I have, for the most part, completely abandoned my paper bibles, finding them too cumbersome. I am really getting into the online Bible Gateway site, but even that doesn't have exactly what I need, and I don't always have the internet handy. I would like:
- Entire Bible in many English translations, as many or more than Bible Gateway.
- Original Greek and Hebrew with word definitions, similar to the Blue Letter Bible website.
- Complete cross-references, e.g., if Paul mentions any verse from the old testament, I want to be able to immediately go to that verse with one click.
- Keyword search, giving me all verses from Gen to Rev with that word.
- A good set of in-depth bible studies, time-lines, histories, character analyses, etc.
It would come on CD or DVD and be installable on my Windows XP netbook computer.
Can any of you bible scholars out there in AFF-land help a brother out?
Also, if you have any favorite Bible-related websites, I'd be interested in those as well. I mainly only go to Bible Gateway, and occasionally to Blue Letter Bible when I'm obsessed about a particular word or verse.
esword is my favorite. I use it all the time. It comes with KJV+, which has Strong's definitions and notes imbedded in the text. You can download other free Bible versions and study tools as well.
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"God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours."
--David Livingstone
"To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,
To see no possession but you may possess it—enjoying all without labor or purchase—
abstracting the feast, yet not abstracting one particle of it;…."
--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Song of the Open Road
I've decided eSword will be my starting point, in order to get familiar with an eBible. The free cost is an advantage, and if I just can't live without a certain translation, I can always buy it. The couple I've checked so far are only $15. If I decide I need to delve deeper, I'll look for something else with more features and a higher pricetag. BibleWorks seems like the most feature-rich and priciest one out there. But, I've only begun researching eBibles. Thanks again everyone.
I've decided eSword will be my starting point, in order to get familiar with an eBible. The free cost is an advantage, and if I just can't live without a certain translation, I can always buy it. The couple I've checked so far are only $15. If I decide I need to delve deeper, I'll look for something else with more features and a higher pricetag. BibleWorks seems like the most feature-rich and priciest one out there. But, I've only begun researching eBibles. Thanks again everyone.
Esword used to be fairly open source, in that anyone can create a mod for it. I dont know if that is still the case but they recently changed to a different data base and because of that all the third party mods won't work with the new verse.
This is why Im still using the old version. I have a lot of stuff that you can't just get from esword. Still, after downloading check to see if there are mods out there on the net that will work with it.
Ive purchased two premium mods for it. One is Zodhaites greek and hebrew lexicon. It's nice and much better to use than merely strongs as it gets into the different cases (accusative genitive etc), how it's used and examples of scriptures
I also got the premium version of the NET bible which comes with a little commentary on the greek
One nice, free, mod is the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. It's pretty big.
Try to get Vincents Word Studies to go along with Robertson's Word Pictures. Both get into the greek but are still considered commentary, not lexicons
__________________ Let it be understood that Apostolic Friends Forum is an Apostolic Forum.
Apostolic is defined on AFF as:
There is One God. This one God reveals Himself distinctly as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The Son is God himself in a human form or "God manifested in the flesh" (1Tim 3:16)
Every sinner must repent of their sins.
That Jesus name baptism is the only biblical mode of water baptism.
That the Holy Ghost is for today and is received by faith with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues.
The saint will go on to strive to live a holy life, pleasing to God.
I'm a big fan of PC Study Bible. The latest one has a lot of material and additions.
I forgot that one. Of the three I mentioned I like Logos Library because the packages you can get run from bible study, which includes nice tools for exegetical study and lots of commentary, to hard core language studies.
I started out with a language study package and upgraded to a leadership version. The leadership version has tons of ebooks on stuff ranging from marriage counseling to how to do small groups.
With Logos Library, it's essentially a sophisticated ebook reader with a deep search function. Nearly everything is linked. I also even have dead sea scrolls and other stuff.
PC study bible is more like Logos Library but the other one I mentioned is mostly for exegetical purposes and doesn't have a lot of commentary or other practical helps
Warning though, this is a huge huge HUGE program with a HUGE data base of material. It literally bogs down on my laptop, but it's a little older laptop too running Vista and I need more ram. It will run but I have to shut other stuff down and wait a while to load
__________________ Let it be understood that Apostolic Friends Forum is an Apostolic Forum.
Apostolic is defined on AFF as:
There is One God. This one God reveals Himself distinctly as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The Son is God himself in a human form or "God manifested in the flesh" (1Tim 3:16)
Every sinner must repent of their sins.
That Jesus name baptism is the only biblical mode of water baptism.
That the Holy Ghost is for today and is received by faith with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues.
The saint will go on to strive to live a holy life, pleasing to God.
Just a thought, I think the deeper one gets into others ideas the less we hear the actual voice of God. Man has made the word so hard to understand that one thinks he/she needs a PHD to understand the word. Hence it is easy to fall back under dictoral leadership as was under RCC for centries.
I see this same frame of mind coming into spirit filled churches, when the ministry must be held to a higher standard than the rest of the church. IE they cannot become too close with the saints, keeping thier fellowship only with other ministers etc.
Anyway getting back to the point. We do not need all those trappings, to understand the word, and the messaged within the word. It is only when trying to prove a man made point that one seems to delve into the greek meanings etc. In the last 20 years the greatest tool I have found to understand the word is an understanding of cultures, customs, and history of that day.
Which is why I like the esword, myself it has the basics to get me to passages quickly, it has the other materials avaliable if I want to down load them. or rather add them to my program.
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Study the word with and open heart For if you do, Truth Will Prevail
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