Computer Skills for Theology and Ministry

Internet, Bible Software, and More...

Holger Szesnat
Document Version: 2.1 (October 2008)
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Document version: 2.1 (October 2008)

Written by Holger Szesnat.
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CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1 Using the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Using the Internet for Research and Ministry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Start with Meta-sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Search engines? Use with care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Evaluate websites / texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Reference it! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Archive it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
The Internet Archive, Home of Dead Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2 Searching the World Wide Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Selecting your search engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Basic search tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Google advanced search page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
amazon.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
google 'books': http://books.google.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Indirect access to amazon.com and google books . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Microsoft "live search books" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Internet Archive: Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.3 Computer Viruses, Hoaxes, and SPAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Hoaxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Real virus (and other internet) threats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Spamming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.4 Online Resources for Working with Biblical Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2 Bible software on your computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

2.1 Bible software: what's out there? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
What to look for: Bible software for beginners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
High-end commercial software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Free or inexpensive software: eg. e-Sword; Online Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Logos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2 Bible software: general considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Strong's Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Search Accuracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Limitations of software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Theological Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
User support groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3 Online Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Basic Programme Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Simple Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Parallel Display of Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Searching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Strong's Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.4 e-Sword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Simple and Parallel Display of text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

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Searching for words / phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Graphics viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Dictionaries and Footnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Strong’s Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.5 NRSV (Access Foundation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Choosing PDF or HTML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Simple Searches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Complex Searches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Print, Copy and Paste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Commentary / Introductions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.6 Bible Atlas (Access Foundation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.7 Bible Mapper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Installation and Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.8 Reading Planner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.9 Other biblical studies & theology software/resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
1. Books with a CD-ROM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2. Logos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3. Questia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4. Cokesbury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5. Online access to individual journals / periodicals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6. Other software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.10 PDA Bible software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

3 Other Resources and Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

3.1 Reading RSS feeds: google reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Preliminary step: create a google account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Starting Google Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Managing your list of blogs and blog entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.2 ebrary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Registration & installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Basic Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Navigating Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Other tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.3 Zotero: Taking the Drudgery out of Referencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Advantages and Strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Step 1: Learning how to enter bibliographic data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Step 2: Creating references and bibliographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.4 Tyndale Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.5 Learn touch-typing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.6 Backup! Call for backup! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.7 Presentation software (Powerpoint etc.): Use & Abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Learn it: free tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Design it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Test it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.8 A Note on Using Wikipedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.9 Open Courseware: free university course material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.10 Using iTunes U (universities) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

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4 Language Support: Greek and Hebrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

4.1 Diogenes: using "Liddell and Scott" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.2 Kalos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.3 InsertBible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.4 Greek and Hebrew in e-Sword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.5 WordBase: Greek Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.6 Internet-based Greek / Hebrew utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
www.zhubert.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
GNT at www.laparola.net/greco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Perseus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Gateway Websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Appendix 1: Unicode and Theological Studies

Appendix 2: Review of PalmBible+
Appendix 3: Overview sheets: Using the Internet, and Bible Software

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Introduction

This document combines a number of previously separate and rather diverse leaflets I
developed for students, though they all relate to computer skills relevant for the study of
theology and ministry. This booklet is not meant to be comprehensive: it is really just a set
of handouts, which I hope to develop, revise and expand over the years.

I originally wrote most of these handouts just for students of the Eastern Region Ministry
Course, where I currently work. However, they may be of use to others as well.

1 Using the Internet

For most people, the use of computers extends to two things: writings documents and
using the internet. In fact, the internet, in particular the availability of e-mail and the world
wide web, is ubiquitous these days: hardly a company can exist without it, churches have
their websites, people "can't live without" checking their e-mail, and so on. For some,
study and research is has changed in a number of important ways with the increasing
availability of fast, reliable internet access. Quite a revolution for something that did not
exist in the public's consciousness just 15 or 20 years ago.

It is a well-known cliche that the internet is both increasingly full of very good material that
may be read or otherwise accessed, and also full of skubalon, as the Apostle to the
Nations put it in Phil 3:8 (the NRSV politely translates it as 'rubbish', though 'crap' would
probably be better as a translation). As long as you know where to look, you can find really
useful material to help you write that essay, help you prepare a sermon, and so on. The
immediacy and – in most parts of the UK – easy availability of the internet can be
extremely helpful, especially in the context of working in an area that does not have easy
access to a good theological library.

On the other hand, if you don't know where to look, it can take hours to find things, and
often you end up with dubious material. It is worth remembering that absolutely anybody
can put up absolutely anything on the internet, which is great for democracy and free
speech, but also great for the Flat Earth Societies of this world.

On the following pages, you will find advice on using the internet appropriately and with a
minimum of tiresome time-wasting. That does not mean that acquiring sensible skills in
this area does not require time and a bit of thinking – but at least you should have an idea
what sort of things to look for, and what to avoid.

A note on internet links in this PDF document: URLs are usually 'clickable'. It helps to
get your browser up and running before you click on a link, but in principle, you should be
able to click on the blue links in this document when you read it in in a PDF reader like
Adobe Reader, or Foxit, and the link should then be opened in your browser.

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1.1 Using the Internet for Research and Ministry

It is good to begin with what others have found useful: start with sites that refer you to
other sites, selected by people who (hopefully) know what they are talking about. That still
leaves a lot of material, but at least you have a better chance of hitting something that is
actually useful for your purposes. The tradeoff of this is, of course, that you rely on the
views of others as to what may be good to read. However, that is also true of any other
selection: a bookshop, for example, does essentially the same thing.

Start with Meta-sites

Using meta-sites (or "portals", "gateways", etc.) is the safest and most effective starting
point not only in terms of reliability but also in respect of time saved in looking for relevant
texts. A meta-site is essentially a website that lists other sites. Unlike a search-engine,
meta-sites refer to other sites and texts that have been hand-picked (and therefore
evaluated) by the authors / editors of the site. A good example is the NTGateway by Mark
Goodacre, formerly at Birmingham University, and now at Duke University
(http://www.ntgateway.com), or the INTUTE gateway (http://www.intute.ac.uk). At the risk
of blowing my own trumpet, I would like to refer you to the 'useful links' collection on the
ERMC website: http://www.ermc.cam.ac.uk/resources/links/ as well as my own website,
http://radical-bible.org/links/.

Search engines? Use with care

Many people start (and stop) with search engines like www.google.com . Unfortunately,
search engines are a difficult tool to master: they do not really sort websites by their
relevance to us, but attempt to second-guess what might be relevant to us by a variety of
means. To be fair, getting bad results is often due to a badly phrased search rather than
the fault of the search engine. There is more information on how to make use of search
engines in the next section, "Searching the World Wide Web".

Evaluate websites / texts

All texts, all information, all of 'reality' has to be evaluated. In fact, we do that all the time,
often without thinking about it. However, when we want to think through things more
clearly and systematically, we need to try and do this consciously. Just as we do this with
books we might look at in the library before we chose to take them out, and just as we
evaluate these texts when we actually use, we need to do the same with internet texts. In
some ways we need a little more care though, since there is such a lot of skubalon out
there.

There are no hard-and-fast rules for evaluating websites and their content. Obviously,
there are some easy decision: reputable journals that make their content available online,
for example (eg. Theology Today at http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu ). But in most cases,
you don't have it so easy. Still, if you are looking for reliable, reasonable, informative texts
/ content, there are some points you should consider to help you decide how much
credence to give to a document. They are not even rules-of-thumb! I can think of many
useful sites that might fall down on a number of these points. So: use your common
sense. As with all things, you will learn from experience.

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Who referred you to it? If the referrer is a site you trust, perhaps because of previous
experience, that is probably a good sign. A referral by a search engine means nothing:
search engines do not evaluate content along the lines we are looking for. Referral by a
gateway site like http://www.ntgateway.com, if you are confident about the person(s)
doing the evalation, is always a plus. Hopefully you'll say the same thing about my own
gateway site: http://radical-bible.org/links/versions.html .
Is the author identified? If the author is prepared to give his or her name for it, that is
usually a good sign. Not always, of course: there are lots of very odd characters out
there who thrive on advertising their names... What else can you find out about the
author? If the author teaches at a recognised higher education institution, that might
give you a little more confidence in what is being said. Having said that, there are some
very good, well informed 'amateurs' out there as well. Again, this is a rule of thumb only.
Is the 'publisher' given? Who publishes the website? Is it a private website? Or linked to a
reputable institution or journal?
Is the date given? The absence of a date is not necessarily a bad sign. Some apparently
very impressive sites rely on old texts which are now in the public domain; if a date is
not given, that is nothing short of misleading. A good example is the Catholic
Encyclopedia (ed. C. G. Herberman), available at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen .
Unless you look carefully, you are not going to find out that it is 90 years old. This does
not mean that it is all irrelevant, but it does affect what you learn about certain matters.
Literature given / references made? A text that makes serious claims but does not offer
literature and preferable references should always be regarded with some suspicion.
There are exceptions, of course: for example, lecture notes you may find at a university
lecturer's website.
Rhetoric? Consider the way the author expresses him/herself. Someone who labels those
who hold other views as the result of "Satan's spawn" tends to make me think twice.
Look at visual clues as well: excessive use of bold or italic type, AS WELL AS
CAPITALS, persistently bad spelling, punctuation and grammar, should make us
wonder about the reliability of the text.
Opposing views accurately represented? A good author knows his or her field, and will be
able to represent different views accurately and fairly.
How well is it presented? A website that has been put together rather badly can be a sign
of doubtful reliability. However, there are some good academics out there who put
together some pretty awful websites (yet their research is good), and there are some
highly suspect operators out there with very, very slick websites.
Has the site as a whole been updated recently? The fact that a website has clearly been
abandoned for a number of years can be a sign that its content is out of date or
otherwise dubious. Of course, there are exceptions...

Consider working through the online tutorial at http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective (The

design suggests that they are thinking of 12-year olds, but the lessons are generic.)

Reference it!

Internet documents that you want to use for your assignments have to be referenced just
like any other document. Whenever you find a site or text that you think you might want to
use, write down the full bibliographic details, just as with a book or journal article. Details
of that are available in the usual academic handbooks (for example, details for ERMC
students are available here: www.ermc.cam.ac.uk/resources/modulesetc/study). Offer full
details as with a book, as well as the URL (as full as possible, unless it is three lines

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long!), and the date on which you accessed the document (in case it changes a few days
after that!). Some examples for different kinds of internet documents:

Adair, J R 2004. Technology and the Transmission of the Biblical Text.

http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/extras/Adair-Technology-Transmission.html (Accessed May
12, 2005).
Bandstra, B 1999. Five Scrolls as a Whole. In: Reading the Old Testament: An
Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. 2nd ed. Belmont: Wadsworth. (Electronic version)
http://www.hope.edu/academic/religion/bandstra/RTOT/CH16/CH16_6.HTM (Accessed
March 12, 2002)
Bonino, J M 1987. The Biblical Roots of Justice. Word & World 7(1), 12-21.
http://www.luthersem.edu/word&world/Archives/7-1_Justification/7-1_Bonino.pdf
(Accessed March 2, 2005).
Braiterman, Z 1998. (God) after Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust
Jewish Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press. http://shop.ebrary.com
(Accessed February 20, 2006).
Callaway, M C 2004. What's the Use of Reception History? (SBL Paper, San Antonio,
November 2004). http://www.bbibcomm.net/news/callaway.doc (Accessed Jan. 30,
2005).
Hartley, J E 2000. The Creation of the Earth (Gen. 1:1 - 2:4a). In: Genesis. Peabody:
Hendrickson Publishers; Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 39-57.
http://www.hendrickson.com/pdf/chapters/1565632117-ch01.pdf (Accessed Jan. 12,
2006).

Archive it

Many websites change over time. Some texts disappear during such changes, or they are
altered. It is therefore a good idea to create your own archive of web-resources. You can
do this either by printing it out, or by creating an electronic copy (or both). Sometimes
websites can be hard to print, though, so this is not necessarily an easy option. I would
always recommend keeping an electronic copy, using PDF creation. PDF are document
types that do not change in terms of layout regardless of your computer settings. When
you do a PDF version of a text on the web, it is like a snapshot of the text at that time.

You can use commercial software to do this, or freely available software that does a good
job for most situations. There are various good programmes that you can download freely
on the internet. While they do not have the same flexibility that professional PDF
production software like Adober Acrobat offer, they are good enough for most jobs short of
professional printing work – and they are free. For example:

PDF Creator - PDF Forge: http://www.pdfforge.org

PDFill PDF Writer and Tools: http://www.pdfill.com/pdf_tools_free.html and download at
http://www.pdfill.com/download.html

Once installed, the programmes work more or less the same: they mimic a printer. You
"print" the document to PDF by choosing the relevant PDF 'printer' in your print setup. I
personally tend to use PDF Creator for, well, creating PDFs, and PDFill Tools to
manipulate existing PDFs, if need be.

There are other mechanisms for archiving web material, but it would take too long to
describe them all here. One such tool, however, is Zotero: a the free, Firefox-based

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bibliographic database (see the section on Zotero further below). Nevertheless, archiving it
as a PDF, stored on your computer, is still generally safer, at least in my view.

The Internet Archive, Home of Dead Links

You can try to prevent material 'disappearing' from the internet, at least as far your
personal use of it is concerned, by archiving it in the manner described above. However,
what do you do when you hit a dead link? In other words, what do you do when one
internet document refers to you another, but that document is no longer available?
Sometimes this happens when an institution re-structures its website – suddenly the links
won't work any longer. In such cases, you may be able to use the internal sitemap or
search mechanisms of that website to locate the document you are looking for. This is
certainly the preferable method, for this will allow you to find the most current version of
the document you are looking for.

Sometimes, however, it is very difficult indeed to find a document (especially if the

referring website did not sufficiently describe the document to enable you to search for it
properly); sometimes documents just disappear completely from a website, and some
websites disappear in their entirety. But: all is not lost. This is where the Internet Archive
comes in
(http://www.a
rchive.org),
specifically,
the 'way back
machine' part
of it. The
Internet
Archive
offers a
number of
functions as
a repository
of public
domain Fig. 1: Internet Archive
resources,
but it also
incorporates a massive archive of websites in its 'way back machine'. All you need to do is
place the URL of the document / website you looking for in its address bar, click 'Take me
back', and ... hope for the best (fig. 1). Not all material is accessible that way! Where a
website has been archived in this fashion, the Internet Archive will present you with a list
of dates on which 'recordings' were taken. You might have to try several of them. The
website can be a bit slow at times, so be patient. If the website is unresponsive, stop the
search and start again.

For example, Gerald Wilson is an Old Testament scholar who placed a number of useful
texts on his instutional homepage while teaching at Azusa Pacific University in the USA.
He no longer seems to be working there, and his webpages have disappeared entirely.
Fortunately, the 'way back machine' archived his work for him. I came across a link to a
document he had written on 'The Poetry of the Psalms', at
http://home.apu.edu/%7Eghwilson/HebrewPoetry.html. As I said, the document, and
indeed the entire personal section for Wilson's work, has disappeared from the APU

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website. So I entered this address in the 'way back machine', and after a little while, the
internet archive presents me with an array of possible 'back dated' archived versions of

Fig. 2: Example of search for archived web-page

this document. It is
best to start with the
last version and work
your way backwards
until you find a version
that offers the
document, since the
last few versions of
the document might
already point you at a
'file-not-found' page
(fig. 2).

In this case, the last

version actually has
the text (for reference
purposes, note the
URL in the status line
of the browser at the
bottom of the screen;
fig. 2). You could then Fig. 3: Archived Web-page
archive it yourself (by
creating a PDF from this page, as decribed above) for your own records (fig. 3).

The document itself does not give us any indication as to its date, or whether it has been
published elsewhere; the bibliographic record (Harvard system) would therefore look like
this:

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Wilson, Gerald H. (n.d.) The Poetry of the Psalms: Understanding Poetic Conventions.
<http://web.archive.org/web/20040604122427/home.apu.edu/~geraldwilson/Hebre
wPoetry.html> (Accessed 10 March 2008).

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1.2 Searching the World Wide Web

If you are relatively new to using the internet and the world wide web in particular (and
even if you are not), it may help to have some basic pointers to doing serious research for
your studies. Just selecting a search engine like google.com and typing in a few words is
likely to get you many results, but much of it may well be rubbish (not to put too fine a
point to it), or not really related to your research topic. On this page, you will find some
information to get you started:

1. Selecting your search engine

2. Basic search tips
3. Advanced search features
4. The latest from google and amazon: google books and amazon’s "search inside"

When examples are used, the text of examples to be typed in the search engine 'text
boxes' is placed in a different font to make them stand out.

Selecting your search engine

These days there is a host of different search engines available, and contrary to popular
opinion, it does make a difference which one you chose, since the technology used by
these search engines can be quite different. If you want details, try
www.searchenginewatch.com, though you need a bit of technical knowledge to make
good use of it.

Among the best search engines are:

* http://www.google.com (UK version at http://www.google.co.uk )

* http://www.yahoo.com (UK version at http://uk.yahoo.com )

A quick comparison will show that there are often substantial differences between the
results achieved in each of these search engines. Notice also that they often display
commercial or paid-for information as well: both adverts in a separate column (eg. google
in a side column on the right), and in the search results themselves (eg. results relating to
books at amazon.com). This may or may not be what you are looking for.

At present, www.google.com is probably still the best of these search engine, though it is
increasingly attracting commercial sites in the search results, which may be annoying. Still,
sometimes it is useful to look at more than one search engine.

While the internet search engine 'google' is to be recommended, one should be wary of
one or two of its 'spin-off' products, including "google desktop" (a search programme for
your own computer) and "gmail" (an e-mail service). The reason lies in google's reticence
to disclose what information about the contents of your files these programmes send back
to their company headquarters.

Basic search tips

To simplify the following tips, the following list is written with google in mind. However,
many of these search tips are generic and will work on other search engines as well.

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• As a rule of thumb: more search terms means more limited search results; but
select your search terms carefully to avoid getting either too many results (vague
search terms) or too few (too narrow selection of search terms).
• google will only interpret the first ten search words you put into the search box; the
rest will be ignored.
• If you are doing a simple search, leave out 'small words' like prepositions ("for",
"about", etc.), since they occur too often in virtually any website.
• If you simply have list of keywords you are looking for (for example:
christological titles john) the search engine will look for them with
Boolean "AND" connections, that is documents which have the words
"christological" and "titles" and "john" anywhere in the text.
• If you want to search for either one keyword or another, you can state that: for
example, typing in pope OR vatican will get you results with either of the two
terms. You can also use the operator "NOT" to exclude results; for example, bass
NOT fish will get you better search results on bass (as in music) as opposed to
the fish. (This does not work in google: here you need to use the prefix "-" for the
search term you want to have excluded, eg. bass -fish)
• You can search for a phrase rather than individual words by enclosing the term in
inverted commas: for example, “christological titles” will search for
documents that have this phrase, rather than documents with both words
somewhere in the text.
• Most search engines (including google) do not allow for case-sensitive searches:
searching for god gets you the same results as God.
• You can try to broaden your search by using the "tilde" character (~), which will
search for synonyms of that word as well ("fuzzy search"). For example, ~bible
will also get you results for testament. It is not possible, unfortunately, to
determine how exactly google defines its list of synonyms, so such fuzzy searches
will also be a bit ‘hit and miss’.
• google also allows you to find quick definitions of terms by using the "define:"
command: enter this command followed by the word you would like to have defined
(no space!), and with luck you will get something useful. For example,
define:Dead Sea Scrolls will get you some explanations from prominent web
texts.

Many of these simple search tricks can be achieved more easily by using the advanced
search interface, to which we will now turn.

Google advanced search page

For the sake of simplicity, we will turn only to google's 'advanced' features, though most
other search engines also offer such an advanced function:
www.google.co.uk/advanced_search?hl=en (Alternatively, go to google’s main entry
page at www.google.co.uk and click on ‘Advanced Search’ near the top right corner.)

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The page is mostly self-explanatory.

Fill in one or more of the form fields
(search boxes) provided, and click on
"Search" (Fig. 1).

Google "books", Microsoft's

"books", and amazon's "search
inside" feature

The search engine google.com, the

software company Microsoft, and the
internet bookseller www.amazon.com
all offer some kind of service which
provides a limited number of
(searchable) pages from published
books. More recently, amazon.co.uk
has also started to offer this service,
though with fewer books at present.
They tend to process different books, Fig. 1: google advanced search page
so checking all three can be helpful.

Using these features can be useful for certain kinds of research, but it cannot replace
in-depth reading on a subject for which you need the source itself in order to read more
widely around the particular page where your search term may be mentioned.

There are limits to the use you can make of both of these services. Due to copyright
restrictions, pages may be read, but not printed out (although experienced computer users
can get around that by 'screen printing' – but that would be illegal). One can generally
page backwards and forwards to see the previous/next three pages, and if you keep doing
this a lot for a particular book, you will hit a limit at about a dozen pages for a particular
item. As a result, sample pages through google and amazon are best used when you are
looking for specific information, eg. commentary on a particular verse once you have a fair
idea what you are interested in. It will best serve as additional material.

amazon.com

In order to make use of the amazon.com service, you need to register as a customer with
them at www.amazon.com. However, you do NOT have to purchase anything. Once you
have registered, log in as a customer, using your username and password. When you
search for a book on a particular topic, you will then see search results with small
'thumbnail' images of the book cover. If they sport the logo 'search inside' at the top, you
can search their text for relevant keywords. For example, the book, Biblical Exegesis in
the Apostolic Period by Richard Longenecker has been processed in this way: have a
'look inside':
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802843018/sr=8-1/qid=1142076942/ref=sr_1_1/103-
9947243-4631061?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Navigation is fairly straightforward.

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The UK-based version of amazon (www.amazon.co.uk ) has also started offering this
'search inside' feature, though the coverage and level of service offered is far less
developed. In principle, however, the same principles apply.

google 'books': http://books.google.com

Accessing the google.com 'books' feature is easier in that you not need to register: just go
to http://books.google.com or better still, the advanced search page for google books at
http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search?ie=UTF-8&hl=en , and type your search
term in the box at the top of the page. Users are not allowed to print out pages (and once
again, although it can be done, it would be illegal).

