Hi Brian,
The option to "Restore" a backup has been improved in the version of bibledit-gtk that is now in the git repository.
It gives better feedback about the process. The feedback that it gives is this: "Restart Bibledit-Gtk for the restore to take effect".
It works well on Linux.
If you wish, you can try installing it on a Mac, to see if it works well there too.
Regards,
Teus.