Matthew Boffey
If you want to renew your love for Scripture, challenge yourself to grow spiritually, and revel in the awe-inspiring character of God, there’s no substitute for studying the Mind of the Church.
That’s why when we made Verbum 8, we challenged ourselves to make it easier than ever for you to experience the rewards of deep Catholic study. And that meant making the most complete overhaul of the software ever.
Here are just five ways Verbum 8 is easier to use—and lightning fast. To get the full story, check out everything that’s new in Verbum 8.
1. Step-by-step instructions are built right in
Lectio Divina has been a powerful form of contemplative prayer for over a thousand years. Although it’s a spiritually rewarding practice, knowing how to start and sustain it can be challenging.
With Verbum 8, you’ll never feel stranded.
Our team of biblical experts has captured the essential steps of lots of different study types—from Lectio Divina to homily prep to exegesis. All you have to do is enter the passage, topic, person, or word you need to study, and Verbum lays out every step to take. You’ll even get clear, thorough instructions.
And best of all, every book and tool you need along the way is right in Verbum. You can even create your own workflow to match your favorite study process.
2. Get to the book you need in a couple clicks
Verbum comes with a built-in library of digital books—so many that they can be hard to sort through.
In Verbum 8, we wanted to make it as easy as possible to find the right book for your study—even if you’re not sure exactly what you need.
For example, let’s say I’m studying the Church Fathers. I know I own several patristic collections, so I open up my library in Verbum 8, click on the “Church fathers” filter, then drill down to the particular resource I need.
Ordinarily, I’d head straight for the books from the Ante-Nicene Fathers collection, but as I scan the subjects, I notice something.
That’s right: there are two patristic volumes of systematic theology. My Verbum package is full of so many great books, I might not have realized that. But because of the way we’ve cleanly organized everything in Verbum 8, I’m able to find these hidden gems.
It’s like browsing a digital bookshelf sorted by subject and author—but way, way faster.
3. Start your study with a click
Mere seconds after launching Verbum 8, you’ll be in the thick of Bible study. The new Home Page lays out your favorite tools and books for easy access.
If you start a Workflow, it’s ready and waiting the next time you open Verbum, so you can jump in where you left off. And of course, you can customize what you see by dragging, dropping, adding, and deleting cards. This is perfect for having your reading plan, workflows, prayer list, and sermon doc ready to go at a moment’s notice.
4. Find your notes in a flash
Capturing your insights is an essential part of in-depth Catholic study. But what good are those notes if you can’t find them right when you need them?
We want to make that easier on you.
We’ve completely rethought Notes inside Verbum—and all the ones you’ve made are already waiting for you in Verbum 8.
Verbum automatically tags any note with the book title, date, Bible reference, Greek or Hebrew lemma, or other important data. That means your note is ready and waiting the next time you need it.
You can collect all your notes on a subject into a Notebook—for example, a notebook dedicated to “Pope Benedict XVI on Christology” or “Theology of the Body.” Or just add a few tags to quickly categorize your notes.
And it’s really easy to find your notes. You just click on a few links to drill down to the note you need. Sort all your notes by books of the Bible, original language lemmas, and other metadata.
5. Search up to 10x faster—and way more easily
Ever since we released Verbum 7, we’ve been dramatically increasing search speeds. And as of the release of Verbum 8, searching your library is now up to 10 times faster than Verbum 7!
But the real speed improvements come with the big changes we made to the entire searching process.
Verbum has always been awesome for pinpointing specific information in Scripture. In the past, this has required using very precise search syntax—specific words, phrases, and characters that bring up the right results.
With Verbum 8, we’ve introduced Search Templates. And this opens up the power of searching to anybody.
If you can fill out a form, you can search with Verbum.
For example, let’s say you want to find everywhere Jesus spoke about Jerusalem. As you probably know from experience, earlier versions of Verbum required you to enter the following search syntax:
{Speaker <Person Jesus>} INTERSECTS Jerusalem
But in Verbum 8, you just choose the Search Template “A Person Speaks about Something” and fill out this little form:
And that’s just one example. There are plenty of other search templates to choose from—and many are based on the original Greek and Hebrew. Whether you’re brand new to Verbum or are a power user, you’ll love how much time this new feature will save you.
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There are lots of other ways we’re making Bible study easier than ever with Verbum 8. See everything that’s new.
Kevin Clemens
Verbum