Let's try this out: suppose we want to find out a bit more about the “Griesbach hypothesis”
for that vital assignment you are doing on the synoptic problem (riveting, isn't it?). Go to
http://books.google.com/print?ie=UTF-8&q=type+here&btnG=Search and try it out by
typing in the search term "Griesbach hypothesis" (including inverted commas,
which will force google to look for this as a phrase rather than two unrelated words). In the
results page that you see next, note how each entry has a clickable link "more results from
this book", which is a good starting point. Not every book will be helpful, but Burkett's
Introduction to the New Testament and the Origins of Christianity will give you the basics,
including a useful diagramme, all on a single page.

In sum: in spite of the obvious limitations of these services (google and amazon), they can
still be helpful. If you do make use of them, make sure you write down full bibliographic
details so that you can properly refer to them in your assignments! "Longenecker on
amazon" will not do! You should cite them like any printed book, eg.

Longenecker, R N 1999. Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans.

Indirect access to amazon.com and google books

In the next couple of paragraphs, we will describe the basic use of these services. There
are two useful websites, however, which make very good use of google and amazon:

Roy Ciampa has put together a good collection of works in various fields of biblical
exegesis and biblical studies generally, which is highly recommended ("Searchable
Reference Books at Amazon.com and Google.com"):
http://home.comcast.net/~rciampa/AmazonResearch.htm

The internal library catalogue at Tyndale House, Cambridge, which has very large
holdings for Biblical Studies and evangelical theology in particular, makes use of the
amazon.com and google features, and is highly recommended
(http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/TynCat3 ). Let’s have a look at one particular search
example:

In the example in Figure 2, I am trying to look for information on Stephen Fowl’s

Theological Interpretation of Scripture by filling in only the top two search boxes (the other
search boxes have examples of the type of searches may want to make, but these
examples are ignored by the search engine). Of course, if the Tyndale House library does

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not have an item, it will not return any results, while amazon.com or books.google.com
may still have information on these titles!

The results for

this search
show that there
two books by
Stephen Fowl
which fit the
search criteria.
The second
item is what I
was looking for,
and it indicates
in the left
column that
amazon.com
has full text
information on
this item.

Note the advice

on what to do if
you get too Fig. 2: Tyndale catalogue search interface
many (or too
few) results: “Too
many titles? - Add
some words. Too few?
- Remove some words.
Can't spell? - use * as
a wildcard, eg type
S*zer for Schweizer”.

Microsoft "live search

books"

The giant software

company, Microsoft,
has also begun a
large-scale project to
scan in millions of
books and to make
them available to
internet users, much
like google.com. As
with with google, books
not in the public
domain are available
only in part. For most Fig. 3: Tyndale catalogue search results
of the recent books,
you need to 'sign in', that is, get a hotmail account, or MSN 'passport', or 'Windows Live

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ID' (all free). If you do not have any of these accounts, you need to create one in order to
view most of the recent books available on Microsoft's "live search books".

To use the service, point your browser at http://search.live.com/books. The search

process is fairly intuitive and similar to google.books, though with fewer search options. It
does add a useful feature though: a counter in the top right corner of the page tells you
how many more pages of the book you are currently looking at you may still view.

Update: In May 2008, Microsoft announced that they will stop their scanning project. It is
hoped that existing scans will continue to be offered at their website.

Internet Archive: Texts

The Internet Archive website includes a repository of free texts, usually scans of out-of-
copyright books: http://www.archive.org/details/texts

This includes many useful books from the 19th and early 20th century. For example, the
first editions of the well-known International Critical Commentary series (ICC) is available
that way, in the form of (large) PDF documents. Searching for these books can be a bit
cumbersome. Sometimes people provide helpful overview lists, though. For example, lists
of the ICC titles are available here:

Old Testament series:

http://bibleandtech.blogspot.com/2008/10/books-to-download-icc-commentaries.html

New Testament series:

http://ntresources.com/blog/?p=245

Books downloaded at these sites may be quoted and referenced like other books and
internet resources. For example:

Skinner, J (1910). A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis. (The International

Critical Commentary.) New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
http://www.archive.org/details/acriticalandexeg00skinuoft (Accessed 16 October
2008).

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1.3 Computer Viruses, Hoaxes, and SPAM

Almost from the beginning of the personal computer, some very sad (or downright
malicious) people started creating computer viruses: malicious programmes or code bits
that could be used to 'infect' unsuspecting and unprotected computers ...

Hoaxes

A most annoying feature of the virus phenomenon are virus hoaxes which rely on the
gullibility of the uninformed. Someone starts it off by effectively creating an e-mail rumour
about a supposedly new, vicious virus about to hit you. There are three basic types of
hoaxes: (1) The first consists of nothing but the nuisance of thousands of e-mails being
circulated needlessly, and to no good end. There is usually no truth in the matter. (2)
Nastier is the type of hoax which tells you to look for a certain file on your computer which
you are supposed to delete because it is, allegedly, a virus. Few viruses may be found so
easily these days! Usually the file concerned is part of the operating system of your
computer, and you are ill-advised to delete it. (3) Some virus hoax messages have
attachments with a virus...

So: if you get a message warning you about a virus, just delete it, wherever it comes from.
Nobody who has any decent knowledge of computing distributes such messages, so don't
fall for the well-meaning but computer-clueless ignoramus who happens to have you on
his or her address book – even if it is your husband/wife/spouse/best friend/parson/pet
rabbit/whatever.

So how do I protect myself from the (very real) virus threat? Read on...

Real virus (and other internet) threats

A virus is malicious programme written either to annoy the computer user, or, more
dangerously, to damage your system, make illegal use of it, or otherwise take control of it,
sometimes in ways that are not detectable to the ordinary user's eyes.

What can you do about it? First, get an anti-virus programme, and keep it updated!
Second: learn how to avoid spreading viruses yourself. Third: get a firewall (see further
below)

There is no excuse for not doing this. Without it you are at the mercy of the many
*£$%)(£$, errr, sad people who invent and distribute viruses and other forms of internet
attacks.

(1) There are a number of commercial anti-virus packages; among the most common are
Norton, and McAffee. Go to a shop or buy them online at their websites, or even at
www.amazon.co.uk, or related sites. Expect to pay up to £40 per annum for a good
package, although you can sometimes get it for much less. This should include a couple
of years' free updating of the anti-virus-files (ie. downloading new anti-virus data files over
the internet); after that, you need to pay again. There is a free anti-virus programme called
AVG which has a good reputation (http://www.grisoft.com); I have used it myself for a
number of years now. But: make sure you updated your e-mail programme regularly.
Whether commercial or free, an anti-virus programme that is not updated frequently (once
a fortnight at least) is soon useless. Don't be complacent about this!

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(2) Basic measures to avoid spreading and hosting viruses yourself:

Try not to send Microsoft Word

documents by e-mail. Convert
them to RTF documents first (go to
"File", then "Save as..."; save the
file as a copy with a slightly
different name, and change the
file-format to ".rtf"). Many viruses
are spread by means of macros
attached to Word documents.
RTF's don't allow for macros, so
we cut out a host of viruses that
way. However, if your document
contains graphics, RTFs will grow
enormously in file size – so it's
best to stick to the Word (.doc)
format for such files.
Fig. 1: Thunderbird without preview panel
Do not open attachments to
e-mails, unless you are absolutely
sure that you trust the sender.
Basic rule of thumb: if you don't
know what it is, don't look at it –
just delete it. If your e-mail
programme is set to open them
automatically in a 'preview panel'
(eg. Outlook Express;
Thunderbird), switch off that
feature – if you don't know how by
pressing F1 (pressing the F1 key
in a Windows programme will
usually get you help). This will Fig. 2: Thunderbird with preview panel
make it slightly less convenient to
use that programme, but it will be safer. If you don't know what I am talking about, have a
look at figures 1 and 2: spot the difference.

(3) A firewall is, to put it simply, a programme that monitors and regulates your computer's
external relations: every time you connect to the internet, you are in principle open to the
attack of hackers and their programmes, looking for a variety of things, including credit
card numbers. If you bought a commercial anti-virus package, it may already come with a
firewall. A good, free programme is Zone Alarm (http://www.zonealarm.com ), but there
are others as well. Windows (whether XP or Vista) comes with its own firewall, which is not
bad, but it lacks a crucial aspect: it only monitors what your computer receives, not what it
sends. A good firewall like ZoneAlarm will monitor both.

Don't be complacent about this. The problem with viruses is not so much that they are
written by deranged hackers, but that millions of careless users just can't be bothered to
take even the most elementary steps to prevent spreading them. It's like driving a car
without checking that the breaks are working.

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Spamming

Spam is the bane of email. Apparently more than 90% of all e-mails send every day are
Spam: unwanted, usually annoying, sometimes downright offensive rubbish. What can
you do about this? Mat Ridley, the CTF Information Technology Officer, wrote this e-mail
to Federation people:

"If you are unfortunate enough to receive some junk e-mail, the best thing you can
do is to simply delete the message and ignore it. Replying to the message or
following any 'unsubscription' instructions in the offending message are only likely
to result in you receiving even more rubbish, since either of these actions only
serves to validate your e-mail address to the author – who will then either send you
even more messages, or sell your e-mail address on to other spammers.

If you find that you are frequently receiving junk e-mail from a particular source (eg
[email protected]), you should be able to set up e-mail filtering
to automatically delete any and all e-mails from that person (or even *everyone*
from that particular company). This can either be done in your e-mail program itself,
or, if you are using a hermes.cam.ac.uk address, before you've even downloaded
the message.

For example, in Outlook Express you can simply highlight the offending message
and select either 'Block Sender', or 'Create Rule From Message' from the Message
menu. In Eudora, you can use 'Make Filter' from the Special Menu to achieve a
similar effect. [...] , no filtering can ever be 100% effective (without screening out
messages you actually *do* want to receive)."

Thanks to Mat Ridley for these comments and his permission to reprint them here. I
should like to add that, if you are computer literate enough to install and deal with a new
programme, you might like to try the (free) "Mailwasher" programme at
http://www.mailwasher.net

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1.4 Online Resources for Working with Biblical Texts

Discussing online resources is always a slightly problematic thing because these

resources change all the time: that is a characteristic of almost all internet-based material.
What follows is therefore no more than a brief overview of what I consider to be the most
useful websites available at present. What I have in mind here are not the many useful
websites for theology and biblical studies in general (see other sections below), but the
kind of websites that allow for the sort of basic, primary research that bible software
discussed under section 2 of this document allows for.

Access to the NRSV in particular is quite rare. Simple passage lookup and concordance
functions are available here:
Oremus Bible Browser: http://bible.oremus.org (the only site with the Anglicised
version!); and
E-Canon: http://rosetta.reltech.org/ECanon/ECanon.html

NRSV access as well as other Bible-related functions like Strong's Numbers:

Online Study Bible – Crosswalk (includes parallel Bible: two versions side-by-side):
http://bible.crosswalk.com

Websites which offer access to the usual public domain -type versions are too numerous
to list here; see http://radical-bible.org/links/versions.html .

See also the Tyndale Toolbar described further below in this document, as well as
the section on Internet-based Greek / Hebrew utilities.

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2 Bible software on your computer

By 'Bible software' I mean programmes that are installed on your computer, as opposed to
resources offered via the internet. Bible software may be downloadable, but it operates
from your own computers system.

Increasingly, the availability of broadband internet makes it more attractive for some
people at least to use internet-based resources for the same purposes. There are
advantages and disadvantages with such an approach. For the time being, I continue to
recommend both. The following sections discuss Bible software first; a section on the use
of online resources follows later on.

2.1 Bible software: what's out there?

Displaying a Bible text in a PDF or HTML document is one thing; proper Bible software
another. Real Bible software can process much more sophisticated search patterns;
display different Bible versions in parallel columns for comparison; offer information from
basic Bible dictionaries; and more.

Basically, you have two choices when it comes to such software: freely available software
at no (or very little) cost; or commercially produced software for (sometimes) a little more,
and often quite a lot of money. Again you need to make a basic distinction between
software that is mainly directed at (a) readers of English Bibles, and (b) those who want to
study the text in Greek or Hebrew.

What follows in this handout is mostly about the first group. If you are in the latter
category, you really have to consider purchasing at the higher price end of the range, such
as Bible Works (http://www.bibleworks.com) or Logos or (www.logos.com) for Windows
systems, or Accordance (http://www.accordancebible.com) for Mac/Apple). You can use
some free or inexpensive programmes like e-Sword for some of the most basic work with
Greek or Hebrew texts, but it will soon leave you dissatisfied.

What to look for: Bible software for beginners

When deciding on what Bible software to use, there is, in my view, actually only a small
number of really important features that you need to look out for:

• What Bible versions can I read with it? Most will offer the classic Authorized
Version of 1611, or the American Standard Version (1901), because their text is in
the public domain: anyone can re-package and distribute these versions, sell them,
or offer them without charge. But can you read important modern translations with
the software you are considering? In particular, can get get hold of the NRSV with
the software under consideration? The problem here is copyright: you normally
have to pay for translations like the NRSV or NIV. So: does the programme you
think of getting enable you to read the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
with it? What about the New International Version (NIV)? As far as I am aware,
there is no electronic version of the Revised English Bible (REB), and very few
packages offer the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB), both of which are very good and

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useful versions to check out. Other

useful points of comparison include
the NET Bible and the ESV
(English Standard Version).
• Does the software allow me to
compare different Bible
translations? In particular, can I
look at different versions side by
side, verse by verse, as in fig. 1
(Bible Works) and fig. 2 (e-Sword)?
• What kind of search capabilities
does the programme have? Can I
only do simple word or phrase
searches, or also more complex
search operations (Boolean
operators; wildcards; etc.)? It is true
of course that Bible software in a Fig. 1: Parallel version display in BibleWorks
sense replaces a Bible
concordance, and one
needs only very simple
search functions to
achieve that aim, but
since complex search
routines are technically
Fig. 2: Parallel version display in e-Sword
possible, one should
not ignore them.
• Everything else is either commonly available, such as integrated use of Strong's
Numbers (see below), or simply an additional resource, usually at considerable
cost. These are not, in my view, deciding factors in respect of free or low-cost
packages.

High-end commercial software

The more expensive Bible software packages are usually for specialists: a package like
BibleWorks, for example, is designed for users who are interested in the original
languages - and you pay handsomely for that privilege. On the other hand, the Bible
packages offered by Logos are expensive because a lot of other material is sold with it; in
fact, the Bible software that logos produces is not all that great in itself – it's the
combination with other books that make it outstanding (and expensive). In fact, the whole
Logos system is not so much designed as straightforward Bible software, but as an
integrated 'digital library' involving a multitude of electronic texts. If you want to more
details, have a look at Mark Hoffman's comparison of BibleWorks and Logos systems, if
you like: http://www.gettysburgseminary.org/mhoffman/greek/software/bw7&logos.htm .

I have no personal experience of working with Accordance, which is the high-end Bible
software for Mac/Apple. However, it has the reputation of being at least as good as
BibleWorks, and perhaps better.

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Free or inexpensive software: eg. e-Sword; Online Bible

There are a few good, free (or fairly inexpensive) software packages out there too. In fact,
there are a lot of them about, and many of them are mediocre at best. But a couple of
them are quite good, or at least useful.

Unfortunately there is no straightforward programme I could point everyone towards: none

of them offers all features I regard as essential or highly desirable. Most programmes
have the downside that they are either badly produced, and/or lack access to Bible
versions one really needs, such as the NRSV and NIV. Elizabeth Harper (then at the West
of England Ministerial Training Course) put together quite a bit of useful information,
comparing different kinds of Bible software which, although a little dated, is still very
helpful as a starting point:
http://www.eharper.nildram.co.uk/wemtc/bibsoftware.html

I put together some resources (on my Biblical Studies Resources Disk) of what I regard as
the best available free Bible software for Windows-based PCs at present, namely e-Sword
and OnlineBible. They both have their particular disadvantages, though (see separate
sections on these programmes in this document). The OnlineBible is not as good as
e-Sword in respect of general functionality. Still, it will do most of things that e-Sword
does, and of course, it has the advantage that it does have the NRSV and NIV, for a small
fee - currently i6,- for the NRSV (about £4,-), and i20,- for the NIV (about £12,-).

Also, bear in mind that many websites now offer online access to bible texts, including
search functions, which offer similar, and sometimes better ways of searching the
scriptures than free Bible programmes do. There is a separate section on such websites in
this document.

Logos

Occasionally, Logos software has special deals which bring the price of comparable
features to a mid-range figure, so if you can afford to pay about £50 you might want to
investigate this. Also, some of the helpful dictionary-type resources that Logos offers
sometimes come pre-packaged with the NRSV; for example, the Anchor Bible Dictionary.
Some links:

• The NRSV by itself: http://www.logos.com/ebooks/details/nrsv

• One of their cheaper Bible packages not including the NRSV – use together with
the NRSV link above – the NAS Electronic Study Bible:
http://www.logos.com/products/details/1072
• The excellent Anchor Bible Dictionary (NRSV included):
http://www.logos.com/products/details/1678
• Essential IVP Reference Collection Version 2 ; does not include the NRSV but is
otherwise very good stuff: http://www.logos.com/products/details/1516 .
• As an additional resources, see also the non-logos related sites:
http://stilltruth.com/2006/want_libronix_free
• Finally, an alternative product to logos.com is e-Bible by Nelson, which uses the
same underlying software (libronix). However, while free of charge, this is a
massive internet download of anything between 70 and 250 MB.
http://www.nelsonministryservices.com/nms/dept.asp?dept_id=5076&ref=11523

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• Having said that, Nelson does sometimes offer cheaper alternatives to logos.com:
the same product, but cheapter, it seems. For example, on the following page at
nelsonministryservices.com , you can get the NRSV for less than half the price that
logos.com charges – at least that was the case on the day I wrote this line:
http://www.nelsonministryservices.com/nms/dept.asp?dept%5Fid=709

Conclusion

So: if you want to read English Bible versions in a decent Bible software package for little
or no money, there is no simple solution at present. For the time being, I would
recommend using a combination of (a) e-Sword ; (b) the Online Bible ; (c) the PDF or
HTML based NRSV text by the Access Foundation (described further below); and (d)
selected online material (see below). It is not ideal, but it is cheap, and it will do the job for
English readers.

The alternative is to spend a lot more money on programmes like BibleWorks or Logos:
good stuff, no doubt, but expensive – I use them myself, but then, I need them for the
access to Hebrew and Greek resources that they offer (especially BibleWorks), or the
additional texts they allow me access to (Logos). But: all this comes at considerable cost.

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2.2 Bible software: general considerations

In this document, I want to discuss a few issues which affect the use of all Bible software.
It is a motley collection of items — a bit like a FAQ (frequently asked questions) sheet.

Strong's Numbers

Virtually all Bible software today comes with an Authorized Version (1611) with integrated
Strong's Numbers. This is a 19th century system – going back to the work of James Strong
(a Professor at Drew University) and others – which allocates a certain number to each
Hebrew and Greek word in the Bible. Usually there is some kind of out-of-copyright
dictionary integrated in this setup, so even readers with absolutely no knowledge of Greek
and Hebrew can make use of this.

In essence, there are two basic uses of Strong's Numbers: (a) if you find that the same
English word is used in certain passages, you may want to check that the same Greek or
Hebrew word is 'behind' it before you draw far-reaching theological conclusions from this;
(b) conversely, once you know what Greek or Hebrew word is 'behind' a particular phrase
in a passage you are studying, you can get the Bible search programme to look for
instances of that particular Greek or Hebrew word elsewhere in the Bible. A classic
example for the use of this system is John 21:15-17, where the English dialogue between
Jesus and Peter can only use one and the same verb ('love') for two different verbs with
subtle differences employed in the Greek (having said that, the difference in meaning
between the Greek verbs can be exaggerated).

The danger of this system is that it might give the user the false impression that he/she
can do word studies on Greek and Hebrew terms this way. However, languages are far
too complex to allow such a simple method to work. Words do not just mean what the
dictionary suggest they can mean; words always mean something in context. Grammatical
issues (which have a bearing on meaning, after all!) are impossible to detect and
understand without knowledge of the language concerned, and Strong's system cannot
reflect that. The same goes for idiomatic speech, metaphors, and so on. Therefore, if you
use Strong’s system without knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, do so with due care.

There is a further paragraph on the practical use of Strong's Numbers in the section on e-
Sword further below.

Search Accuracy

Bear in mind that even a good and faultless programme is only as good as its user. The
danger of operating with Bible software as opposed to old-fashioned concordances is that
software looks terribly efficient and accurate, but actually only delivers accurate results if
the 'questions' (or search parameters) have been phrased correctly.

A concordance requires some work for certain kinds of search operations, which in effect
forces you to be careful: if I wanted to do a concordance search on the combination of
Abraham and justif* (i.e. a verse that has the proper noun 'Abraham' and any form of
the word-stem 'justif...'), I would need to look up and compare a number of things (all
instances of the word-stem 'justif', for instance), and then look through all verses listed (43
for the NRSV text) to find those instances where Abraham is mentioned. The process

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involves some manual 'slogging', of course, but it is precisely this laborious work that will
alert us to any mistakes we may be making in the search process. "Have I phrased my
questions correctly?" is a question that we will constantly have to ask ourselves when
using software like this.

An example from my own work — based on a Greek text, but that does not matter; it is the
principle that I am after. Some years back I was looking for instances of an unusual and
somewhat mysterious phrase I had read in the first-century Jewish philosopher, Philo of
Alexandria. There is a professional electronic database of pretty much all Greek texts from
antiquity, and I had access to a search programme for it. My first search for this Greek
phrase threw up no results other than those instances in Philo — a result which I found
perplexing: potentially exciting, of course – a phrase just in a single writer? There could be
an article in this... I had a database will virtuall all Greek texts, and I had asked the right
question, hadn't I? Well, not quite. When I told a friend of mine, a classicist, he reminded
me to look up a common dialect / spelling variation of one of the words, something I has
simply forgotten to do — and hey presto, I got the results I was looking for (and yes, there
was still enough in it for an article in a journal).

