New To Verbum - Verbum Starter Library or Catholic Answers Library?

Patrick Fleischmann

I expect I'll be a very casual user of Verbum.  I've had Accordance for over a decade.  (I had Logos before that but at the time I moved from Windows to the Mac the only game in town for Mac Bible software was Accordance.)  I still like Accordance but recently discovered Logos had made the move to the Mac and had a LOT more specifically Catholic content than I was likely EVER going to see come to Accordance.  That said, I'm not one for Exegesis.  I'm not looking to prepare sermons or lead group Bible studies.  I'm just interested in being able to get a "prepackaged" Bible study such as they have over at Ascension Press and go through the readings with a commentary or two in sync.  Nothing fancy at all.  Doing it on the Mac or iPad is so much better in my opinion than sitting with a physical Ignatius Bible open and the Navarre Study Bible next to that and another Bible Atlas next to that and rustling pages in all of them as you try to go back and forth on the footnote references.  

My wife came into the Church when we were married from a Baptist faith tradition and the work of Keating and Hahn is very familiar to me as a result.   I certainly do not need anything more in terms of Verbum packages than their basic $300 Starter set - https://www.logos.com/product/81202/verbum-starter .  But in looking through the other books I stumbled on the Catholic Answers Library - https://www.logos.com/product/36325/catholic-answers-library which is less expensive at $240. This is different than the simpler Catholic Answers Collection and the Catholic Answers Collection Upgrade.

I'm interested in some advice/commentary on the better way to go for the initial library for my needs - the more generic Verbum Starter Library or the more focused Catholic Answers Library.  At first I was thinking the big deal with the Verbum Starter is the Features set over and above the Books.  At first I thought the Features were like enhancements to the software functionality.  But I'm now thinking they don't really change the Verbum software so much as provide additional resources the software can use but that just don't qualify as Books in their own right.  So they don't add more code to the software they just provide resources to the software I already have with the free Verbum basic.  I guess I'm now thinking the actual Verbum program is exactly the same no matter what Library you have.  

The Starter Library seems to be a "sampler platter" of every type of book and resource in the catalog.  But the Catholic Answers Library seems more focused and for somebody like me perhaps would provide more things I'd really use and less things that I'd rarely if ever need/utilize and just make the sales list longer to justify the "value" of the Starter Library.  Again, I'm a simple Catholic in the pew who might like to do a little Bible study.  I'm not going to get a degree in theology, have little interest in Hebrew or Greek  and don't expect to teach an RCIA class or lead a men's group.

Thoughts?

MJ. Smith

I would point you towards the Starter package because of its basic Church documents where you can get the real teaching rather than someone's interpretation of it. But then again, my parish used to wait for new encyclicals to be translated so our pastor could teach a 2-3 session class on them. Catholic Answers may meet your immediate needs but it allows less room for growth.

Average Joe

Patrick Fleischmann said:

 I guess I'm now thinking the actual Verbum program is exactly the same no matter what Library you have. 

This is true to an extent, but certain features are only really usable if you have the media sets to draw from when using the feature.

If you are truly only going to use it to read the Bible with commentary side-by-side, you could always just buy a Bible and a commentary and download the software (or app) for free. You won't be able to do a lot more than reading the Bible and commentary together, but if that's all you want to do anyway, then that would probably work for you.