke’s six-volume set, Calvin’s Commentary on Hebrews, and Matthew Henry’s Concise Whole Bible Commentary.

Reference and theological works include a Bible dictionary, word studies as well as specialized works such as Chesterton’s Heretics, Enchiridion by Augustine, a single-volume version of Josephus’s Works, The Works of Philo, and the Augsburg Confession by Melanchthon. Bible studies, maps, and works by Bunyan, Calvin (the complete Institutes), Luther, Moody, Finney, Spurgeon, Wesley, and many others reflect a fairly broad Protestant representation.

The collection is valuably broadened with the inclusion of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, the ten-volume Ante-Nicene Fathers, plus the 28-volumes of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers.

The CD will run on either Macintosh or Windows systems. The Acrobat program allows for single- or multi-volume searches by words, stems, or more complex strings. We can have a number of books open at a time, and a “librarian” in a sidebar makes it easy to move to a new resource.

This is not as sophisticated as some programs in search capabilities, but the number and quality of resources on this single CD is outstanding.