So: a simple error, a little bit of forgetfulness, and I had completely incorrect results,
which, if I had trusted them, would have been rather embarassing had I written an article
based on this.

Limitations of software

The power of Bible software is to deliver accurate results for precisely worded search
questions, and this means that we need to be particularly careful to phrase our search
parameters properly: if I ask the wrong question, I will get a wrong result.

But this also points to a much bigger issue: what if I don't know what the question is?
Knowing what the right question is can be much more difficult to figure out than what the
answer might be — hence Douglas Adam's famous fictional result of the super-computer,
'Deep Thought', to the question as to the answer to question of life, the universe, and
everything: the answer is '42', but in order to understand this, responds said super-
computer to the perplexed scientists, you need an even better computer to find out what
the real question is.1

Perhaps a good point of comparison is that with a library bookshelf and a computerised
catalogue. The latter will tell me where I can find a particular book in the library, but it
won't tell me what other issues relate to the matter I am researching. However, once I get
to the library bookshelf, assuming that the library uses some kind of subject-related class-
mark ('order') system, I can browse the shelf for other potentially interesting titles. That
way, I will find things I wasn't looking for, but which may turn out to be relevant (or, at any
rate, interesting).

So: Bible software can delude us into thinking that a bit of nifty programming and
searching will deliver 'results'. But that is an erroneous way of thinking: theology, and
reading scripture, is much more complex, and much richer than that. You cannot do

1
There are some logical problems with this scenario, but let's leave the nit-picking
for another day. Great writer, Douglas Adams, anyway, and much missed.

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theology 'by computer' — that is like painting by numbers: the results may look pretty, but
they are somebody else's pre-programmed results.

Use computing resources, learn to use them well, but use them wisely: they are a tool
among others, nothing more.

Theological Bias

Virtually all Bible software comes from conservative evangelical quarters, so do not expect
any particular 'balance' in the resources offered. Of course, this makes no difference in
respect of Bible versions: the NRSV will remain the NRSV, for example, regardless of the
theological leanings of the publisher or software producer. However, Bible software often
comes with interesting 'add-ons': dictionaries, 'theme' collections, 'parallel text' cross-
references, and so on, and these are clearly influenced by theological bias.

The point here is not that there is something wrong with whatever that perspective is
(theological opinion is something you need to develop yourself): rather, my point is that
one must actively ward against the subtle suggestion that these additional tool are 'facts'.
They are not.2 Cross-references, for example, are always biased, for whoever puts them
together must decide what counts as a similar or related text. What is put in, and what is
left out, is always a theological decision.

User support groups

One further thing to be aware of is that certain software packages have considerable user
support: e-Sword, or example, has a very active group of supporters who produce their
own material, discuss issues, solve technical problems and answer user question, etc.
This can be helpful when it comes to discovering new resources, or when something goes
wrong and you cannot figure out how to fix it. However, some of these user groups
become embroiled in doctrinal disputes every now and then, and the tone of the
discussion can become remarkably ... well, heated. If you are easily disillusioned by such
heated exchanges, it is safer to stay away from such user groups.

2
Again, it would get us too far into philosophical debate whether there are any 'facts'
at all. Personally, I am rather sceptical – at the very least, most of what is commonly
labelled 'fact' is in fact (pun intended) already interpreted observation.

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2.3 Online Bible

The Online Bible (http://www.onlinebible.org/html/eng/index.htm ), inspite of its name, is

not an internet-based resource like Bible Gateway (http://www.biblegateway.com ) or
similar sites (see http://radical-bible.org/links/versions.html ). Online Bible is a Bible
programme that may be downloaded online, or ordered on a CD. The programme has
been around for many years, hence the name, and its rather dated 'look' testifies to that. It
is, however, perfectly serviceable for basic and intermediate work with English Bible
versions, and it is at present the programme with the cheapest NRSV on offer (i6,-), and
a somewhat more expensive NIV (i20,-): see
http://www.onlinebible.org/html/eng/OLB_Library_eng_bibles_modern.html

A copy of the basic installation file and some of the free Bible versions available for it is on
my Biblical Studies Resource CD (version 4.1 or later). In order to get copyright-protected
translations like the NRSV or NIV, you need to download these versions from the
OnlineBible website and pay a fee using your credit card or the paypal system online. You
will then received an e-mail from the service with a link to the file, and the necessary
access codes.

In a nutshell, when compared to e-Sword, the main alternative, it must be said that
OnlineBible is less versatile than e-Sword; operating it is more awkward and less intuitive
than e-Sword; it offers fewer free resources (Bible versions and otherwise); and, to my
knowledge, it is not supported by an active user network. Yet it gets the basic job done
very well, and, in contrast to e-Sword, the Online Bible programme offers a legal copy of
the NIV and NRSV for a small fee.

Installation

Install the basic programme, which includes the Authorized Version of 1611, with the
setup file downloaded from the website, or copied from my Biblical Studies Resources CD;
alternatively, you could order a CD, at the Online Bible website
(http://www.onlinebible.org).

Once installed, start the programme. You will first encounter a 'consumer licence' pop-up
window, which appears only the first time you run the programme, where you need to click
'Accept'. The next window,
which again appears only once,
offers various possibilities to
'configure [the] user system' —
these are options that you only
have if you have purchased the
CD for OnlineBible. If you
installed the downloaded
programme from the website (or
from my CD), ignore this: just
click on 'Ok'. A third pop-up
window appears which offers
information on the latest
changes to the programme,
Fig 1: Help/Tutorial

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when compared to earlier

versions; again, just click 'Ok'.

The first proper dialogue window

that comes up is not the
programme itself, but the help /
tutorial function (see fig. 1).
Explore it or click on 'Exit' to get to
the programme itself (you can
always return this 'tutorial help
menu' later by clicking on 'Help' in
the main programme window, and
then 'Tutorial'). You may also want
to click on the check-box labelled
'Check to supress...' to prevent
this windown from popping up Fig. 2: Default (main) programme window
every time you run OnlineBible.

The default programme window that will

be displayed next (fig. 2) shows four
different windows: one with the Biblical
text, one with search results, one with a
devotional text, and one with 'theme
index' which tells you fascinating 'facts'
about Gen 1:1 such as "Sunday, October
23, 4004BC" (presumably the 'date' of
'day 1' of creation?). I personally 'clicked
away' (note the 'x-shaped' icon in the top
right corner of each window) all windows
except the actual scripture text window to
reduce clutter on the desktop, not to
mention to remove the fundamentalist Fig. 3: Tick all boxes to show tabs
nonsense in the 'theme index'.

Before we explore the programme

further, you may want to install other
versions such as the NRSV straightaway
(check online what is available; see also
what's included on my CD).

Basic Programme Configuration

Once several versions are installed,

re-start the programme itself. It can be
quite fiddly to make sure that all installed
versions appear in the main programme
window. As you can see in fig. 2, the Fig. 4: Select Versions
main Bible window (top right corner) has
a number of 'tabs' at the top which you can click on to bring the relevant version to the
fore. Press the 'F9' key on your keyboard to 'Select Versions', and make sure that the
versions you have installed are listed here, and have the boxes next to the names ticked

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(fig.4). Click through the tabs at the top ('Alternate'; 'Commentaries'; etc.) until you get to
the last one, called 'Show Tabs': make sure that all boxes are ticked here as well (fig. 3).
Then click 'Ok'. You will be prompted to save this configuration as a 'desktop'. Choose a
name for it (eg. Jane Smith 01) and click on 'Ok'. You should now be able to see all the
available Bible versions in the tabs at the top of the main programme window (compare
fig.2, where you can see AV (Authorized Version) and NRSV (New Revised Standard
Version). The tabs on your screen may be different, depending on which version(s) you
have installed.

Simple Display

Once all the versions appear

properly on those tabs, you can
switch between them by clicking
on the appropriate tab. You can
further choose which verse /
section to look at using the scroll
bar at the far right, or by clicking
on the first icon on the left (top
row) / pressing the CTRL-F1 key
combination. This opens a small
'view passages' window (see fig.
5). Select the text you want and
click 'Ok'. Fig. 5: View Passages Dialogue Box

Parallel Display of Versions

Close textual work on a particular passage can be facilitated by a comparison of different

translations. OnlineBible enables you to do that. Let's assume here that you have installed
all the versions you want and have access to with this programme (for example, if you buy
the NRSV and the NIV, and also get the free ASV and AV). However, there appears to be
no straightforward way of doing this — at least none I could see. Still, there is a way to
achive this: let's assume you have a single window with a biblical text open (fig. 6); if not,
just press CTRL-F1 and select a passage to display in any version you want. Make sure
that when you check under 'Window' (top menu), the options 'Tile Classic' and
'Synchronised Scrolling' are checked. Now minimize that single Bible window by clicking
on the left-most
icon in the top
right corner of
that single text
window (note the
arrow pointing
towards that icon
in fig. 6).

Once you have

minimised that
Fig. 6: Preparing to display parallel versions
internal window (it
will show as a small window in the bottom left corner), press CTRL-F1 again to select the
same passage in a different version. You should now see two windows, one of which is
minimised in the bottom left corner. Click on that same left-most icon on the minimised

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window again to bring it back up. You then need to go back to the menu item 'Window',
and change the display to 'Vertical Tile'. You should then see two windows with the same
passage in different versions, as in fig. 7.

You can repeat this process to display one or two more parallel versions, if you wish.

Searching

OnlineBible
enables you
to do simple
searching for
words or
phrases.
Unfortunately,
it does not Fig. 7: Diplay of two parallel versions
allow the use
of Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT, etc.). Still, it's a reasonably developed search
system. Press the F7 key, or click on the torch-icon, and the 'Word/Phrase search'
dialogue box pops up (fig. 8). You can specify which version(s) you want to search; which
range of scriptural texts, and whether you are looking for a single word, or combination of
words in the same verse (Word Search), or a phrase (Phrase Search).

While searching with Boolean operators are not available, but you can use wildcards
(using the character '*'), as in a search for justif*, which will give you all words that
begin with the characters 'justifi',
thus including the noun as well as
the verb.

Words searches can combine

words, as in this example:
Abraham justif* (Word
Search) on the NRSV will have
three results: Rom 4:2, Gal 3:8,
and Jam 2:21. Note, however,
that such combination searches
look for combinations of words in
a single verse. It would seem that
OnlineBible cannot search across
a set range of verses. Also: make
sure you specify 'word search' for
this operation: the default position
is a phrase search, and if you did
a phrase search for Abraham
Fig. 8: Phrase Search
justif*, you would only get a
single result (Jam 2:21).

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Strong's Numbers

As in most other Bible software packages, OnlineBible comes with 'Strong's Numbers' and
the associated set of Greek and Hebrew dictionary-type entries. They are, as with most
software, only associated with the words of the Authorised Version. You can switch these
numbers on or off by clicking on the menu option 'View', and then 'Strongs'. You can then
hover the mouse arrow over a number, and a pop-up window will come up after a second,
displaying information about that particular number.

You have to install two 'Strong's Numbers dictionaries' for Greek and Hebrew for that to
work; download them from the OnlineBible website, or from my CD.

Further Possibilities and Help

Like any other programme, OnlineBible is best explored by experimenting with it. Try using
a right-mouse-button click on a text, for example, to see what the context menu that pops
up offers to you.

The OnlineBible website itself offers two help documents / user guides: one for the
ordinary user, and another for more advanced user; both are also available on my CD.

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2.4 e-Sword

The Bible programme e-Sword (yes, that's how the software writer capitalises it) has been
around for a few years less than Online Bible, but it is nevertheless now a long established
programme, apparently with a much broader user community. It is designed for the
Windows operating system (98 and later) and may be downloaded at http://www.e-
sword.net ; a copy of the programme and many Bible modules associated with it is also
available on my Biblical Studies Resources CD (hereafter: “the disk”). Both the website
and the disk contain a detailed user manual (more than 100pp) as well as introductory
training demos (videos you can watch on-screen) which go into far more detail than the
following brief notes. As with all material: read it critically.3

Free Bible software, including e-Sword, always has one serious limitation: copyright
prevents them from offering some modern versions like the NRSV. There are ways around
this problem (see references on the disk), but I am not sure whether they are legal.

Installation

Download the installation file (probably “setupxxx.exe”, where xxx is the current version
number) at the website or from the disk. Locate the file in Windows Explorer and double-
click on it. Follow the on-screen instructions. This will install the programme and the first
Bible version (the Authorised Version / King James Version). Thereafter you need to
install individual Bible versions and other module associated with the programme (see
http://www.e-sword.net or the disk). This usually means that you locate the installation file
for that module and double-click on it; again, follow the instructions. Sometimes you will
have to move files manually into the programme folder, which is (by default) c:\Programe
Files\e-Sword.

User Interface

Spend some time

familiarising
yourself with the
user interface,
which will look
more or less like
the image in fig. 1.

Essentially, you
have the menu
bar at the top; the
selection of
books/chapters/ve
rses on the far
left; the Bible text
window more or

Fig. 1: Basic User Interface

3
You may want to read my online review of this programme which includes a
discusion of various other aspects of e-Sword, plus links to websites with additional tools.:
http://www.bsreview.org/index.php?modulo=Reviews&id=19

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less in the centre; dictionary tools at the bottom; and commentary tools (eg. footnotes of
Bible versions) on the right. However, the layout of this interface can be customised (drag
the borders of individual ‘panels’ in any direction, or try clicking on the menu bar: windows
-> [four options].

Simple and Parallel

Display of text

If you wish to display

the text of a particular
passage, select the
book, chapter and
verse on the left
window panel.
Alternatively, press
CTRL-L or click on the
“Lookup Scripture
Reference” box in the
top left corner. Type
“Mark 1:2" (or
whatever) to get to your
desired verse/chapter.
Then choose the
Fig. 2: Parallel display of up to four versions
particular version you
want to read the text in by clicking on the tabs above the Bible text window. If you have
forgotten what the abbreviations stand for, ‘hover’ the mouse pointer over that tab for a
second and an explanation will appear.

A highly useful feature of this programme is

that it allows you to display up to four
different versions in a parallel format (see
fig. 2). This is a very useful tool for the close
reading of a text for exegesis.

Searching for words / phrases

One of the functions of a Bible programme

is that is replaces most of the functions of a
concordance. In other words, you can look
up occurences of a particular word across
the Bible, or parts of the Bible.

To begin your search, either press CTRL-S

or click on the icon in the top bar that looks
like a pari of binoculars. This will bring up
the search interface (see fig. 3). The
programme will always search the particular
version that is displayed in the Bible window
at the time. The example in fig. 3 shows
how the results display a verse list and the
Fig. 3: Search interface

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highlighted verse reference is also displayed at the bottom of that window.

Searches can be limited by range (whole Bible or part thereof); you can exlude search
terms, list partial matches, and search for individual word(s) or phrases. If you are not so
good with spelling, you can even have the programme look at your search text with a
spell-checker.

The example in fig. 3 searches the four main letters of Paul (Romans to Galatians) in the
NRSV for verses that include the terms “righteous” or “justif”, including partial matches
(like justification or justified). The results (66 verses) are displayed once you click on the
‘Search’ button.

If you subsequently click on the ‘Accept’ button, the search interface will disappear, and
you will instead see that the first verse found is displayed in the Bible window. A small
drop-down box, to the right of the ‘binocular button’, shows the verse reference, and you
can now move through the reference at your leisure. This way you will see the verses in
context. For
example, fig. 4
shows this if you
search the whole
NRSV for the
word ‘Jordan’.

Unfortunately,
the programme
does not allow
you to search
across a small
number of
verses; if you are
looking for more
than one term,
the programme
will only search
individual verses.

Graphics viewer

A nice by-product Fig. 4: Search results ‘accepted’ in the main Bible window
is the graphics
viewer which allows you to view graphics modules for e-Sword (see disk supplied) such as
NASA pictures, Bible maps, and so on (see example in fig. 5). Press CTRL- G or click on
“Tools” and then “Graphics Views” in the top menu bar. This will open a new window. You
can view maps this way, print them, or copy and paste them into your word processing
software.

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Dictionaries and
Footnotes

The bottom part of the

window, and well as the
right hand side part, will
display commentary or
dictionary information.
Much of this derives
from pretty old (often
outdated) information;
eg. the ISBE
(International Standard
Bible Encyclopedia, see
fig. 6) which is almost
100 years old now.
Treat this information
with due care.
Fig. 5: Graphics Viewer
For example, fig.
6 displays the
beginning of the
entry on
‘Kingdom of
God/Heaven,
which is
displayed once
the user double-
clicks on the
word ‘kingdom’ in
the text. From
today’s scholarly
perspective, the
usefulness of this
entry is rather
limited.

Fig. 6: Dictionary: ISBE

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Strong’s Numbers

Some versions (especially the default Authorised Version / King James Version) come
with “Strong’s Numbers”. The example in fig. 7 shows how one could look up the word
used in ‘kingdom [of heaven] in Mt 19:12, and look for other occurences of the term in
Matthew.

Fig. 7: Strong’s Number search

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2.5 NRSV (Access Foundation)

The only free, accessible electronic version of the NRSV you can download that I know of
is the one offered by the Access Foundation, where you can download it in PDF and
HTML form (http://anova.org/sev); of late, the link on that site appears to be dead, but
there is no indication as to why this might be the case. You can still download the file via
the internet archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20060618181238/www.anova.org/sev/.

The great advantage of the text in this format is that if offers you a quick alternative to a
complex programme like e-Sword: it allows you to display the NRSV text, make simple
word searches, print pages and copy/paste selected parts. It is probably a good idea to
place the PDF and / or HTML version of the NRSV on your Windows desktop (although
you can use PDF’s and HTML files on a Linux or Apple / MacIntosh system, of course). If
you use the disk supplied, locate the relevant page for the NRSV, and then right-click on
the link to the PDF and / or HTML version; then select “Save Target as...” (or equivalent).
Make sure you save (that is, copy) the file to your “Desktop”.

Choosing PDF or HTML

This is probably much of a muchness: both the HTML and the PDF text are formatted well.
It is probably easier to read the PDF since Adobe Acrobat Reader will display this in page
form (like a book; more than 3000pp!), whereas the HTML file is a single long file. In what
follows, I will therefore focus on the PDF version.

Display

When you open the file by double-clicking on its icon, you will probably see the front
‘cover’ in the main window, with the ‘books’ listed in main sections on the left (the ‘content’
section). Use the
contents section
to choose the
book you want to
read, then page
through the text
to find the
chapter / verse
you are looking
for. In the
example in figure
1, you see that
the book of
Daniel has been
selected /
displayed. Note
that you can
change the
‘zoom’ level of
the text so you
can always read it
comfortably (see Fig. 1: Selecting ‘Book’ to display
‘percentage’

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figure in the top menu row). ‘Turn pages’ by clicking on the ‘next’ button in the bottom row.
You may find that the ‘books’ of the Bible are grouped together in a not very common
fashion, but it is
easy enough to
find what you
are looking for
anyway.

Simple
Searches

There are two

ways to search
PDF’s: the
simple or the
complex way.
The simple
search is
straightforward.
Press CTRL-S
and a little
search window
pops up. Enter
your search
term and press
ENTER. This Fig. 2: Simple Search Box
will enable you
to jump from one ‘result’ to the next (see figure 2).

Complex
Searches

Click on the top

row icon that
looks like a pair
of binoculars.
After a few
seconds,
depending on the
speed of your
computer's
processor, a
complex search
windows comes
up (see figure 3).
Choose your
search terms
there. This is
limited to
searching for a
precise phrase,
Fig. 3: Complex Search Box

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or for one or more words, but cannot be restricted to a specific combination of words. You
may want to play around with the search options a bit to familiarise yourself with the
possibilities offered here.

Since this is a large document, this will take a few seconds (much longer than e-Sword
would!). Eventually it will display all instances where the word occurs, and you can simply
click on the list of results to display them in any order you choose.

Print, Copy and Paste

You may wish to print a whole page, or range of pages. To do this, it is best to display the
page concerned, and then press CTRL-P (or click on the ‘print’ icon in the top row). This
will bring up the print dialogue. Make sure you specify which pages you want to print,
otherwise your computer might try to print the whole lot!

Perhaps of greater interest is the copy/paste function: use this to move text
blocks into your word processing programme (like Word). Click on the text-select
icon in the top menu bar which transforms your mouse pointer to a ‘select tool’
(shaped a bit like an “I”; see image on the right hand side).

Now click and drag your mouse pointer across the exact text block you want, then release
the mouse button. Press CTRL-C. Then open the word processing software, and position
your cursor where you want the text to appear. Press CTRL-P to paste the text in there.
You will have to do some formatting to make it look the way you want it to appear.

Commentary / Introductions

In contrast to most other Bible-related programmes (though strictly speaking this is not a
programme), the NRSV in this version is not offered by a conservative group, but rather by
a main-stream ‘liberal arts’ college programme in the USA. This edition of the NRSV by
the Access Foundation uses parts of the introductory sections offered in the New Oxford
Annotated Bible, ed. M. D. Coogan (3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2001). These
introductions are often quite accurate summaries of mainline scholarship. Once again,
read it critically, like everything else.

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2.6 Bible Atlas (Access Foundation)

This is a very useful Bible Atlas, offered again by the Access Foundation
(http://ananova.org/sev ); since that link has gone dead, you can also try
http://web.archive.org/web/20060618181238/www.anova.org/sev/.

The maps and resources offered

in this Bible Atlas seem to have
been taken from the Holman
Bible Atlas (ed. T. Brisco;
Broadman & Holman 1998),
though usually without the
extensive explanatory comments /
text in that book. Once again,
read it critically (yes, even maps –
they do not simply contain 'facts'!)

