Bible Study and Research Online Resources

Recently, a friend sent me some information that another friend had sent him. These resources are available worldwide and are free, so I thought I would pass on the information.

I wanted to bring to your attention a few free online tools. Feel free to pass this information on to others. They seem great not just for company folks but for the local believers who might want to use these free online tools. (Bob A: I found a few African language Bibles available for the SWORD project. It appears that the other programs are able to use SWORD modules. Here are the African languages I recognized: Afrikaans, Malagasy, Ndebele, Shona, Swahili NT. For Trekkies, there's even a Klingon translation.)

They take some tinkering with, but they're fairly straight forward. (Bob A: This is according to the person who sent this out — I haven't tried any of these.) These resources are open sources and free. They're not only good for people like us who want to study the local-language Bible, they've got all kinds of Bible languages resources (commentaries, GK-Heb tools, etc). They can also be handy tools that a local believer with a computer can use (without all of the pirating that typically goes on with printed resources). And, it's all free (good news for people inclined to use poverty as an excuse for pirating).

While these are good supplements for paid-for programs like Logos or Quick Verse, they won't interface with those tools.

In each of these four programs (BibleTime, SWORD Project, Eloquent/MacSword, BPBible), you can add almost any language Bible along with other books.

Here's a brief overview of each program:

• BibleTime. (Can use parallel Bibles including English) — Available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
• http://blog.bibletime.info/en/download
•  Multiple foreign language Bibles also.
•  Many other English biblical resources (including some foreign language Bible commentaries).

• SWORD Project. (Can use parallel Bibles including English) — Available for Windows only
• http://www.crosswire.org/sword/modules/moduleinstall.jsp
• Multiple foreign language Bibles also.
•  Many other English biblical resources (including some foreign language Bible commentaries).

• Eloquent Bible Study a.k.a. MacSword (Can use parallel Bibles including English) — Mac OS X implementation of the SWORD Project
• http://www.macsword.com
• Multiple foreign language Bibles
• Other English biblical resources and some foreign language Bible commentaries

• BPBible. (Interfaces with sources from SWORD Project) — Available for Windows. For Mac OS X implementation, see the FAQ page but this requires compiling the source code, not something for the faint of heart.
• http://bpbible.com
• Multiple foreign language Bibles also.
• Many other English biblical resources (including some foreign language Bible commentaries).

• Zotero: (not Bible related; bibliographic collector, organizer, and citation tool) – Plugin for Firefox, Word, LibreOffice or standalone application for Mac OS X that works in conjunction with Safari, Chrome, Firefox
• http://www.zotero.org
• Zotero is for researchers and writers.
• It “lives” in your Web browser (Firefox, etc).
• Collect bibliographic information quickly from the Internet.
• Organize bibliography.
• Cite bibliographic information in paper (footnotes, or endnotes, or insert a bibliography quickly).
• It’s free and easy to use.
• Are there other resources that you have found free and helpful?

For the Kingdom,

Bob A