Bible study tools go on-line
This article first appeared in the Spring/Summer 2005 edition of In Touch Magazine. For reprint permission contact the Director of Public Relations at 1-800-251-6227.
By Jon Isaak
It wasn’t long ago that Bible students who wanted to check the meanings of the Hebrew and Greek words behind the words in their English translations of the Bible had to overcome a substantial amount of inertia. Such an exercise meant reaching for a heavy lexicon, dictionary, or encyclopedia, pulling it down from the shelf, and then flipping through the pages until the correct entry was located – lots of inertia!
In the 1990s, computer programmers worked hard to put these resources on compact disks and include better and better search engines. These software packages were a huge advance and significantly reduced the inertia experienced by Bible students. Now numerous Bible translations could be searched by key words, making virtually obsolete the use of Bible concordances. In addition, the programmers established computer links from the English words of the Biblical text to dictionary entries of the underlying Hebrew or Greek words. The computer did the searching and finding – no more flipping! No more fumbling with the Greek or Hebrew alphabet! Computer Bible software prices ranged from $50 to $300 depending on the number of Bible translations, lexicons, dictionaries, commentaries, and encyclopedias that were crammed on to the CD and the sophistication of the search engines. There was quite literally a sizeable library of books available on a thin plastic disk.
With the expansion of the internet, almost all of the resources and search engines are now available at no cost to computer users with new computers and fast internet access. Three sites that include links to Bible study resources that were once only available in software packages are www.biblegateway.com, www.crosswalk.com, and www.blueletterbible.org. Have a look at these web sites and do some navigating. You’ll need to click on a tab somewhere on the opening page that says something like “Bible Study Tools.”
One word of caution: these web sites have included these study tools among a host of other offerings which may or may not be useful to you. These websites are created and maintained by people, just like you and me, who have particular values and theological systems that they hold dear. This means that you will need to exercise some discernment. Even though these Bible study tools are on the internet, each one is only as good as the book it is based on. That being said, go ahead and check out these latest developments for Bible students that not only reduce “inertia,” but are very inexpensive!