It is probably a good idea to place

the PDF version of the atlas on
the 'desktop' of your PC monitor
(you can use PDF’s on a Linux or
Apple / MacIntosh system, of
course). If you use the disk
supplied, locate the relevant page
for the atlas, and then right-click
on the link to the PDF file; then
select “Save Target as...” (or
equivalent). Make sure you save
(that is, copy) the file to your
“Desktop”.

Open the atlas by double-clicking Fig. 1: First page of the atlas

on the relevant icon. You should
then see a screen similar to what is displayed in figure 1. There is the usual ‘content’
panel on the left, and the actual pages on the right. You can navigate through the 199
pages of the atlas by scrolling up and down (using the scroll-bar on the far right), or by
manipulating the page numbers in the bottom row; or by selecting pages from the
contents-menu on the left. The file is not text-searchable.

Individual images (pages) can be copied by selecting the ‘select tool’ (shaped a bit like
an ‘I’), then clicking on the page / image concerned (which will now be highlighted), and
then right-clicking on the image. This will offer us the option of ‘copying to the clipboard’. If
we do that, we can use that image in another programme, such as word-processing
softare like ‘Word’. (This has been done on the reverse page, by the way.)

For example, go to p. 174 (“Jerusalem in the New Testament Period”). This gives an
overview of the the size and features of Jerusalem as reconstructed for the time of Jesus.
Note that a lot of the features shown here are the result of archaeological studies, which
are prone to dispute just like other essentially historical matters.

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You can also print pages simply by pressing CTRL-P; remember to specify which page
you want to print – otherwise your printer will start printing out all 199 pages...

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2.7 Bible Mapper

BibleMapper is a freely available piece of software that allows the user to make his/her
own, 'customised' maps of geographical areas relevant to the study of ancient Israel and
earliest Christianity. It is available here: http://www.biblemapper.com. The programm
setup file is, in its current programme version (3.0) some 70MB large, and I have therefore
placed it on my "Biblical Studies Resources Disk" as well.

Please be aware though that you need to register this software in order to use it. See
http://www.biblemapper.com/download_2.htm for details. Registration is free and consists
of little more than sending an email to the programme writer.

The software enables the user to:

• chose with kind of objects you want to appear on the map (names of towns, rivers,
etc.);
• select between different kinds of terrain imaging, including satellite images;
• select map objects like cities by 'biblical era';
• make simple distance calculations;
• save, export or print your customised map;
• search for places by using the 'Find' function.

Once again, bear in mind that all tools come with theological presuppositions. Maps (or
map tools like this programme) are no exceptions. Just because this map tool makes a
particular claim (often called 'fact') does not mean that you have accept this at face value.
Whether a 'city' existed at a particular time, for example, is a matter of historical and
archaeological debate, and not simply a matter of doctrinal statement.

Installation and Use

Installation is fairly straightforward; right-click on the programme setup file and chose
'install'. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Once installed, start the programme by clicking on the icon, or using the START ->
PROGRAMS option to
look for the programme.
Be aware that the
programme demands
considerable system
resources and may
therefore take a while to
start up. Eventually the
default map will show up
(fig. 1). Click on the
'maximise' button in the
top right corner to get the
benefit of viewing the
entire map on the full
screen. Note that the
distance indicator will stay
at the bottom left corner
Fig. 1: Default map at programme start

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by default. The default zoom level (top right) is 30%, but is reasonably well scalable from
5% to 400%. The cursor shows up by default as a 'hand' symbol, and by clicking and
dragging you can push the map in all directions (depending on your computer, it may take
a second before the picture is updated).

There is a useful 'help' feature by a user group: http://biblemapper.pbwiki.com. This

website offers information on how to use the programme, maps by other users, etc.

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2.8 Reading Planner

Reading Planner is a simple programme

to enable the user to set out a systematic
Bible reading schedule. The programme
is free and may be downloaded for
Windows and other operating systems at
this website:
http://www.readingplanner.com.

The programme is simple to install and

use. Once installed, start it to reveal the
basic user interface (fig. 1). Make your
choices as to what kind of biblical 'books'
to include, the date on which to start and
finish, and which days of the week to
include. Then click on 'Create' (if you click Fig. 1: User interface
on 'Done', you will exit the programme).

Once you click on 'Create', a new

dialogue box will open on top of the user
interface (fig. 2). This will offer you a
couple of options in respect of saving the
output. The data is always written as a
standard HTML document (that is, you
can read it with your browser). You can
link the Bible chapters to online Bible
texts or to two kinds of Bible programmes
(the Sword Project, not to be confused
with e-Sword, and Logos).

If I chose the options highlighted in fig. 2,

the programme will then display a
clickable link to the file just created. Fig. 2: Save options

The programme appears to have been written by the kind of protestant who seems
unaware of the apocrypha / deuterocanonical writings, and they are therefore not included
in the list of options.

Also bear in mind that the programme is based on chapter divisions, which are not always
'natural' to the text in question.

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2.9 Other biblical studies & theology software/resources

1. Books with a CD-ROM

Some publishers now offer certain books with a CD-ROM incorporating the text of the
book, as well as (sometimes) additional features. Examples include:

Fortress Press (http://www.augsburgfortress.org). The number of books available

electronically is fairly limited, but most are worthwhile considering for purchase. They all
seem to be based on the Libronic system and are therefore compatible with other
resources bought via Logos (see below):
http://www.augsburgfortress.org/store/category.jsp?clsid=150643&productgroupid=0&cate
goryid=23

Useful examples are:

Brueggemann, Walter (1997). Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute,

Advocacy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. (Comes with a free copy of Brueggemann's
Texts under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern Imagination. Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1993; both books are classic Brueggemann texts, and the latter is
an excellent introduction to his thought.)
Janz, Denis & Sherry E. Jordon (eds) (2002). A Reformation Reader: Primary Texts with
Introductions, with CD-ROM. (Augmented & improved ed.). Minneapolis: Fortress
Press.
Johnson, Luke Timothy (2001). The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation.
(Rev. ed.) Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Nickelsburg, George W. E. (2005). Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah:
A Literary and Historical Introduction. (2nd ed.) Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Partridge, Christopher H. (2005). Introduction to World Religions. Minneapolis: Fortress
Press.
(All also available via logos.com: http://www.logos.com/products/details/2466 )

Smyth & Helwys (http://www.helwys.com): this publishing firm offers a useful commentary
series (http://www.helwys.com/commentary/index.html); all volumes include a CD-ROM
with the full text in PDF format. Sample chapters are available at:
http://www.helwys.com/commentary/pages_010903/comm_samplepages.html

2. Logos

Logos (http://www.logos.com) specialises in offering an integrated electronic library which

does not just include the bible in various translations as well as original languages, but
also a multitude of theological resources. This often involves scanning in and processing
for full-text access a considerable number of both classic and contemporary books. They
do come at a price, though. For example:

Collegeville Catholic Reference Library, Version 2.0:

http://www.logos.com/products/details/2460
Essential IVP Reference Collection Version 2: http://www.logos.com/products/details/1516

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Freedman, David Noel (ed) (1992). The Anchor Bible Dictionary. 6 vols. New York:
Doubleday: http://www.logos.com/products/details/1678 (NRSV included)
Word Biblical Commentary series (59 volumes:
http://www.logos.com/products/details/3671

I particularly recommend the Anchor Bible Dictionary, and the IVP Reference Collection.

3. Questia

Online text repositories like Questia (http://www.questia.com) give reading access to both
classic and contemporary books and journals, for a monthly or annual fee. So far, their
coverage of material relevant for the study of theology and ministry has tended to be
patchy – but that could change. See also the ebrary collection (http://shop.ebrary.com)
described elsewhere in this document.

4. Cokesbury

Cokesbury (http://www.cokesbury.com) offers a large reference library under the name

'iPreach' for a monthly, four-monthly, or annual fee; subscription details and contents list
are available at: https://www.cokesbury.com/forms/subscriptions.aspx?lvl=iPreach

Also available as a free-standing, CD-ROM based product is the extermely useful,

massive 12-volume Bible commentary, the New Interpreter's Bible, with an equally
massive price tag (the cokesbury.com website sells it for US$795,- (more or less the same
price as you might pay for the twelve hardcover volumes, though I have seen better offers
elsewhere):

Keck, Leander E. (ed) (1994-2003). The New Interpreter's Bible. 12 vols. on CD-ROM.
Nashville: Abingdon Press.

I have not seen this electronic product yet, and since it is not based on PDF nor Libronix
software, I cannot comment on the usefulness of the electronic format. The text itself is
very good indeed: this is a massive, indeed 'massively useful' resource.

5. Online access to individual journals / periodicals

5.1 Access

Most journals are available as a subscription service – that is why you would normally only
access them through a university library. There are some exceptions, though: some
journals make at least some of their content available online.

When looking for a particularly journal, my first stop is the website of Tyndale House at
Cambridge, which offers a good list of well over 200 journals in theology: that is, journals
which are available in their library, with links to their websites, where available.

http://193.60.91.18/Tyndale//Periodicals.php

If a given journal is not available online, it is possible to pay Tyndale House to do a

photocopy for you from their printed copies, that is, if they have the journal themselves.

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Their holdings are quite substantial, especially for biblical studies and for evangelical
theology. They charge a small fee for this, of course, which is used to pay the Tyndale
students who process your requests:
http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/Photocopy.htm

There is free journal access to all or substantial parts of several good journals, including:

Bulletin for Biblical Research: http://www.ibr-bbr.org/IBRBulletin/IBR_BBR_ByYearList.html

Direction: http://www.directionjournal.org
Harvard Divinity Bulletin: http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/bulletin_mag
Princeton Seminary Bulletin:
http://scdc.library.ptsem.edu/mets/mets.aspx?src=PSBVolumeIndex.txt
Theology Today: http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu
Word & World: http://www.luthersem.edu/word&world/archives_indexes.asp

For more links, see: http://radical-bible.org/links/journals.html

Purchasing online access to individual journals may make a lot of sense, depending on
your needs. It can also cost a lot of money. Many journals are hideously expensive, and
many are of course fairly useless to students at undergraduate level. Useful exceptions to
both include:

Interpretation (http://www.interpretation.org): designed for pastors in North America. An

online subscription costs US$20 per annum and includes access to the current
volumes as well as the archive, which goes back to the very first issue in 1947. Four
issues per year, two of which relate to specifically biblical subject matters. Highly
recommended.

The ATLAS collection (http://www.atla.com/trial/textweek.html): this is best accessed via

the special 'trial' deal offered to readers of the (free) website 'textweek.com', which offers
lectionary resources (very good, in fact). ATLAS offers a 30-day free trial access to
individual users. A year's subscription to its service costs US$99,-. Available journal titles
are listed here: ftp://ftp.atla.com/public/atlas/atlas_titles0508.htm . Most title do not include
the most current issues. Titles include, by the way, Interpretation, but also (amongst many
others): African Ecclesial Review; Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics; Bibliotheca
Sacra; Catholic Biblical Quarterly; Church History; and the magazine, Christian Century. If
you can afford to pay US$99,- per annum, this is really worth it.

5.2 Searching for relevant articles

The lists above are useful when you know of a potentially useful journal article. But what if
you are trying to find a useful article in the first place? Increasingly, there are number of
helpful free online search tools available for this.

The Index Theologicus used to be a subscribers-only service, but is now freely available. It
is based on journals housed at the University Library in Tübingen (Germany), comprising
some 600 journals, special collections of articles, congress paper volumes, and so on.
Don't worry: the user interface is in English... The Index Theologicus does not find
everything, of course: it is best to use it together with other search engines (see below).
http://www.ixtheo.de/cgi-bin/ixtheo/maskeeng.pl?db=ixtheo

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Useful for searches in Biblical studies are the following three search engines (in each
case, once again the user interface is English):

BILDI (based in Innsbruck, Austria): http://www.uibk.ac.at/bildi/bildi/search/index.html.en

BiBIL (based in Lausanne, Switzerland): http://www.bibil.net
and the google-based Biblical Studies Journals Search Engine (put together by the people
at deinde):
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=014480939289609955415%3A7f8e_mv4pou

Finally, a shortcut for articles related to particular passages in the scriptures is the website
The Text this Week: http://www.textweek.com/

Note that none of these search engines and databases are exhaustive / comprehensive.

5.3 Journal Abbreviations

If you come across a reference which sports an abbreviated journal title which you cannot
work out, it is useful to try a list of journal abbreviations. There are a couple of websites
that offer such lists:

The website ecumenism.net offers a good list: http://www.ecumenism.net/docu/abbrev.htm

Another useful list may be found at http://www.theologicalstudies.org.uk/abbreviations.php

Of course, journal abbreviations are not really standardised, so you may find all kinds of
variations. Anyway, this is a good place to start.

Print-based resources for this kind of thing include:

Alexander, P H, J F Kutsko, J D Ernest, et al. (eds) 1999. The SBL Handbook of Style: For
Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies. Peabody: Hendrickson
Publishers. – An online edition of this text, in the form of a PDF document, is
available free of charge at this address:
http://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/SBLHS.pdf There is also a useful 'student
supplement': http://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/SBLHS_SS92804_Revised_ed.pdf
Clines, D J A 1997. The Sheffield Manual for Authors & Editors in Biblical Studies.
Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
Schwertner, S 1974. Internationales Abkürzungsverzeichnis Für Theologie Und
Grenzgebiete / International Glossary of Abbreviations for Theology and Related
Subjects / Index International Des Abréviations Pour La Théologie Et Matières
Affinissantes. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

6. Other software

For some of the above, and other software, see also:

http://www.discountchristian.com
http://www.bibletheology.com
http://www.rejoicesoftware.com
http://www.wesleyowen.com

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2.10 PDA Bible software

PDA stands for Personal Digital Assistant, and if you do not know that, you probably don't
have one – in which case this section is perhaps not relevant to your needs. A PDA is a
small, hand-held computer, usually comparable in size to 'scientific calculators' (about the
size of a palm or hand). They are often combined with other handheld devices, such as
MP3 (audio file) players, digital cameras, or mobile phones; in fact, some cross-over
devices are called 'smartphones', combining a mobile telephone with a PDA. PDAs
essentially allow for mobile computing involving a calendar application, a calculator, simple
text programmes and spreadsheets, and so on.

Today, PDAs typically run on one of five main operating systems (there are others, but
these two dominate the market at present): (1) Windows Mobile, the handheld variety of
the wide-spread desktop operating system by Microsoft; (2) Palm OS, an independent
system now apparently abandoned by Palm, a major producer of PDAs; (3) Blackberry, the
proprietary system used by the eponymous PDAs / smartphones; and (4) Symbian OS,
used by PDAs produced by Nokia, Motorala, Siemens, and a few other firms; (5) a
Mac/Apple OS for the iPhone.

Once you have a computer, you will also have people writing Bible software for it. This is
certainly true for the first two, Windows Mobile and Palm OS.

Free programmes include:

* e-Sword for Windows Mobile ("Pocket PC"):

http://www.e-sword.net/pocketpc/downloads.html
* Palm Bible+ for Palm OS: http://palmbibleplus.sourceforge.net (also see my review
at: http://www.bsreview.org/index.php?modulo=Reviews&id=2 , also attached as
Appendix 2 at the end of this document)

Once again, it is not currently possible to get the NRSV for either of these programmes, at
least not as far as I am aware. Having said that, I use PalmBible+ all the time.

Commercial packages for both Windows Mobile and Palm OS, which may include
translations like the NRVS and NIV, include:

* BibleReader, by Olive Tree: http://www.olivetree.com

* MyBible, by Laridian: http://www.laridian.com
* NRSV for iPhone: http://www.ccel.org/iphone

The English language resources offered by both free and commercial software have so far
usually been quite similar, although this is beginning to change.

The real difference between free and commercial software lies, as is the case with desktop
computer software, in the kind of resources for original langugage work: if you want to work
with Greek and Hebrew texts, free programmes will usually offer quite basic resources in
this area. Having said that, I personally work quite happily with Palm Bible+ and the free
Greek and Hebrew resources offered by various enthusiasts for use with this programme;
if I need to do any more detailed work, the speed and ease of use of a desktop machine is
always preferable anyway.

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3 Other Resources and Tools

This is the section for various useful tools, online or otherwise.

3.1 Reading RSS feeds: google reader

An RSS feed (RSS = Really Simple Syndication) is a structured file format which is
typically used to inform users about frequently updated content on websites. Google
Reader is an online facility to read such RSS feeds, and therefore new postings on blogs
(blog = web log) that you 'subscribe' to. As a result, you will not have to look at ten different
websites to check what new postings there are; this facility will do that for you, and you
therefore look at just one 'site', namely your personal Google Reader page.

I would estimate that following the steps outlined in this document in order to get started
will take you about 10-20 minutes. The process is pretty much the same regardless of
whether you use a PC with Windows, or Linux, or an Apple Macintosh.

Preliminary step: create a google account

If you already have a google account, skip this step and go to the next step.

It is useful to get your own google account, and I would suggest you begin with an e-mail
account. You do not have to use it afterwards, but it makes registering the rest simpler.

Go online, and head for

http://mail.google.com/mail/
signup . You will be
presented with a form to fill
in, much like the in Figure
1.

Fill in the details required.

Fill in your real first name /
last name if you like, though
you can create a fictitious
identity as weell, if you like.
When it comes to your login
name and password
combination, use any you
like, though I would
generally advice not to use
full real names. So, if your
name is "Harriet Hanson
Robinson", for example,
use "h2robinson" or
something like that. Fig. 1: Creating a google account

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For passwords, always use a letter-number combination that you will find easy to
remember. However, the letters used should not form a word that you could find in a
dictionary. In other words, don't use a password like 'bond007', because programmes
written by hackers to crack passwords will crack this easily. It is also not advisable to use
your mother's maiden name, your birth date, and other data which may be guessed or
easily accessed from other sources. 'Password' is not a good password either, and neither
is '12345'.

Make sure you remember your login name and password!

The tick-box 'remember me on this computer' means that if you keep it ticked, google will
create a cookie on your system which recognises when you log in from that computer. If
you share your computer with others, this is not recommended. As a matter of course, I
would always un-tick those boxes.

I would also un-tick the 'enable web history' box. Google has a somewhat un-nerving habit
of trying to collect as much data about its users as possible, oestensibly in order to direct
targeted advertising at you; it makes sense to limit this as much as possible.

Choose a security question and provide an answer — preferably something that isn't easy
to guess or to find out about you. Google will use this question if you manage to forget
your password.

You can also offer another e-mail address on this field — again something that Google will
use if you forget your password and your answer to the security question. Personally, I
would not give my real e-mail
address to them.

The 'Terms of Service' are

long and boring, but be aware
that Google, like all internet
service providers, reserves
the right to keep your data
indefinitely even if you think
you have deleted it, or shut
down your account at will.

Fill in the word verification (to Fig. 2: Google Mail (Overview)

prevent rogue programmes
from flooding Google with requests for e-mail accounts) and click on the 'I accept' button at
the bottom.

Once your account is created, you will be presented with an overview of how google mail
works, with a link to your mail account. If you click on it, you will be presented with
something like the picture in Figure 2. This is your google mail account (in this case, for
"h2robinson@ googlemail.com". I won't explain the google mail account here; it is pretty
straightforward, so explore yourself. If you like, use this mail account like any other e-mail
address; if you don't want to, just ignore it.

Now that you have a google account, we will move on to Google Reader. To begin, let's
sign out of google mail. Click on the link in the top right corner ("Sign out").

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Starting Google Reader

Head for http://www.google.com/reader . You will be presented with a login screen that
should similar to the one in
Figure 3. Use your login name
and password combination that
you created in step 1 above.
(Please don't tell me that you
have forgotten it already...) So in
my fictious case, I use
"h2robinson" and the password.
Once again, I would recommend
you do not tick the box 'remember
me on this computer. The click on
'Sign in'.

When you first create a google

reader account, a tutorial offer will
Fig. 3: Google Reader login screen
be made which we will ignore
here (Figure 4); you can
always look at it later, if you
so wish.

Instead, let's start by

adding some
'subscriptions' to your
google reader. In other
words, you tell the
programme what blogs you
want to look at.

What you need to find is

the "RSS feed" address of Fig. 4: Google Reader: First screen with tutorial
the blog you are interested
in (more about that later).
Normally, you can just use the URL of the blog as it appears in the internet browser;
sometimes, that won't work, and you will need to look for a link on that page which says
something like "RSS feed", or "Posts / Atom". Don't ask me what that the latter means — it
takes too long to explain, and isn't really important.

Let's look at an example: open a new browser window (in other words, keep your existing
browser window with google reader open (figure 4), and open a new browser window.4
The simple solution to that is to minimise the current browser window (windows users: click
on the "_" button in the top right corner of the browser window, third from the right), which
reduces your current browser window to the task bar at the bottom of the screen, and then
start up a new browser window in the usual way (Internet Explorer or Firefox or whatever
you like).

4
If you don't know how to do that, you should really take a course, or at least ask for
help from someone who knows.

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Now head for the "New Testament Gateway"

by Mark Goodacre, at
http://www.ntgateway.com (see Figure 5).
This website is not a blog, but a common
gateway site for NT related stuff. However,
Mark has his own blog which is linked at the
top of that page (see the 'Weblog' link). Click
on the link to the 'weblog' and you will find
something similar to the picture shown in
Figure 6.
Fig. 5: The New Testament Gateway
You can see in the top row what
the URL of the page is. This is
what you will normally need to feed
into your Google Reader in order
to create the connection that the
programme needs to find what you
are looking for. You can try to use
this, or (if you find that this does
not work in Google Reader, which
sometimes happens), look for a
link or icon somewhere on the
page that says something like
"Posts/Atom" or "RSS feed", or
similar (on the NTGateway blog,
for example, there is a link, if you
scroll down a bit, called "Site
Feed".) Fig. 6: NTGateway Blog

In this case, just copy the URL in the browser address bar, in
other words, http://www.ntgateway.com/weblog.5 So: click on
the URL in the top row, highlight that address, and press
CTRL-C (in Windows, that is). This will copy the URL.

Now head back to your earlier window with Google Reader

(Figure 4). On the left hand side, you will see a link named
"Add subscription" (don't worry, they won't charge for this —
at least not yet; at some point someone will no doubt do that,
for newspaper blogs, or whatever). You will see then that the
'add subscription link' opens up a little field for you to enter
the URL you just copied (see Figure 7).

You can see that the cursor is flashing in there already, so it

is ready to receive text. Since you copied the URL of the
blog you wanted (in this case, the NTGateway blog) just a Fig. 7: Add subscription
little while ago, all you need to do is press CTRL-V (in
Windows, that is) to paste the URL of that blog into this little
window. Do that and click on 'ADD'.

5
If you do not know how to copy and past text, you REALLY need to take a course.

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After a few seconds, during

which google checks out that
blog, the programme will
download the last ten blog
entries and display them (see
Figure 8). In this case,
because this is the first time
we are doing this, it adds a
tutorial tip on top of that,
telling you that once you scroll
down the blog entries, they
will automatically labelled as
'read', and therefore won't
show up if you tell the system
only to show you items that
you haven't read yet.

The yellow message helpfully

invites you to 'dismiss this
message' once you read it, so
I would suggest you do so by Fig. 8: First blog item added
clicking on that link. You will
then see the last few blog
entries in Mark Goodacres'
NTGateway blog.

That's it!

Yes, that's really all there is to

it. Play around with the settings
to your heart's content, but this
is basically it.

Managing your list of blogs

and blog entries

To illustrate some of the basic Fig. 9: Overview of different blogs

ways of managing your blogs, I
have added four more blogs from the selection I happen to be reading at present. I added
each of them in just the same fashion as illustrated in the previous section. This is now
shown in Figure 9.

The blog highlighted in the left hand column is "Dylan's lectionary blog". The name also
appears at the top of the right hand column, including a link to the actual website, should
you wish to go there. At present it shows five new items. As you scroll down them, read the
text. As you do so, the system will automatically mark them as 'read'. This is important
because once you have read them, you do not necessarily want them all to appear again
next time you look at this blog. You can make double sure this happens by clicking on the
button marked "Mark all as read" – that is also a helpful shortcut if you come back after a
time of not reading blogs and you find a 1000 items...

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3.2 ebrary

The online electronic library, ebrary (http://shop.ebrary.com) is a commercial service which

allows the user to view entire books in graphics-based, PDF format. The allows the user to
read sections of, or indeed entire books, online. The downside of such a graphics-based
system is that it takes a little while for each page to be downloaded if you are using a dial-
up internet service.

Most of the books on

offer were published
within the past ten
years, and while only a
small percentage is of
use for theological
studies, there is still
enough to make this a
useful service.

You can search the

full text of the books
free of charge, and
read as much as you
like, though you have
to pay a small fee per Fig. 1: Opening screen
page for any text you
wish to copy or print. However, you do have to have a credit card, and pay US$5,- up
front in order to view any books; yet no charge will be made unless you decide to copy or
print text.

(Anglia Ruskin University has acquired rights to this service for its students, so if
you are a registered student, you can access ebrary through the ARU library
website, http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk , without having to spend the US$5,- minimum
registration fee. You will still need to install the programme plugin though, so do read
through section 1.)

Registration & installation

At present, this service requires a PC running the

Windows operating system; it is not available for
Linux or Apple/Mac systems (more details below).

If you have not previously used this service, you will

most likely need to download the plugin programme
for your browser in order to view books. Go to
http://shop.ebrary.com :

In the middle part of the screen, you will find find

information on “how to get started” (Figure 2): Fig. 2: Registration Information

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You need to set up an account with ebrary and use a credit card to pay US$5,-. This is a
fairly straightforward process, similar to purchasing anything else through an internet shop.
As always, do not use the same password you use for any other computer programme or
service, especially if they also involve financial transactions.

Once registered, you need to download the “ebrary Reader”, a programme plugin for
Internet Explorer. Note the system requirements for this programme:
• Pentium (75 MHz or more) for Windows;
• Windows 98 or newer;
• Hard disk space Minimum 5 MB
• Memory Minimum 64 MB of RAM (Note: Windows XP requires 128 MB of RAM);
• Netscape Communicator 4.x, 7.1 and above (not currently supporting Netscape 6.x
or 7.0); or
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x through 6.x; or
• Mozilla 1.7 and above; or
• Firefox 1.0 and above

The plugin is not a large download and should complete within a few minutes even if you
are using a dial-up account. Once installed, it is best to close down your browser and
restart it. Then return to http://shop.ebrary.com.

Basic Use

There is a detailed user guide (25 pp, PDF, 2.8 MB) on the ebrary website
(http://www.ebrary.com/corp/pdf/ebrary_Patron_User_Guide.pdf) (also on my “Biblical
Studies Support Disk”, version 3.1 or later). Rather than re-invent the wheel, I will therefore
only offer a basic introduction to the use of ebrary.

Before you make proper use of this service, you have to “sign in”
with the username and password you chose during the registration
process. Click on the ‘sign in’ tab in the top
part of the left panel (see Figures 1 and 3).
Fig. 3: Sign in
Once signed in, your browser should display
your basic account information.

To search for resources, click on the “Search” tab in the left panel
(Figure 3), which will then give the option of using the ‘simple’ and
the ‘advanced’ search interface. Click on ‘Advanced’ and you get
access to the default ‘advanced’ search interface (see Figure 4). As
you can see, you can use two or more search terms in different
‘fields’ (Text; Subject; Title; Author; Publisher).

Let’s say you are looking for books that discuss the Beatitudes.
Typing beatitudes in the first search box (looking in the field
“Text”) will return no fewer than 176 results. Not only is this a fairly
large number of books to consult, it also contains a large number of
titles you probably won’t want. You can limit the search results
further by specifying another search term. Let’s say you are really
Fig. 4: Advanced search
interface

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interested in the
way in which
Matthew and
Luke respectively
render
the Beatitudes.
Unfortunately,
the ‘Subject’
terms are not
terribly well
implemented and
therefore too
haphazard to be
of much use; use
Fig. 5: Search Results
the search term
Bible instead,
in field: “Subject” (Figure 5). This results in
a more manageable number of returns.

Scrolling down the right panel, items three

and four look potentially interesting:
Jonathan Knight’s commentary on Luke,
and Howard Clarke’s book on Matthew
(Figure 6). Click on the link “View” for
either of the two items will take you to the
first occurrence of the word in that
particular book.

Navigating Books

Let’s say you want to know more about Fig. 6: Scrolling down search results in the right
panel
Knight’s commentary on Luke. Click on the
‘View” link (Figure 6)
for Knight’s book and
you will see (in the
right panel of Figure 7)
the first page where
Knight uses the word
‘Beatitudes’
(highlighted in red).

The left panel displays

information about the
cost of printing or
copying text from this
book, as well as links
to internet shops in the
USA that might stock Fig. 7: Book result opened
this particular item,
should you wish to purchase it. (If you live in the UK, using services like

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http://www.amazon.co.uk or http://www.abebooks.co.uk is of course usually more

sensible.)

You can navigate this book in a number of ways, including the following options:
• Firstly, you can use the ‘contents’ panel in the middle of the page (Figure
7) to go to specific chapters of the book. Fig. 8
• Secondly, you can move forward or back one page at a time by using the
forward and back arrows in the top row of the right panel (Figures 7 and
8).
• Thirdly, you can move from ‘hit’ to ‘hit’, or rather, from pages which have your
search word(s), by clicking on the forward and back arrows with attached question
mark (Figures 7 and 9).
There are various other means of navigating the text, such as specifying the
precise book page you want; for details, see the user guide. Fig. 9

Other tips

There are various other options which you may want to explore, perhaps with the help of
the user guide. These include:
• zooming in to enlarge the text;
• highlighting text (which still remains highlighted when you return to a book the next
day, or whenever);
• adding bookmarks so you won’t lose your place when reading;
• creating your own ‘bookshelf’ of useful titles that you might want to return to at a
later point.

Update (June 2008): ebrary has recently limited access to certain resources previously
available to commercial users, though these may still be available to Anglia Rusking
students, since institutions like Anglia subscribe to higher-value packages.

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3.3 Zotero: Taking the Drudgery out of Referencing

Professional referencing software used to be, and still is, quite expensive: programmes like
Endnote or RefWorks. Very recently, however, an open-source freeware approach to
referencing has become available: Zotero (http://www.zotero.org), developed through the
efforts of the Centre for History and New Media at George Mason University. Zotero makes
it possible to use such a programme without exorbitant costs – in fact, for no money at all.
A programme like Zotero enables the user to incorporate references easily in a document,
create the bibliography on-the-fly, it requires data entry just once, as opposed to typing up
the book's (article's, website's, etc.) bibliographic details every time you use it in a
document. This does not mean that you don't have to learn the principles of referencing /
bibliographies! However, programmes like Zotero take the much of the drudgery out of
referencing.

Limitations

There are a couple of limitations worth noting with the current (ie. early) forms of Zotero,
though. At this point (March 2008, version 1.03), it is not possible to export (and hence
backup) the entire database of references that you will build up with this programme: you
can export all the bibliographic data, but not any of the additional items like highlighted
annotations. (2) With increasing size, the programme's use of the database reportedly
slows down. This does not happen, at least not in my experience, with commercial product
like Endnote. (3) It is not possible for the ordinary user to change the pre-programme
output style choices. There is a decent range of such styles for major citation 'traditions'
(eg. Various author-text and author-date systems), which is probably enough for most uses
at undergraduate level. But if you need to do any fine-tuning, you are stuck, unless you
know quite a few things about programming. There is an active user and developer forum,
though.

Bearing all this mind, I would therefore not, at least not at this stage, encourage the use of
Zotero for larger projects like MA or PhD dissertations. If possible, find out whether the
institution you are studying with offers reduced rates for programmes like Endnote instead.
This is, of course, no more than my personal opinion at this point.

Advantages and Strengths

But I have not mentioned the specific advantages of this programme: (1) it is free. (2) Like
all contemporary referencing software, it offers integration with Microsoft Word, though
also with OpenOffice, which enables the user to create references and bibliographies 'on
the fly', as the document is being written. (3) As with all referencing software, a major plus
is that information about each item only needs to be entered once, and can then be used
and re-used in different documents. (4) As with most referencing software, users can
append keywords, notes and files to items in the database, enabling rapid searches for
appropriate sources already in the database – something one begins to appreciate after
the first couple of hundred items have been added. (5) In contrast to most commerical
referencing packages, which date back several years, Zotero was conceived with the
contemporary internet in mind: for starters, it comes as an integrated add-on to the free,
open source browser, Mozilla Firefox (which also happens to be my browser of choice;
download it at http://www.mozilla.com/firefox , or find it on my Biblical Studies Resource
CD). The reason why this is done is because the browser provides the interface to certain

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library catalogues and other sources of bibliographic data which Zotero can harvest: the
user can (a) add bibliographic data for each item individually by entering relevant data
manually, but also (b) use the integrated 'sensing' feature of Zotero to pick up such data
from an online library catalogue (eg. Library of Congress) or from certain online bookshops
(eg. amazon.com).

On the whole then, Zotero has made a promising start, and while the caveats listed above
need to be taken note of, it is something I would wholeheartedly encourage students to
make use of, at least at undergraduate level.

Before you decide whether to explore this further, and also – later on – in order to learn
how to use Zotero, have a look at the online videos ('screencasts') on Zotero's website (cf.
Fig. 1): http://www.zotero.org .

Installation

Installing Zotero should be quite

painless and straightforward. If
you do not have the Firefox
browser, you first need to install
that (download it at
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox,
or take it from my "Biblical
Studies Resources" CD). The
Firefox browser, like Zotero,
exists for a variety of platforms,
including Windows (eg. 98,
2000, XP, Vista), Linux, and
Mac/Apple.

Once Firefox is installed, make

sure that your version of Firefox
is completely updated (click on
'Help' in the menu bar, and then
'Check for Updates...'). This is Fig. 1: Zotero website with 'download' button and 'screencasts'
important for working with
Firefox anyway – it installs the
latest security revisions for the browser – but also necessary for those who have earlier
versions of Firefox installed: Zotero will only work with Firefox 2.0 or later.

Once you are sure that all updates to Firefox have been installed, head for the Zotero
homepage: http://www.zotero.org (Fig. 1). Clicking on the 'download' field will bring up the
'extension' installation dialogue box within Firefox. Click on 'ok' to download and install.

Step 1: Learning how to enter bibliographic data

The best way to learn new things, I find, is by trying them out myself. However, it is also
good to learn the basics with some help. To this end, some helpful people have created a
number of helfpul screenshots and screencasts (videos) at the Zotero website:
http://www.zotero.org/documentation/screencast_tutorials .

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There are two basic forms of entering information that should be briefly explained though:
entering data manually, and using library websites and the like to import data (semi-)
automatically.

Step 1a: Entering Data Manually

Let's say you are writing a piece on the Book of Revelation and you want to make use of
the following book:

Weinrich, William C. (2005). Revelation. (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture.)

Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.

Open the Zotero

database by clicking on
the Zotero symbol, that is,
either 'Z' or 'Zotero', by
default in the bottom right
corner of the Firefox
browser window (cf. Fig.
2). It does not matter
what your browser is
displaying at that time; in
Fig. 2, it happens to be
the ERMC homepage.
There are no items in the Fig. 2: Opening Zotero
database yet; hence the
blank fields everywhere.

The first step is optional,

but this may help you
later if you have a lot of
items in your database.
(1) Create a named
library collection. Let's
call it 'Revelation essay'. Fig. 3: New collection
Click on the icon on the
left of the Zotero panel; if
you hover your mouse pointer over it for a second, it will display the label 'New
Collection...' (In fig. 2, the icon is circled in red). This opens a field for you to enter the
label; let's call it 'Revelation essay' (fig. 3). Once you have typed that in, press the ENTER
key.

Now we get to step (2), entering the book data. The fourth Zotero icon from the left looks
like a green circle with a white 'plus' sign in it. Notice the triangle next to it; this shows that
clicking the icon will open a drow-down menu. Click on this icon (if you hover your mouse
pointer over it for a second, it will display the label ''New Item") and select the type of
bibliographic record you wish to enter: in this case, a book (fig. 4).
When you click on 'Book', a new panel will open on the right hand side of the Zotero panel
(in fig. 4 it still reads 'no items selected'); this is where you enter the bibliographic data.
You can see a variety of fields for this bibliographic record: title, author, abstract, series,
etc. (fig. 5). Once you hover the mouse arrow on the area to the right of each field (eg.,

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author, as in fig. 5), it will be highlighted automatically. Click on it, and a blank space will
open for you to enter the relevant bibliographic information. Once you have filled in, say,

Fig. 4: Manually adding a book

the title, you can press the ENTER

key, and the field will close. You can
then repeat the process with all other
necessary fields. In the case of the
author field, clicking on the triangle
icon to the left of the label 'author'
will enable you to change

You do not have to fill in all fields for

each item, but you do have to fill in
enough to make a proper, well-
formed bibliographic item possible.
So, for example: the book I want to
enter here is the commentary on
Revelation by William Weinrich, in
the Ancient Christian Commentary
series (ie. this is the commentary
series that offers excerpts from the Fig. 5: Item details
church fathers):

Weinrich, William C. (2005). Revelation. (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture.)

Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.

This means that I will need to fill in the author's

name and first name(s), the title and subtitle (though
this book does not have a subtitle, of course), the
commentary series title, the publisher's place, and
the publisher (fig. 6).

In addition, it is also highly advisable to add a

keyword / tag to enable searching your database
later on more easily (once you have a couple of
hundred items, you will begin to appreciate this
feature). In order to add a keyword / tag, click on the
Fig. 6: Item details added

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menu item 'tag' at the top of the panel (second from the right), and add each tag
separately. For this item, I might add the following tags:
Revelation of John
Apocalypse
Church Fathers
Patristics
Commentary
Early Christian interpretation
As you enter them, Zotero will automatically sort
them in alphabetical order (fig. 7).

Selecting keywords is a skill that will grow as you

practice it – and it will expand and change as your
work takes on different dimensions. You may well Fig. 7: Adding keywords / tags
find, therefore, that in your own work, you might
want to have different keywords for this item.

It all sounds a bit laborious, and yes, it has to be done with care and accuracy.6 But: once
this has been completed, you will never have to enter this information again – that is,
unless a disaster happens and your database becomes corrupted, or your computer
harddrive crashes, etc. (for which reason it is vitally important to make regular backup of all
your data).

It should also be clear now that in order to use Zotero, you need to understand
bibliographic conventions – the very thing that we teach in introductory courses on
academic writing.

For more information on adding bibliographic items in this form, see the detailed
documentation on the zotero website.

Step 1b: Importing bibliographic data (semi-)automatically

The process of entering information like this is fairly time-consuming, at least at first. You
can speed this up to some extent by using Zotero's particular ability to pick up bibliographic
data from websites like onlike catalogues. You will still need to do some fine-tuning to that
data, and double-check that it is accurate, but it does save some of the tedium of entering
this information manually. Let's look at an example: imagine that you want to add this
book:

Prévost, Jean-Pierre (1993). How to Read the Apocalypse. London: SCM.

Head for the Newton catalogue (http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/newton) and click on 'University

of Cambridge Affiliated Institutions in order to see results for the Cambridge Theological
Federation libraries, or go straight to http://affint-newton.lib.cam.ac.uk . To make the
search results quicker, click on 'guided search'. Filling in the 'author' and 'title' field in the
catalogue search should get you to the desired book by Prévost. Now have a look at the
browser address (URL) field at the top of your browser window, and you will find a new

6
Following the old GIGO rule of computing: "garbage in, garbage out" – if the
information put into the system is inaccurate, then the results will be inaccurate as well.

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icon at the far right of

the address line. In
Fig. 8, it looks likes a
small blue book (here:
circled in red). If you
click on this icon, and
Zotero (even if the
Zotero panel is not
open!) will 'sense' the
catalogue information
and attempt to
incorporate this in a
new item in your
database. It is Fig. 8: Newton online catalogue results / Zotero icon
sensible, though,
to open the Zotero
panel first and to
highlight the
particular
collection that you
want to add this
book to. Then
click on the blue
book icon in the
URL field at the
top of the browser
window, and hey
presto, you have
transferred a lot of
information from
the online
catalogue to your
database (fig. 9).

This information
often has to be Fig. 9: Importing data from online catalogue
edited, though. In
this case, this turns out not to be necessary – the data offered by the catalogue was
incorporated very well into the Zotero database (fig. 9). However, you should still add
keywords / tags.

Zotero is designed to pick up this kind of information from online library catalogues like
Newton (http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/newton), or the British Library (http://catalogue.bl.uk), or
the Library of Congress (http://catalog.loc.gov). Information taken from these online
catalogues, especially if it relates to relatively recent books, is usually quite accurate and
needs little editing; similarly, online databases and full-text repositories like JSTOR
(http://www.jstor.org) generally offer accurate information that can be harvested by Zotero.
The same cannot necessarily be said of non-library sites that Zotero can 'read', but they
are still useful: for example, you can take information from amazon.com
(http://www.amazon.com), or amazon.co.uk (http://www.amazon.co.uk), and similar online

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bookseller websites, but also from the book preview service on google books
(http://books.google.com) or from the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org).

There is a lengthy list of supported websites at http://www.zotero.org/translators .

For more information on adding bibliographic items in this form, see the detailed
documentation on the Zotero website.

Step 2: Creating references and bibliographies

Entering bibliographic information in a programme like Zotero has a the obvious advantage
of building up a searchable database of items; this is certainly useful in itself. But the real
strength of referencing software like Zotero is that makes the actual process of writing
references and a bibliography in a document much easier.

At this stage, Zotero offers integrated referencing for Microsoft Word and OpenOffice. If
you use a different word-processing software package, services are more limited: you can
still export individual items separately to build up the bibliography for a document, but once
you get to know what Zotero can do within Word or OpenOffice, you will be tempted to
switch!

Step 2a: Installing the Word plugin / OpenOffice extension

In order to make use of this feature, you need to install an additional programme first.
There is good online documentation for this, so I do not need to repeat this here. For
Word, see: http://www.zotero.org/documentation/microsoft_word_integration . For
OpenOffice, see:
http://www.zotero.org/documentation/openoffice_integration

In the following, I will focus on using Zotero with Microsoft Word – not because I prefer to
work with it myself, but because most users do. Personally, I would almost always
recommend OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org) as a free, powerful alternative to
Microsoft Office/Word (included in my Biblical Studies Resources CD). It can handle most
Word documents, too...

Step 2b: Writing

Once the plug-in is installed, you will notice a new toolbar in Microsoft Word. Fig. 10 shows
what this looks like in Word 2003.

As I pointed out above, one of the limitations of

Zotero at this point is that the user is not able to
adapt the output style. Existing styles are very close
Fig. 10: Zotero toolbar in Word
to the most commly expected output styles, though. If
the institution you are writing your formal documents
for demands a particular style, you should nevertheless try to find out first whether using
the generic styles offered by Zotero at this point will be acceptable. If you are writing an
essay for ERMC, as part of a ARU-validated programme, using the Chicago Manual of
Style 'author-date' style (CMA author-date) as offered in Zotero is generally acceptable;

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alternatively, you could also use the APA style. If in doubt, check with the Cambridge
Theological Federation office.

Assuming that you will use the CMA author-date system, the process of writing and
referencing with Zotero works as follows. Let's say I want to quote a sentence by Bart
Ehrman in an essay on New Testament canon formation and the understanding of what
'Scripture' is:

"In antiquity, exact replications of texts were virtually impossible."

The quote comes from p. 128 in this book chapter:

Ehrman, Bart D. 1995. Textual Criticism of the New Testament. In Hearing the New
Testament: Strategies for Interpretation, Ed. Joel B. Green, 127-145, Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans.

(A) Reference

When writing this in Microsoft Word, I

need to make sure that Firefox is
running. At the end of the quoted
sentence (or wherever I want the
reference to appear), instead of
manually typing in "(Ehrman 1995,
128)", I would now click on the first
icon on the left hand side of the Zotero
toolbar in Word (cf. fig. 10); if you let
your mouse pointer hover over it for a
second, it will show the label 'Zotero
Insert Citation'. This will open a
dialogue box (fig. 11) As you can see,
I have already entered the
bibliographic information on the
Ehrman book chapter. All I have to do Fig. 11: Entering a reference
now is is click on the
Ehrman entry in the
dialogue box, and add
the page number Fig. 12: Zotero-produced reference
reference (here: 128).
Press 'OK', and the programme will automatically add the correct reference (fig. 12). You
may have to highlight the item afterwards to ensure that the font is the same as the rest of
the text, but that is all. (The first time you do this it will ask you to specify your output style
first.)

(B) Bibliography

So far we have only created the reference – now we need the bibliography as well. With
Zotero, that is quite simple: all I need to do is position the cursor at the point in the
document where I want the bibliography to appear (usually the very end, under a heading
'Bibliography'). Now look for the third icon from the left in the Zotero toolbar (cf. fig. 10); if
you hover your mouse pointer over it, it will reveal the label 'Zotero Insert Bibliography'.

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Click on this icon, and Zotero will automatically insert the complete bibliography at this
point in your document. It's that simple. You may have to highlight it and apply font
formatting to it, but otherwise, it should be perfectly formed for the output style you had
previously selected.

Having said that, I would strongly encourage you to add a note at the end of the
bibliography that you produced references and the bibliography by means of Zotero – that
way, the marker should recognise that you are limited in the extent to which you may be
able to conform to the specific house-style that a university might expect you to use.

There a demonstration document with a few references on the ERMC website so you can
see for yourself what is possible; you may wish to experiment with this:
http://www.ermc.cam.ac.uk/resources/zotero/index.html

There is much, much more that you can do with Zotero, but these are the basic features.
Play around with it a bit, and don't forget to read and watch the documentation / videos on
the Zotero website – the commentary can be a bit annoying at times, but it's worth
persevering with it:

http://www.zotero.org/documentation (For a wide range of documents)

http://www.zotero.org/documentation/screencast_tutorials (For video demonstrations)

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3.4 Tyndale Toolbar

Tyndale House is a Cambridge (UK) based evangelical–theological institution with a very

strong research library, especially in biblical studies (http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk). In
recent years, one of their staff members, David Instone-Brewers, has begun to offer a
number of really excellent resources that are freely available: for example, (1) TynCat
(http://www.tyncat.com), the online library catalogue of Tyndale House, with integrated
links to preview pages (where available) at google books and amazon.com; (2) ; and
much, much more (see ).

One helpful tool for biblical work is the Tyndale Toolbar, which works with both Mozilla
Firefox and Internet Explorer:
http://tyndaletech.blogspot.com/2008/03/tyndale-toolbar-for-bibles-languages.html .

That webpage describes the installation process in some detail, and it does not need to be
repeated here. Once installed in Firefox, the toolbar will appear somewhere near the top

Fig. 1: Tyndale Toolbar

as an additional, well, toolbar. On my system, it looks like this:

This toolbar offers a number of things: links to online catalogues for looking up
bibliography resources; links to online Bible versions; and much more. It is worth exploring
this in some detail for yourself, but you get a good overview on the above mentioned
webpage.

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3.5 Learn touch-typing

It's simple: learning to touch-type, even if it does not approach

the speed of a good typist, is still far quicker than the usual 'hunt
and peck' two-finger approach employed by many. Even better,
you don't have to look at your keyboard when you type, except
perhaps for numbers and similar keys that you might perhaps
not use all that often. The only downside is that, once you begin
learning how to touch-type, your typing speed will slow down at
first – in my case, for about ten days or so. Once you get through that frustrating phase,
you will pick up speed and accuracy as you go along.

Typing used to be taught with the aid of manuals and books on the matter, and that
approach would no doubt still work. However, computer programming makes this much
simpler now. You can either (a) find a website that offers online touch-typing lessons, or (b)
download a programme to install on your computer (see below).

The basic principles are quite simple: the four main fingers of the left hand rest lightly on
the keys for a, s, d, and f,
and the right hand on j, k,
l, and ; (the thumbs are
used for the space bar);
hence the raised dots or
other markers on the
keys for 'f' and 'j' on most
keyboards today. You
start with simple
exercises, and it won't
take long before your fingers will type almost by themselves.

One caveat though: it is important to learn how to maintain good posture at all times to
prevent RSI. Lots of websites inform you about good posture, so I leave you to find out
about that yourself. This is not something restricted to touch-typing, of course, but once
you get going with touch-typing, you might concentrate to hard on doing this that you forget
to take care of body posture, and especially arms, wrists, and hands.

(A) A number of websites offer free lessons in touch typing. I have not tested any of them
in detail, though:

http://www.goodtyping.com
http://www.typing-lessons.org
http://www.typeonline.co.uk

(B) A number of programmes are listed at http://typingsoft.com/all_typing_tutors.htm

The only programme I have used myself is "Bruce's Unusual Typing Tutor", which you can
download without charge at this website: http://typing.qcalculus.com

This programme is also included in my "Biblical Studies Resources" CD.

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3.6 Backup! Call for backup!

If you have worked with computers for a while, you will know that sooner or later disaster
will strike. You may accidentally delete a crucial file; your laptop might be stolen; the hard-
drive on your computer could 'fry', making the data on it impossible (or expensive) to
recover. You can limit the chance of this happening, but you cannot entirely avoid it.

The only way to protect yourself properly against data loss in this regard is to make regular
backups. This is the mantra that all computer training courses repeat over and over
again... but it is the one thing that very few people actually do – until they find out the hard
way why this is so important. Not surpringly, this often seems to happen when deadlines
are coming closer.

There is a lot of useful information on backing up on the internet already, and I do not want
to add to the detail of it. I just wish to add one simple, and one slightly less simple process
to your list of possibilities to protect yourself from deadly corruption – data loss, that is. In
both cases, the general rule is: keep data (primarily user-created documents) not just on
the hard-drive of your computer, but also on at least one other storage medium.

(1) The simple solution to backing up your documents is to save them to an external
storage device: that could mean (a) copying to a USB memory stick; or (b) 'burning' a CD-
ROM; or (c) getting an external hard-drive to which you copy your files. In principle, they all
offer roughly the same level of protection. In practice, much depends on the volume of
data you need to save, and on the level of technical expertise you have got. Of course, the
latter is something you can do something about...

If you have limited data volume, the easiest solution is to

buy a USB memory stick (you can get 2GB for less than
£15 these days) to which you can then routinely backup
your data.

You might ask: how do I know whether I have a little of a

lot of data volume? In Windows, open 'Windows
Explorer' (cunningly renamed 'Vista Explorer' in the latest
version of that operating system) and head for the 'My
Documents' folder, which is presumably where you are
keeping all your documents – at least, that is what the
operating system will try to get you to do by default. If so,
right-click on that folder, and look for the item
'Properties'. In Windows XP at least, this will show
somthing like what you see in Fig. 1. Alternatively,
highlight the individual folders that you want to find out
about.

The disadvange of a USB memory stick is that you can

only save the latest version of your documents on it. If
you have less than 700MB of data to save, you might
therefore want to consider backing up by burning to a
Fig. 1: Folder size
cheap CD-R. CD-R disks allow for a single burn
process; this is preferable to the somewhat more

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expensive CD-RW disks, which allow for multiple, repeated burning, each of which wipes
out the previous data store. In this fashion, you will eventually build up a week-by-week, or
perhaps month-by-month record of your data; if something goes wrong, you can work your
way backwards through this, and even if the problem was a 'creeping' one which slowly
began to corrupt your data long before you notice it, you can still salvage most of it by
going back one stage at a time. Both Windows XP and Vista have 'burning' software pre-
installed, though you might prefer to use an open source programme like Infrarecorder
(http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net). The disadvantage of burning lots of cheap CD-Rs is,
of course, the sheer waste of it.

If you have a very good broadband connection, you might want to consider backing up
your data to an online storage system. Given the volume of data most people have, and
the relatively slow upload speed available in most places in the UK, this is not really a
viable solution yet.

Finally, if you have large volumes of data to backup, probably the most useful investment
you can make is an external hard-drive, to which you can then backup your data. They
come as fairly robust devices these days, with a simple USB connection, and should show
up as a simple, additional drive on your system. If there is enough space, you could simply
copy your data from your hard-drive to the external drive (perhaps overnight). If possible,
keep that external drive in a different place – should your primary computer get stolen or
go up in smoke (ie. in a fire), you would still have your external drive somewhere else.

(B) A more robust solution to backing up data, especially if you use an external hard-drive,
is to use backup software. The more data you have got, the more sense this will make.
Windows comes with its own backup software, and if you buy an external hard-drive, it
might come with its own software as well. But, once again, you might want to consider
open source alternatives like Cobian Backup 8 ('Black Moon'), which does the trick for me,
for example (http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm). It allows you determine
exactly what you want to backup, whether you want to compress the data, whether you
want to do incremental backups (ie. only files that have changed since the last backup),
etc.

Whatever solution you choose... backup your data!

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3.7 Presentation software (Powerpoint etc.): Use & Abuse

There is little point in producing a tutorial for presentation software like Microsoft
Powerpoint or OpenOffice Impress here:7 there are a multitude of free tutorials all over the
internet; in the spirit of 'let's not re-invent the wheel', I shall (a) mention some of them and
leave it at that. I do, however, (b) want to state a few basics about sensible design and use
of presentation software like Powerpoint, and (c) remind you to test your finished product
in situ.

(A) Learn it: free tutorials

Many useful tutorials exist, and of course for pretty much all the different versionf of
powerpoint out there. However, until Powerpoint 2007 came along, things were not all that
different in the various versions of Powerpoint, so if things do not look exactly like the
tutorial describes them, experiment a little, and you are likely to find out how it works on
your system.

Microsoft Powerpoint tutorials:

This page at the University of Abertay Dundee offers tutorials on Powerpoint (2000?) as
well as other common computing issues:
http://studentacademicsupport.abertay.ac.uk/2006%20PASS%20CD/index.htm
A similar course at Canterbury Christ Church University, for Powerpoint 2000, in five handy
PDF documents:
http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/support/learning-teaching-enhancement-unit/tutorials/P
owerPoint
A short but useful course in a single Word document, from the University of Bath:
http://people.bath.ac.uk/ssxlw/PPtutorial.doc
A short course originally designed for University of Oxford academics – so you know it will
be simple and straightforward: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/reports/ppt.xml

On the other side of the Atlantic, several university and college websites offer similar
information:

A basic tutorial, still useful, even though it was written for an early version of Powerpoint,
from a class taught at Oregon State University:
http://oregonstate.edu/instruction/ed596/ppoint/pphome.htm
A tutorial for Powerpoint 2000 and 2007 respectively, from the website of Florida Golf
Coast University (Powerpoint 2007 changed the 'look and feel' of the programme
quit substantially):
http://www.fgcu.edu/support/office2000/ppt
http://www.fgcu.edu/support/office2007/ppt/index.asp
Another tutorial for Powerpoint 2000, from Indiana University:
http://www.iupui.edu/~webtrain/tutorials/powerpoint2000_basics.html
And another tutorial for Powerpoint 2000, this time from the University of Maryland:

7
There are other possibilities for presentations, such as the standards-compliant,
browser-resident, XHTML/CSS/javascript-based, open-source design by Erich Meyer,
called 'S5' (http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5). I personally like it very much, but you need
to be comfortable with writing XHTML and CSS in order to use it.

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http://www.education.umd.edu/blt/tcp/powerpoint.html
And one for Powerpoint 2003, from Rutgers University:
http://getit.rutgers.edu/tutorials/powerpoint

OpenOffice Impress tutorials:

A brief course from the official (?) support website, though perhaps not the best of its kind:
http://www.learnopenoffice.org/tutorials.htm
Another course at another official (?) Open Office website:
http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org/category_index/presentation.html
A course at the University of Texas:
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/technology/tutorials/office/impress

The most important generic issues for creating your presentation:

Create one slide for the title page, on which you note your name, the title of the
presentation, the date, and so on.

Create another (master) slide for all subsequent pages/slides. There is no need for fancy
animations: either let the entire slide come in in one go, or animate each individual bullet
point / item to come in on mouse click.

Once you have designed these, just copy and paste the second master slide for each new
slide you want to write. That way, each slide should look like the preceding one (same
background, font, animation, etc.).

I have placed a sample powerpoint file on the ERMC website which you may want to use
as a starting point: http://www.ermc.cam.ac.uk/resources/presentation/index.html

(B) Design it

My interest in making these comments lies in sensible use of presentation software in adult
theological education, particularly, but not exclusively, in the context of formation for
ministry. I am not talking about its use in worship context (though many of the presentation
tips outline below apply as well), nor about teaching children.

In my opinion, using presentation software in this context demands three things: clarity,
simplicity, and widest possible accessibility.

(B1) Clarity: the point of using presentation software is to communicate better by making it
easier for your audience to read what's there – quickly.

The most important point, albeit one often ignored, is that each slide should only have a
few words on it. Don't try to cram in as much 'information' as possible. Use a handout for
that purpose. A presentation should use just keywords, and perhaps occasionally a short
sentence or quote – anything beyond that will take too long to read, and therefore draw
your audience's attention away from what you are saying.

(B2) Simplicity: avoid bells and whistles unless they are absolultely necessary to make
your point – or needed as an occasional joke, to lighten the mood (if appropriate).

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Use a simple background, and leave it at that. Be sparing in your use of images, unless
the content demands them. Gimmicks draw attention away from what you are saying.
Bullet points should really be short bullet points, not paragraphs – unless you have an
exceptionally useful quotation that you want to display, or something of that nature. In that
case, you will need to allow for extra time to allow your audience to read and digest the
paragraph. Always use proper punctuation: after all, punctuation was invented to help the
reader understand what is being said, avoid possible ambiguity, etc.

(B3) Accessibility: in an education context, ensuring widest possible accessibility to a

variety of learners with different needs (eg. forms of visual impairment; dyslexia) is a legal
requirement. In a theological context, it is an obvious ethical demand. Therefore, the
design of presentations should bear in mind some basic guidelines on the use of
backgrounds; high contrast display; font sizes; and so on.

High contrast: on paper, most of us are used to printing dark (black) letters on white paper,
though some find yellow or green paper preferable. When it comes to screen projections,
however, this is not necessarily the case. A good rule of thumb is that for presentations in
room that is relatively bright, one should consider a dark text on a light background; but if
in a relatively dark room, one should use the opposite combination: dark background, light
'cream' coloured text ('off-white'). And: whatever else you do, don't use patterns in your
background – they invariably make it difficult to read the text.

Font: use a clear sans-serif font like Arial to enable a broad range of viewers to see the
text. Avoid serif fonts like Times Roman. For normal text, use point size 28 or higher. Don't
use CAPS except for a single word; they are harder to read.

Left-centred text: for most purposes, making text left-centred is best. Text that is centred
one the page is distracting: it takes longer to read.

For more on desing and use of presentation software, especially in the context of making
presentations accesible, see this course by Tech Dis (though I must warn you: the site is
not particularly well designed, and quite confusing at first):
http://www.techdis.ac.uk/resources/sites/accessibilityessentials3/index.html

Shorter, and easier to use is this set of web-pages at 'Web Accessibility in Mind':
http://www.webaim.org/techniques/powerpoint

(C) Test it

If you are going to use presentation software, make sure you test the equipment in the
place you are going to use it well in advance. Just because "it all works" on your PC/laptop
does not mean that it will work in the environment you are teaching in...

Finally: possibly the most important key to remember when using Microsoft Powerpoint is
'b'. Pressing the 'b' key will blank the screen (and thus save the bulb in the projector);
pressing 'b' again will bring the screen back to life.

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3.8 A Note on Using Wikipedia

This section is excerpted from the official ERMC guidelines on the use of Wikipedia which
you may want to consult at:
http://www.ermc.cam.ac.uk/resources/modulesetc/study/index.html

People are increasingly making use of a new kind of 'knowledge base' on the internet
called Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org). Given how open Wikipedia is about its very
nature (in order to get people to contribute), it is a little worrying though that many seem to
be unaware of its special nature. Because of this, we need to establish some basic
guidelines for using this new source of information. ERMC students' written work will be
assessed on this basis.

Wikipedia is a new kind of encyclopedia: it is written by its own users, who may or may not
be experts (or at least generally knowledgeable in the field concerned). In other words: if
you read it, you can change it, too. Anyone with access to the internet may edit the pages
offered, introduce new ones, and engage in debate with other contributors about the
direction of the article.

Therefore it seems prudent to state the following:

(1) Use Wikipedia as background reading only: it should function as a springboard for
further research.

(2) Do not cite Wikipedia material as direct evidence, with the exception of audio-visual
material offered on Wikipedia Commons.

(3) List the Wikipedia items you read in the bibliography, but make sure you list the correct
version of the document you read.

For more details, you may wish to consult the guidelines on the use of Wikipedia at
http://www.ermc.cam.ac.uk/resources/modulesetc/study/index.html

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3.9 Open Courseware: free university course material

A number of (mostly) US-American colleges and universities have begun to make some of
their courses available online, free of charge. You can read and download these course
materials from the Internet. This appears to be a marketing exercise on the part of these
institutions, but the material offered is often quite good – and if nothing else, it will give you
an idea what kind of level these institutions 'pitch' their education at. Institutions that do this
include the following:

Capilano College (Canada): http://ocw.capcollege.bc.ca

Open University (UK): http://openlearn.open.ac.uk
Massachussets Institute of Technology (USA):
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
University of California at Berkeley (USA): http://webcast.berkeley.edu
University of Notre Dame (USA): http://ocw.nd.edu
Yale University (USA): http://oyc.yale.edu

There is a useful list of at least some of these institutions on the website of the Open
Courseware Consortium:
http://www.ocwconsortium.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=3
2

See also the Open Courseware Finder: http://ocwfinder.com/

Other institutions use iTunes to deliver their material; see the next section of this
document.

Theology?

To date, most of the

available courses are not
relevant to theology,
though much is indirectly
useful (eg. courses in
philosophy); occasionally
one finds something in
theology, though.

1. The best example for

this I have come across so
far is the introductory Old
Testament course by
Christine Hayes at Yale
(Fig. 1):
http://oyc.yale.edu/religious
-studies/introduction-to-the-
old-testament-hebrew-bible
. Do have a look – the
Fig. 1: Open Yale course
material is available in a
variety of formats, including simple text transcripts.

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2. There is a small number of theology courses at the Notre Dame website:

http://ocw.nd.edu/theology . Courses on offer include Gary Anderson's Foundations in
Theology.

3. Gresham College in London is an unusual institution: it is not a university or college in

the sense in which these terms are usually used today – it does not offer courses or
degrees as such. It does however offer good material on a variety of subjects, including
theology. In recent years, this material (including divinity lectures) has been made
available in audio or video formats which may be downloaded: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

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3.10 Using iTunes U (universities)

This is a free online repository of audio-visual material made available by some universities
and colleges, mostly in the USA. This is only available through Apple's free software called
iTunes, originally designed to market Apple's commercial music player, iPod. It is freely
available and will work on Apple and Windows systems alike. In order to make use of any
of these functions, you first need to download and install the iTunes programme:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/

Once the
programme is
installed, you can
navigate in this
programme to
iTunes U (under
iTunes Store – but
don't worry, you
won't have to pay
anything) and search
of browse through
courses there (see
Fig. 1).

Chose a particular
audio or video
podcast, and view it
online in the iTunes
programme, or
download to your
computer to watch
later.

Alternatively, read
about this feature on
the apple website:
http://www.apple.co
m/education/itunesu
_mobilelearning/itun Fig. 1: iTunes U listing
esu.html

Insitutions that make use of this facility include the following:

Abilene Christian University (USA): http://www.acu.edu/itunes

Concordia Seminary (USA): http://itunes.csl.edu
Duke University (USA): http://itunes.duke.edu
Fuller Theological Seminary (USA): http://www.fuller.edu/atc/itunesu.asp
Loyola Marymount University (USA): http://itunes.lmu.edu
Open University (UK): http://www.open.ac.uk/itunes
Seattle Pacific University (USA): http://www.spu.edu/itunes

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Stanford University (USA): http://itunes.stanford.edu

Texas A&M University (USA): http://itunes.tamu.edu
University of Otago (New Zealand): http://www.otago.ac.nz/itunesu
Vanderbilt University (USA): http://www.vanderbilt.edu/itunesu
Villanova University (USA): http://www.villanova.edu/itunes
Yale University (USA): http://itunes.yale.edu
University of California at Berkeley (USA): http://itunes.berkeley.edu

See also the list of universities and colleges maintained here:

http://www.learnoutloud.com/content/blog/archives/2007/07/best_of_itunes.html

New universities and colleges join this programme every month, so it's worth checking
every now and then.

Theology ?

Subjects in theology and religious studies are slowly beginning to appear on iTunes as
well. For example:

Abilene Christian University has a good number of podcasts on 'ministry and theology'
subjects.
Concordia Seminary offers a number of useful lectures series, especially in biblical
languages.
Duke University has some interesting one-off public lectures.
Fullter Theological Seminary has some relevant material.
Loyola Marymount University has a couple of interesting lectures in theology, such as a
talk by NT scholar Jeffrey Siker on homosexuality and the scriptures.
Open University has some interesting religious studies courses.
Seattle Pacific University has some interesting 'chapel lectures'.
Stanford University offers a useful series of lectures on the historical Jesus, and more.

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4 Language Support: Greek and Hebrew

This section offers a few pages on using Greek and Hebrew tools. Most are designed for
freely accessible software, or are of generic use (eg. the section on unicode).

It needs to be said at this point that the most recent 'professional' Bible software
programmes offer extremely well thought-out and helpful material – but it comes at a cost.
BibleWorks 7, the Logos range of Bible software, or (for Mac/Apple) Accordance, all offer
very advanced software. I do not propose to discuss this here; if you have the money to
spend on these programmes, then you will get the user manuals for them as part of the
package – and there is often free material for this purpose in a user form somewhere
online. What I wish to discuss here instead is free or inexpensive software, or generic
issues.

4.1 Diogenes: using "Liddell and Scott"

Diogenes (http://www.dur.ac.uk/p.j.heslin/Software/Diogenes) is primarily a free utility to

read the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae CD-ROMs. The TLG (http://www.tlg.uci.edu) is a
collection of ancient Greek texts which aims to represent virtually all Greek text from
antiquity. Due to the cost involved (users by a time-limited licence; for individual
subscribers, this is currently US$100 per year), this is not what I want to discuss here. In
any case, the TLG is switching to online access, though they continue to sell licences for
the CD-ROM.

However, starting with version 3.1, Diogenes has begun to incorporate the classic ancient
Greek dictionary by "Liddell and Scott" (yes, the bulky one with over 2.000 pages).

Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones & Roderick McKenzie (1940). A
Greek-English Lexicon. (9th
ed.) Oxford: Clarendon Press.

The data is derived from the

(online) Perseus database.
Since the latter has very slow
servers, working with the
Perseus site can be
frustrating. Diogenes, even if
you do not have the TLG CD-
ROM, allows you to look up
words in this really useful
dictionary.

Installation is straightforward
(works for Windows XP and
Vista; MacOS, and Linux):
follow the installation
instructions given on the
website, where the installation
can be downloaded (66MB).
Windows users can use the Fig. 1: Diogenes

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copy of the installation file for version 3.1.6 on my Biblical Studies Resource Disk (version
5 or higher) to save themselves a lengthy download. Due to the nature of the Perseus
database for Liddell-Scott, you need about 500MB of free hard-disk space to run
Diogenes. Double-click on the installation file (here: diogenes-windows-3.1.6.exe) and let
the programme install itself. The options should be self-explanatory.

User guide: There is a helpful discussion at a page on the Princeton University website
(http://www.princeton.edu/~classics/tech/diogenes.html), but note that this is specifically for
the use of Diogenes with the TLG as installed at Princeton, so it will be of limited use to
other users.

First use setup:

once the programme
is installed, double-
click on the icon the
programme should
have installed on the
desktop, or on the
link in the START ->
PROGRAMS menu.
The initial
programme interface
should show up (see
fig. 1). The interface
is based on the
technology behind
the Firefox browser,
so this will feel like
clicking on links in an
internet document.
Click on the link to
the "current settings
pages".

In order to run
Diogenes, it is
recommended that
you use a unicode Fig. 2: Settings
font for display and
export purposes (see
information on unicode in a separate handout in this booklet). As you can see in fig. 2, I
chose to run with the free unicode font 'Cardo'. You can experiment with the settings, if you
like, or chose something similar to what I currently use (fig. 2). Click on 'save settings' and
return to the main interface (fig. 1).

Alternatively, you can use the BETA-code representation of Greek which is used for the
TLG data; more information on this, including a table, may be found at various websites,
including this one at the Stoa website (http://www.stoa.org/sol/betapal.shtml), from which
the table below is derived. When writing Greek text in BETA code, the accents always
follow the character they 'belong' to; rough aspiration precedes the vowel.

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BETA code chart

Greek Transliteration Beta Code

Alpha a a
Beta b b
Gamma g g
Delta d d
Epsilon e e
Zeta z z
Eta e h
Theta th q
Iota i i
Kappa k k
Lambda l l
Mu m m
Nu n n
Xi x c
Omicron o o
Pi p p
Rho r r
Sigma s s
Tau t t
Upsilon y u
Chi kh x
Phi ph f
Psi ps y
Omega o w
Rough aspirate h (
Smooth aspirate )
Acute /
Grave \
Circumflex =
Capitalize *
Digamma w v

For example, the first line in

Mark's gospel, including
accents etc. would look like
this:
*)ARXH\ TOU=
EU)AGGELI/OU *)IHSOU=
*XRISTOU=

Searching the "Liddell-

Scott" dictionary (using
unicode)
In order to search the
dictionary using unicode (fig.
3), it is best to switch to a
Greek keyboard (see
separate handout on
unicode). That way, the
search input is represented
in Greek characters
straightaway. Under 'Action',
Fig. 3: Unicode input

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switch the drop-down menu to

'Look up a word in a
dictionary'. For example, in fig.
3, the search phrase is
,L"((,84@<.

Once you click on 'Go', you will

get the dictionary output from
Liddell-Scott (see. Fig. 4).

Remember that this is a

dictionary of classical Greek,
so do not expect a lot of
information about specifically
Christian texts like the New
Testament, or the Septuagint
for that matter – they feature
like any other classical Greek
texts, no more, no less.
Fig. 4: Search output

Searching the "Liddell-

Scott" dictionary (using BETA code)

The process of entering information is the same if you specified 'Beta code' in the 'settings'
(fig. 2). In the search box (fig. 3), enter EUAGGELION to get the same result (fig. 4).

Morphological Searches using unicode OR BETA code

Unlike what a desparate

student of Greek might
hope for, this function in
the drop-down menu
(under 'Action') does not
offer a morphological
analysis: this will not tell
you that "<"B,B"LJ"4
in Phlm 1:7 is the 3rd
person singular,
indicative perfective
passive of "<"B"LT,
'to refresh' (but you
knew that, of course).

Instead, entering the

stem of the word(s) you
may be interested in,
this function will show
you what lemmata
include this string of Fig. 5: Morphological search output
characters. For example,

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if you enter ,L"((,8, you will get nine lemmata as a result, and you can click on each to
see their dictionary definitions (Fig. 5). I am not sure in what way that may be of use to
you, but there you are.

If you prefer data entry in BETA code, follow the above process by analogy.

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4.2 Kalos

Kalos (http://www.kalos-software.com) is a free, classical Greek dictionary with

morphological analysis and inflection generator. Well, technically it is 'shareware', but the
programme website itself calls it 'free'. You can download the programme at the website
(about 30MB), or take the current version on my Biblical Studies Resources Disc.

Kalos gives basic meanings; analyses (parses) forms; and allows you to design, view, and
print out your own inflection charts. Kalos is free to download, but by paying US$29,- you
can get rid of the 'nagging screen' that otherwise appears once in a while to remind you to,
well, pay for this programme. If you have
the money, please consider paying the
software authors in order to encourage
them to update the programme further.
Kalos is available for Windows-based
systems as well as Mac/Apple.

Installation should be straightforward:

under Windows, for example, just double-
click on the setup file and follow the
instructions. Once installed, click on the
desktop icon, or follow the trail from
START -> PROGRAMS -> KALOS. This
should show the opening screen, where
you need to enter your basic setup
information (Fig. 1): the language of Fig. 1: Kalos opening screen and setup
captions, or dictionary meanings, the
keyboard you use, and the unicode font you want to use (I recommend Cardo; see the
Appendix at the end of this document).

Once you have selected these four options, click on 'Start' on the opening screen, and the
main programme interface will show up (Fig. 2). Note the three main 'tabs' towards the top:
'dictionary';
'morphological
analysis'; 'inflection'.
By default, the
programme opens on
the 'dictionary' tab,
but you can switch to
the others by clicking
on them.

The Kalos website

has three useful
shockwave 'videos'
that introduce the
basic features of the Fig. 2: Main programme interface
programme: actually,
they are more like a slideshow - you need to click on the 'forward arrow' in the bottom right
corner to advance each 'slide'. They are written with English explanations. If you do not
have internet access, you can also find them on my "Biblical Studies Resources Disk".

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There is also an excellent 'help' document on their website

(http://www.kalos-software.com/help.html), which you should consult if you get stuck on the
otherwise fairly intuitive programme. A PDF version of that help file is also included on my
"Biblical Studies Resources Disk".

Bear in mind that this is a classical Greek tool that does not reflect the Koine dialect that
NT and LXX writings are written in. So looking for (4<TF6T in the dictionary part is not
going to get you very far; you will need to use (4(<TF6T instead. However, the
morphological analysis does appear to recognise major dialects, so it will recognise
(4<TF6T as the Ionic dialect form.

The 'inflection' charts that the programme produces can be very useful indeed. You need
to run a dictionary search on the word before the programme will construct an inflection
chart, which you can then save as a PDF document.

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4.3 InsertBible

"InsertBible" is a useful little programme by Michael Stead which acts as a 'plugin' for
Microsoft Word. In fact, it is a range of Word macros which allow the user to insert Bible
verses straight into a Word document. The programme must be downloaded at this
website: http://stead.streetlinemedia.com (for copyright reasons, I cannot include it on my
"Biblical Studies Resources Disk"). You must have a unicode font installed which allows
you to handle Greek and Hebrew (once again, I recommend Cardo – see the Appendix).

Fig. 1 User interface

The programme allows the user to insert the text from the ESV (English Standard Version),
the RSV (Revised Standard Version), Septuagint, Greek New Testament (Nestle-Aland
27), Vulgate, or Hebrew Bible (BHS). This can either be done in the form of a simple line or
paragraph of text from one of these versions, or by automatically creating a table. For
example, in Fig. 1, having clicked on the 'InsertBible' icon in the second row of the toolbar
(top right), the InsertBible user interface pops up as shown (after an intermediate copyright
screen that the user needs to acknowledge).

The
selection
chosen
in the
example Fig. 2: Result: Mic 6:8 in Hebrew, full pointing, text
above
would be a text (not table-) based insertion of Micah 6:8 in Hebrew, with full Hebrew

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vowels and other pointing signs, using the Cardo unicode font. After clicking on 'Go', the
user interface disappears and the text appears instead (Fig. 2).

If, to illustrate the 'table'

feature, I chose to use the
'table' alternative in order to
display two versions next to
each other, I could display
the text of Micah 6:8 in
Hebrew, with the RSV text
next to it, with only the
Hebrew vowel signs (user
interface: Fig. 3; result in
Fig. 4).

The result shows up ok,

though the table needs
some adaptation in order to
create a better space Fig. 3
between the table
separators and the
Hebrew text – but
that can easily be
achieved by
correcting the
margins for that
particular cell (right-
clicking within the
cell with the Hebrew
text should allow the
user to specify the
cell margins). Fig. 4

All in all, a very helpful utility.

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4.4 Greek and Hebrew in e-Sword

While I discussed the use of e-Sword in general in

an earlier section in this document, I would like to
add a few words about the use of Greek and
Hebrew texts at this point.

The e-Sword website offers a small number of

Greek and Hebrew texts
(http://www.e-sword.net/bibles.html). Not
surprisingly, most of these appear to be older forms
of the text, such as the Textus Receptus, or
Westcott-Hort. There is a an unpointed Hebrew text
of the Tanakh, of undisclosed provenance. The
Septuagintal text, it is claimed, derives from Rahlfs
edition. There is so little information on the Greek
and Hebrew texts offered, that one has to be a little
cautious in respect of how accurately they represent
the printed text they are supposed to derive from.
Of course, this is necessary with Fig. 1: Selecting a font
any text, though perhaps more so
with this assortment.

To faciliate proper display, it is best

to use a unicode font like Cardo to
display the Greek and Hebrew
characters (fig. 1). The text itself
looks good enough; for example,
the Hebrew consonantal text in fig.
2, or the Greek text in fig. 3, in a
parallel arrangement including the Fig. 2: Hebrew display
NET Bible notes in a
side bar.

Searching for Greek,

let alone Hebrew
words, is difficult. I
have yet to find any
instructions for how this
is supposed to work. It
would seem that with
Greek texts, the search
term is exact, meaning
that the term that is
looked for would, in the
case of the LXX,
include all diacritical
signs. This can be
entered manually,
using a polytonic Greek
keyboard setup (see Fig. 3: Greek display

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Appendix on unicode). Alternatively, one can right-click a highlighted word in the text,
which will open up a context-menu in which one may then chose 'Quick Search of Selected
Phrase'. The fact that these searches will only find precise matches of that particular word,
rather than the lemma, or even a useful word stem, limits the usefulness of this exercise.

Having said all that, e-Sword was not designed for this. It is not by accident that the
manual for e-Sword, even though not written by the programmer, does not mention Greek
or Hebrew except in the context of the discussion of Strong's numbers.

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4.5 WordBase: Greek Vocabulary

WordBase is a helpful 'flashcard'-type programme to help you learn Greek vocabulary.

Claims to contain all the words of the New Testament: just 5393 words to memorise, then.

http://greek.kihlman.eu

While the programme comes with basic English word 'definitions', you can also edit the
English words. There is even a 'Greek hangman' game to help you while away those long
hours during winter evenings...

Installation: the programme requires a unicode font (see Appendix). It is Windows-based

and users need to have the Microsoft .NET framework installed (if you do not know what
that is, you probably do not want to install this programme). The installation file may be
downloaded from the website; it is also on my "Biblical Studies Support Disk".

The programme setup file (currently version 3.0) comes 'zipped'. Right-click on the
WordBase3Setup.msi file and chose 'Install', then follow on-screen instructions.

Once installed, find the programme via START -> PROGRAMS -> WORDBASE3.

Start the programme, and

the opening screen shows
us as in fig. 1.

The use of the programme

is fairly intuitive. There is no
manual as such. The
'glossary' functions like an
index-card system with all
Greek words in the New
Testament. You can do
simple self-tests by running
the 'trial', where you will be
asked the meaning of each
word from the complete set
or a selected range of Fig. 1: Word Base 3: first view
words. Words incorrectly
translated will be copied into 'glossary 2' (see bottom half of Fig. 1), so you can later focus
on words you did not at first remember. A useful tool.

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4.6 Internet-based Greek / Hebrew utilities

Websites specifically or primarily created for work with Greek or Hebrew texts are
increasingly numerous and indeed helpful. I placed an online selection of links on this web
page: http://radical-bible.org/links/languages.html . Of course, they all presuppose constant
internet access. The most useful probably are the following:

www.zhubert.com

The website zhubert.com (now: "The Resurgence Greek Project", whatever that means),
http://www.zhubert.com, is probably the best for work with the Greek testaments. There is
a useful tutorial;
reliable access to the
Greek texts of the
LXX (Rahlfs) and NT
(NA26);
morphological
analysis; it offers
concordance-like
functions, vocabulary
drills; and more.

In the screenshot on
this page (fig. 1), you
can see the display of
the Greek text of Lk
11:1-5, with various
options for alternative
texts on the left. It is
possible to run the
text in parallel
columns, say, with an
English translation in Fig. 1: zhubert.com
one column, and the
Greek in the other.
Hovering the mouse
pointer over a Greek
word brings up a tool-
tip with complete
morphological
information and basic
dictionary aid (from
the usual public-
domain Strong's
Numbers dictionary?).
But what makes
things much more
interesting is clicking Fig. 2: Detailed information on selected Greek word (1)
on a Greek word. For
example, if we click

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on $"F48,4" in Lk
11:2, we get a host
of useful information
and further links to websites.
Fig. 2 represents
only the first half of
this information;
even in fig. 3 you
see only part of the
rest, which consists
of statistical
information about
the lemma.

The site offers

access to a pointed
Hebrew text of the
Tanakh as well, but
without any Fig. 3: Detailed information on selected Greek word (2)
additional resources
(dictionaries etc.).
Nevertheless, this
may be of use for
work on the Old
Testament, for
example by showing
both LXX and MT in
parallel columns. In
fig. 4, for instance, we
have Gen 1:1 in the
LXX, MT, and the
NET Bible. The
Hebrew text is not
very pretty, and does Fig. 4: Parallel display of LXX, MT, and NET Bible
not scale well, as the
screenshot (fig. 4) shows, but the text wraps correctly, and the parallel display may be
useful.

All in all, this is a very helpful website, presenting an interface – unlike many other
websites – which is not cluttered with all sorts of often useless 'information', but one that
offers quick and simple access to useful material. Even better, the website author tells us
exactly where his texts and dictionaries come from – something that many websites are a
little difficult to pin down on.

GNT at www.laparola.net/greco

This is more of a textual criticism website, but if offers a nice set of basic tools and a clean
setup for work with the Greek New Testament as well: http://www.laparola.net/greco. Here,
too, there is good acknowledgment of sources, so the user knows what kind of Greek texts
the website provides.

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Website visitors can chose to display up to one chapter of Greek text (fig. 5); hovering the
mouse over a word reveals the usual morphological analysis (parsing) of the word in
question, as well as information from the standard 'Strong's Numbers' kind of dictionary.
There is access to sophisticated text-critical data (with a full listing of all manuscript data
that is available: http://www.laparola.net/greco/manoscritti.php); a perhaps less useful link
to an audio file with a modern-Greek pronounciation of the text in question (actually, the
audio files are always based on the Westcott-Hort text, presumably because it is in the
public domain). It is also possible to search for particular words, and there is also access
to Louw-Nida's semantic domain dictionary – it is possible to look at a word in this
dictionary and then trace it in the texts.

Fig. 5: Greek New Testament at www.laparola.net/greco

All in all, a terrific resource, which is well worth exploring.

Perseus

Perseus is a vast collection of online texts and increasingly of other material relating to
classical antiquity, including a large number of Greek and Latin texts. Access can often be
slow:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu (Or the mirror at http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de)

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Their New Testament text is the outdated form by Westcott-Hort, but they offer such a
wealth of other ancient texts that it is still worthwhile to explore this site. However, the
website is difficult to get used to. It is a good idea to start with the help page:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Help.

At any rate, it includes access to Liddell-Scott's lexicon:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform

You can even search for English words in the lexicon if you need the reverse process:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/enggreek?lang=Greek

Morphological analysis of Greek words:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/morphindex?lang=Greek&corpus=2.0&display=Latin+t
ransliteration

Gateway Websites

Probably the best collections of links to other websites are:

http://www.biblicalgreek.org/grammar
http://www.ntgateway.com/greek
http://perswww.kuleuven.be/~u0013314/greekg.htm

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Unicode and Theological Studies
Holger Szesnat
26 May 2008

The Basics
Unicode has changed the way in which computers handle different typefaces /
fonts. This has implications for theological studies in that unicode fonts make
typing different languages in the same document easier (such as English,
Greek, and Hebrew). To understand how this works, we need a brief history
lesson.

Until a couple of years ago, Microsoft Windows users (that is, the majority of
computer users in the world), used a fairly straightforward set of typefaces or
fonts. As long as one wanted to write in a single language, that was no
problem: you picked a font to do this with, and that was it. If you wanted to
write in Greek as well as English, you had to “change fonts”. Fine, up to a
point, but if you wanted to share a document (eg. make a handout available to
students) that became a problem, for all users would need to have access to
precisely those fonts used by the writer.

All of this has become easier with unicode. Unicode is, in a nutshell, a single
system for representing (in theory) all character sets of most known writing
systems. Each character is assigned a certain number, and it is that number
which is embedded in the document. Therefore, as long as you use a unicode
font (and it does not, in principle, matter which one) you should be able to see
the same characters – in a different typeface, perhaps, but still the same
characters. Greek alpha (α) will be Greek alpha (α) even though I may use a
font/typeface different from that of the original writer of the document (in this
sentence, for example, the illustration is by means of switiching between Arial
and Palatino Linotype.

More importantly, some programmes now explicitly rely on the user having a
unicode font installed in order to display non-Latin character sets like Greek or
Hebrew; for example, Diogenes is natively written for unicode output, though it
can use other fonts as well: http://www.dur.ac.uk/p.j.heslin/Software/Diogenes

It is therefore useful to install a couple of unicode fonts on your system,

especially if you plan to
• write with Greek or Hebrew words or sentences;
• distribute electronic texts, such as student handouts;
• make use of more recent bible software.

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(Unicode) 2

Where do I get unicode fonts from? What do they look like?

Depending on what programme your computer has installed, you may find
that you have certain unicode fonts available already. Others may be
downloaded for a fee, or free of charge. Some common options include:

1. Microsoft Office is often shipped with Palatino Linotype, a commerical

unicode font which has a basic range of Greek and limited range of Hebrew
characters. It represents Greek thus: Παῦλος δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, κλητὸς
ἀπόστολος, ἀφωρισμένος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ …

Another font that comes with many Microsoft products is Arial. This is not a
unicode font. Microsoft does offer a nice, large fontset called Arial Unicode
MS with some products, however – but this is a commercial font that has to be
paid for.

2. A free unicode font is Cardo,

Cardo by David Perry. It was designed for Greek in the
first place, but it also supports Hebrew: http://scholarsfonts.net/cardofnt.html . It
represents Greek thus: Παῦλος δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, κλητὸς ἀπόστολος,
ἀφωρισµένος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ …
Hebrew text looks like this:
ָ ‫הצְנֵעַ לֶכֶת עִם־אֱלֹה‬
‫ֶיך׃‬ ַ ְ ‫הבַת חֶסֶד ו‬
ֲ ‫א‬
ַ ְ ‫פט ו‬
ָ ּ ׁ‫ש‬
ְ ִ‫כִּי אִם־עֲשֹׂות מ‬
As you can see, both Greek and Hebrew look quite nice.

Titus
Cyberbit,
and
it
supports
both
Greek
and

Titus
Cyberbit
3. Another free unicode font is
Titus
Cyberbit
Hebrew:
http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/unicode/tituut.asp
.
It
represents
Greek

thus:
Πα"λος
δο"λος
Χριστο"
,ησο",
κλητ/ς
0π2στολος,
0φωρισµ6νος
ε9ς

ε:αγγ6λιον
θεο"
…


Hebrew
text
looks
like
this:

‫יך׃‬
ָ ‫ם־אל ֶּה‬
ֱ ‫ה ַבת
ֶח ֶסד
וְ ַה ְצנֵ ַע
ֶל ֶכת
ִע‬U
ֲ ְ‫ט
ו‬Nָ ‫ם־עשּׂות
ִמ ְשׁ‬
ֲ ‫י
ִא‬Bִ

As
you
can
see,
both
Greek
and
Hebrew
look
quite
nice,
although
some
of
the

Hebrew
vowel
signs
are
not
placed
terribly
well.

4. Yet another free unicode font (distributed by SIL:

http://scripts.sil.org/gentium ) is Gentium,
Gentium though it does not include Hebrew sets.
It represents Greek thus: Παῦλος δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, κλητὸς ἀπόστολος,
ἀφωρισμένος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ …

However, the same outfit (SIL) distributes a free Hebrew unicode font (see
http://scripts.sil.org/EzraSIL_Home ) called EzraSIL, which does not include
the Greek set; however, the system seems to switch to Gentium
automatically when required to express Greek text, representing Greek thus:
Παῦλος δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, κλητὸς ἀπόστολος, ἀφωρισµένος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον
θεοῦ …

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Hebrew text (EzraSIL) looks like this:

‫׃‬F‫הֶ י‬Gֱ‫הבַ ת חֶ סֶ ד וְ הַ ְצנ ֵַע לֶ כֶ ת ִעם־א‬
ֲ ַ‫ת ִמ ְׁשּפָ ט וְ א‬+‫ִּכי ִאם־עֲׂש‬
Looks quite alright, in my view.

5. The Society of Biblical Literature offers a free Hebrew unicode font:

http://www.sbl-site.org/educational/BiblicalFonts_SBLHebrew.aspx . This font,
SBLHebrew,
SBLHebrew represents Hebrew as follows:
‫ֹלהיָך׃‬
ֶ ‫ם־א‬
ֱ ‫ם־עשׂוֹת ִמ ְשׁ ָפּט וְ ַא ֲה ַבת ֶח ֶסד וְ ַה ְצנֵ ַע ֶל ֶכת ִע‬
ֲ ‫ִכּי ִא‬
As you can see, Hebrew looks very nice, but it cannot do Greek. SBL announced
some years ago that a Greek unicode font is under development, but so far there
has been no result.

6. Another free option is Bitstream’s Cyberbit (free download available at

ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/communicator/extras/fonts/windows/ ). It supports
both Greek and Hebrew character sets and represents Greek thus: Παῦλος
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, κλητὸς ἀπόστολος, ἀφωρισμένος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ …
Hebrew text looks like this:
‫ָ׃‬
‫ֶיך‬‫ֱלֹה‬‫ִם־א‬‫ֶת ע‬‫לכ‬ֶ‫ע‬ַ ֵ‫צנ‬
ְ‫ה‬ַ ְ‫ֶד ו‬
‫חס‬ֶ ‫ַת‬
‫הב‬ֲ‫א‬
ַ ְ‫ָט ו‬
‫ִשׁפּ‬
ְ ‫ֲשֹׂות מ‬
‫ִם־ע‬
‫ִי א‬
‫כּ‬
As you can see, Greek looks quite alright, but in Hebrew, some of the vowel signs
are a little out of sync.

Unresolved issues
As you can see in the examples above, switching between Greek, Hebrew
and English can result in changes to line spacing. Also, if you stay within the
same font point size, some unicode fonts represent Greek and Hebrew in
rather small characters

Another issue that is as yet unresolved for me is that most available unicode
fonts are serif fonts (such as Cardo). The current wisdom on making
documents accessible for a wide range of readers suggests using a sans-serif
font instead, such as Arial (used in this document). Still, for the time being, my
choice would be Cardo,
Cardo because it includes both Greek and Hebrew sets. The
next best option, in my view, would be Gentium and EzraSIL
EzraSIL,
SIL both by SIL.

How do I install fonts?

Fonts usually come with the filename extension “.ttf”. Place this file
temporarily on your desktop, or somewhere where you will be able to find it
again. You now need to install this font.

On Windows systems, fonts can be installed thus: Click on START, then

CONTROL PANEL. Wait for the control panel to load, then choose FONTS.
Wait for that to load, then flick on FILE in the menu bar (top left), and choose
INSTALL FONT. Locate the new font, and install it. Once installed, the original

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font file can be deleted or, better still, archived on your system. If you have a
system crash later on, you can easily re-install it if need be, assuming you
have backed up your system beforehand.

Character input: Greek

If you want to type in Greek (as opposed to just cutting and pasting from other
documents), there are a number of ways to achieve this. It does get a little
complicated, though.

1. A relatively easy solution (especially if you do not type a lot of Greek) is to

switch on Microsoft’s language support for Greek (and Hebrew, while you are
at it). My own preference on my own system, running Windows XP, is
installed as follows: right-click on the XP ‘taskbar’, usually at the bottom of
the screen. Select ‘toolbars’, and make sure that ‘language bar’ is ticked. You
should see a small rectangle on the task bar that reads ‘EN’, that is, if your
default language is English (UK). If you hover your mouse pointer over it, it
should state which language (keyboard) you have currently installed by
default. Right-click on that icon, and select ‘settings’. This opens the ‘Text
Services and Input Languages’ dialogue box. Under ‘Installed Services’, click
on the ‘Add’ button. Select the language ‘Greek’ and tick the box ‘keyboard’,
then select ‘Greek polytonic’.

From now on, you can switch between the English and Greek keyboard using
the language bar / icon in the taskbar. Whenever you want to type in Greek,
make sure that a unicode font that includes polytonic is selected (eg. Cardo),
then switch to Greek in the ‘language bar’ of Windows, and type away.
However, you need to know which key on this ‘Greek polytonic’ keyboard
layout represents which character. Most monotonic characters are
straightforward, as the following simple keyboard overview shows:1

Note that among the letter keys on the English keyboard, ‘q’ is a “dead letter”
used to create polytonic characters (see below).

To create such polytonic characters, the basic process is to type a particular

‘dead letter’ (such as ‘q’) followed by the required main character. For

1
I downloaded this image in 2002 but have to admit, sadly, that I have lost the reference. If you
recognise this diagramme and know where it comes from, please contact me.

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example, ‘q’ followed by ‘a’ will result in ά (if the Greek keyboard is selected
on the language bar, and if a unicode font with polytonic Greek, for example,
Cardo, is selected).

There is an extensive discussion of this in a Microsoft document (pp15ff):

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/5/4/2543a817-a8c4-4c63-a46a-
f04a82bf623e/The%20Greek%20Polytonic%20System.doc

For a quick overview, see the following diagrammes:2

2. For a complete solution, which requires another freeware programme

(Tavultesoft Keyman), see the link to David Instone-Brewer’s page at the
Tyndale House website: http://www.tyndalehouse.co.uk/Fonts/index.htm

This will allow for proper right-to-left text entry and wrapping in Word
documents. There are simple but effective keyboard layout documents for this
purpose on Rodney Decker’s website:

http://faculty.bbc.edu/RDecker/unicode.htm#Templates
or directly for Greek:
http://faculty.bbc.edu/RDecker/documents/ClGkUnicodeKybdLopez.pdf
and directly for Hebrew:
http://faculty.bbc.edu/RDecker/documents/SILHebKey.pdf

2
Again, if you happen to know where these diagrammes come from, please contact me.

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The really quick fix option for typing unicode Greek

There are three ‘quick fix’ options for typing Greek in unicode if you have
access to the internet. Apart from making sure that you have a unicode font
for Greek / Hebrew on your system, you do not need to install or change
anything.

http://www.typegreek.com/
http://users.ox.ac.uk/%7Etayl0010/letters_table_caretpos2.htm
http://johndyer.name/post/2007/08/Greek-and-Hebrew-Unicode-Keyboards-in-
HTML.aspx

Character Input: Hebrew

Hebrew character input is a bit more complicated than Hebrew. Switching the
Hebrew keyboard on, just as with Greek, allows easy entry of the consonants.
Using vowel sings, let alone all other pointing signs, is a lot more complicated.
See: http://people.brandeis.edu/~brettler/typing-in-hebrew.html . If you have
ready internet access, ii may therefore be more straightforward to use a ‘quick
fix’ solution:
http://johndyer.name/post/2007/08/Greek-and-Hebrew-Unicode-Keyboards-in-
HTML.aspx

More information
More links to fonts (both Greek and Hebrew, usually) may be found at
http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Hebrew.html

There is extensive information on unicode and writing in Greek (and to some

extent, Hebrew) on Rodney Decker’s website:
http://www.ntresources.com/unicode.htm

Another useful page is David Instone-Brewer’s information on unicode at the

Tyndale website: http://www.tyndalehouse.co.uk/Fonts/index.htm . He also
offers Word documents with the complete text of the Hebrew Bible,
Septuagint, and New Testament in Greek, all formatted in unicode – useful for
cutting and pasting.

Also useful: http://www.biblicalgreek.org/links/fonts/keyboard.html

The information provided on some of these websites is far more extensive

and at times more complicated than what I discussed here. Some of them (eg.
David Instone-Brewer) also discuss more tricky issues like switching to ‘right-
to-left’ text-entry for Hebrew, and proper word-wrapping in that context.

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Overall Rating: 6.6

Palm Bible +: A Review
User Interface: Searching:
Version: 3.20 Ease of Use Features:

Developer: Yih-Chun Hu Help &

Modules:
Support:
Holger Szesnat Original
Customization:
Languages:
Speed: Price:

December 3, 2005

A review written by Holger Szesnat, tutor in Biblical Studies. Copyright © 2004-2007 by the author. All rights reserved. Please
do not reproduce any part of this document without obtaining permission from the author.This review has been updated

1. Introduction

Bible+ is a free (GPL -licensed) Bible reader for Palm

OS derived from BibleReader by Poetry Poon." [1]
BibleReader later turned into a commercial programme,
and Yih-Chun Hu subsequently developed Bible+ on the
basis of an earlier open source version. Written for Palm
OS 3.3 and better, it is available under a standard
General Public Licence (put simply, it is freely available
to anyone, and programmers are invited to help develop
it further). Version 1 appeared sometime in early April
2003; at the time of writing, the latest stable release
version was 3.03, though this review was written on the
basis of the latest beta-version (3.1.10).

Fig. 1: Displaying a single version

Bible+ allows the user to display Bible versions and other texts on a PDA (fig. 1). The latest (beta) releases cater not only for
polytonic Greek but also vocalised Hebrew. A number of Chinese versions also exist: it seems that if a person can be found to
create a font set, and if the text-base exists, pretty much any language /character set seems to be possible. The open source
nature of this programme, coupled with an active group of developers, ensures good development prospects.

Before I get into the details of the review, I should be up-front about my own background and bias. (1) I am a relatively recent
convert to handheld computers; I have less than a year's experience of working with PDA's (actually, only one particular PDA,
which is a Palm Tungsten E, running Palm OS 5.21). I have been working with different versions of Bible+ ever since I started
with a PDA: in fact, it was a description of this programme in David Instone-Brewers' "TynTech" reviews that 'sold' me on the
idea of PDA. (2) I have a bias towards free programmes, especially when it comes to Bible software. Obviously there is a need
for commercial programmes, especially for the further development of high-end research tools, but it is also highly desirable to
have basic electronic Scripture tools available for those who cannot afford the high price of BibleWorks, Logos, etc.: which is
why I always recommend programmes like e-Sword for PC and Pocket-PC, MacSword for Apple and Bible + (Palm OS) to my
students. For most users, these programmes are perfectly adequate, and it seems unnecessary to pay for cheap commercial

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programmes which offer little more (and often less).

Of course, the usual limitations of 'free software' apply to Bible+ as well. While it generally performs very well for the tasks it is
designed for, getting it to work on your PDA in exactly the way you want it may require a bit of time and some 'fiddling'. As a
PDA novice, it took me several hours to get it all sorted. It must be said though that most of my problems derived from trying to
get Greek and Hebrew texts to work properly. However, there is a good number of experienced users who can be asked for
help via the user forum on the programme homepage.

I must also admit that I am, perhaps unreasonably so, just a touch worried about the quality of the text basis offered in Bible
versions for free software. Errors can creep in rather easily (and, since I have a suspicious mind, perhaps also deliberately).
However, having fairly recently handed over about £200 for a copy of BibleWorks 6, I was reminded that the expectation of high
quality comes at a price: quality and confidence in a text, that is, comparable to, say, a printed copy of Nestle-Aland 27, coupled
with Bachmann & Slaby's Concordance. [2]

2. Basic Functions

The principle of the programme is a simple and familiar one: Bible+ allows the user to read Biblical texts and to perform simple
search functions. Texts must be installed separately and individually once the main programme has been installed. If you use
an additional memory card, you can move Bible versions to it in order to preserve precious RAM on the PDA itself (versions
may take between 500kb and 2Mb).

Up to two versions may be displayed at any time, with a variable horizontal or vertical screen split: as can be seen in fig. 2 & 3,
this allows for a highly configurable system depending on one's particular needs.

Fig. 2: Two versions; 1:1 horizontal split

The text on the screen scrolls/moves either by means of hard-wired tool buttons on the PDA, or by 'dragging' the text by means
of the stylus. In addition, the menu at the top of screen allows for the selection of 'book', chapter and verse to jump to. There
are also a number of useful shortcuts for PDA's with a 'graffiti' area to write on. All this is quite simple, intuitive, and easy to use.

Fig. 3: Two versions; 1:3 vertical split

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3. Bible modules and other texts for use in Bible +

The Bible+ website offers the usual range of free Bible versions for use with this programme; usual, that is, for many freeware /
open source Bible applications: various forms of the Authorised Version ("King James Version"); American Standard Version,
Bible in Basic English, Darby Bible, and so on. Because of the licensing policies of the copyright owners of certain popular
versions (such as the New Revised Standard Version, or the New International Version), these versions are generally not
available for use in free / open source Bible programmes, including Bible+. This is a major drawback of Bible+, or any other
freeware Bible programme for that matter – conversely, this is the attraction of commercial programmes.

However, it is technically possible to export the raw text-base of such versions (eg. NRSV) from other legally owned
programmes (eg. BibleWorks), and then to convert this, or "roll your own", into a version for use in Bible+. As to whether this is
actually legal, I have no idea; it would seem sensible to allow someone who has forked out £200 for BibleWorks 6 further use of
the NRSV text, but lawyers tend to think differently from other mortals. Presumably copyright law depends on the country you
live in, too. Be that as it may, there are fairly detailed instructions for this procedure on the Bible+ website.

Bible+ can display not only multiple Bible versions, but

also other texts, once they are converted to use in
Bible+. For example, I have Philo's texts (Yonge's
translation, that is) on my PDA (fig. 4). The size of such
text files can be quite large: Philo's text, for instance,
takes up about 1.5Mb. However, this is no larger than
some Bible versions.

Certain classic Bible commentaries and resources are

also available, as for many free Bible programmes:
Matthew Henry's Commentary, John Wesley's Notes,
and so on.

Fig. 4: Philo, De opificio mundi

Non-Latin character sets may be used with Bible+. In

fact, this programme was originally created to display
Chinese versions. Polytonic Greek has been possible
with Bible+ for a quite a while now, and the consonantal
text of the Hebrew Bible was also available. The latest
beta releases of Bible+ (for Palm OS5) now also offer a
beautiful vocalised Hebrew text (BHS). (fig. 5)

Fig. 5: Vocalised Hebrew text (BHS)

4. Searching

Displaying the text is obviously an important part of Bible software, and the ability to split the screen to show two versions at a
time is a great thing for the small screens of PDA's. But another major advantage of any decent Bible software is the search
function, which at its very basic level allows the use to create a concordance on-the-fly.

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In Bible+, the search functions are fairly basic, yet quite

powerful. For English texts (and those using the same
character set), it is fairly straightforward: both terms and
phrases may be searched for, with optional case
sensitivity for the character string chosen. So far, it is not
possible to use Boolean logic searches, though, and
wildcards do not work either. In principle, searches of the
non-Latin character based texts are also possible,
though one first has to determine the transliteration
system used for that particular version. At present, there
does not appear to be any documentation for this on the
programme website or its associated discussion forum,
but when proceeding on a trial-and-error basis, I found it
fairly intuitive – certainly with Greek. (Fig. 6)

Fig. 6: LXX search results

While the display speed of the versions is good, searches are quite slow. There is no other way of putting it. If you are used to
programmes on recent desktop systems, you will be disappointed with this. Obviously, processor power and memory size on
different PDA's will have some effect on speed (and needless to say, on both scores, PDA's cannot be compared with modern
desktop machines), but a simple comparison test should illustrate what I mean. If I run a search for the key terms "root,
offspring, David" in the ASV, I expect to find only one passage, towards the end of the canon (Rev. 22:16). Running such a
search on my desktop PC, with a 2.4Gh processor and 512Mb of RAM, the freeware programme e-Sword will return the answer
in just over a second; the commercial and professional programme, BibleWorks 6 takes a mere 0.02 seconds. On my Tungsten
E, Bible+ takes almost six minutes to do the same job. Of course, one can cut down on search time by restricting the search
parameters in a sensible fashion, most importantly by limiting the number of 'books' the programme will work through.

5. Other Functions

Bible+ offers a variety of other useful functions of which I

will mention only a few. First, it is possible to link Bible+
with dictionaries such as RoadLingua or BDicty via the
Plucker Plugin Interface. Whether it is worth your while
doing this is an interesting questions: after all, this
depends on the availability of actually useful dictionary
files for RoadLingua or BDicty in the first place; it should
be interesting to keep an eye on both RoadLingua and
BDicty in this regard. One should also add that some
Bible+ version files already incorporate the popular
"Strong's Numbers", or morphological analysis (TVM),
which may be switched on or off with the 'footnote'
function (fig. 7).

Fig. 7: GNT with TVM switched on

Secondly, the usual TSK cross-references are available as a plug-in; double-tapping on a verse number will then open a list of
"parallel passages". Again, a tool to be used with caution (who determines what is 'parallel'?). Thirdly, "bookmarks" may be
recorded to allow for quick access to selected passages or search results; a useful tool for classes, or as a quick reminder for
later follow-up. Fourthly, Bible+ supports simple note-taking; notes can then be exported to the memo-pad.

6. Conclusion

Ultimately, Bible+ must be evaluated in relation to other PDA software, not with desktop programmes. Serious research with
Greek and Hebrew texts is still the domain of professional programmes for PC's and Mac's.

However, when compared with other freely available PDA programmes, Bible+ is clearly streets ahead: before we get too
critical of Bible+, it is a good idea to run a fairly new programme like the UniBible (by the producers of the internet-based
Unbound Bible) and observe the difference in quality and features: Bible+ is simply in a different league. On the other hand, I
have not had the opportunity to test commercial products (Olive Tree's PDA software seems to be among the best), so I cannot
offer comments on those in comparison to Bible+.

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Given that Bible+ is offered free of charge, it is frankly amazing to see how high the quality of this programme is, and how much
support one can find in voluntary user and developer groups. If you want a straightforward programme to display Bible
translations, do simple searches, perhaps compare two versions, and take some notes, Bible+ is an obvious choice. I would
always recommend it for this purpose. Working with Greek and Hebrew texts in Bible+ is increasingly becoming easier with the
latest programme release, though you still need to be prepared to fiddle with the programme for a while to get it all working
satisfactorily. The lack of immediate access to copyright restricted versions such as the NIV or the NRSV will annoy some
users; but then, if you are prepared to engage in some trial-and-error work, and if you have already purchased that version for
another package for another platform, it is not too difficult to import the text into Bible+. On a scale of 1-10, I would give Bible+ 9
points.

7. Internet Links

http://palmbibleplus.sourceforge.net [official programme homepage; programme and Bible version download; online manual;
user forum; multiple further links]

http://www.thechan.com [Gary Chan offers a number of resources, particularly for Greek and Chinese versions]

http://members.aon.at/neuhold/palm/palmbible_en.html [conversion tools for "rolling one's own"]

http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ap85 [links, texts, tips from one of the developers]

http://www.wjsp.net/palm_bible.html [tips; texts in Greek, Hebrew, Syriac]

http://www.stjamesturramurra.org.au/stead/Palm.htm [UBS3 and BHS]

http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/prod/dialspace/town/pipexdsl/s/asci84/files [Greek, Hebrew and Arabic versions]

http://www.mclean.faithweb.com/PalmScriptures.html [many Bible versions; Philo; Josephus; Nag Hammadi; plus Qur'an
and foundational Islamic texts]

http://www.palmgear.com [various Bible+ tools and texts on this general site].

UPDATE (December 3, 2005): Palm Bible + version 3.20

Palm Bible+ version 3.2 offers a number of improvements. Complete details are listed on the programme website. I should like
to highlight the more important ones:

1. Search Speed

Search speed has increased significantly. The specific search mentioned in the original review ("offspring, root, David" in the
ASV) now takes just over a minute on a Tungsten E. This is still nowhere near what a decent desktop machine can do with
freeware (like e-Sword), let alone commercial high-end programmes like BibleWorks, but it is a vast improvement on the six
minutes this search took on earlier Bible+ versions.

Speed can be improved further with the Lightspeed overclocking programme that Bible+ now makes use of, if installed. The
power-hungry over-clocking feature will only kick in during searches. Setting my Tungsten E to 180Mhz, the search speed for
the test mentioned above improved somewhat (from just over a minute to about 42 seconds). I should add though that the
Lightspeed facility is only free in its current Beta test version 2.0; otherwise this is a commercial product. I did have some
problems with restarting my Tungsten E with Lightspeed installed, but that is another matter.

2. Boolean searches

Bible+ now supports Boolean searches (AND, OR, NOT) together with the ability to specify which term / phrase ought to
precede the other, as well as wildcard searches. However, searches are still limited to single verses only, that is, the search
function does not allow the user to find possible matches across a specified range of verses.

Interestingly enough, a slightly more complex test search across the whole ASV (grace AND lord AND jesus NOT christ: six
results including Rev 22:21) took just as long as a more simple search (above).

3. Greek / Hebrew and Search Documentation

Searching is now much better documented, including the transliteration scheme needed for searches of the Greek and Hebrew
texts. When in the 'Find' window, tap the 'i' symbol in the top right corner and scroll down the 'search' help comments. As
before, searching works on consonantal Hebrew / unaccented Greek only, although it is possible to display vocalised / accented
texts.

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4. Number of versions

The restriction on the maximum number of versions that one can carry on the system (default: 48) has been lifted, or rather: it is
now possible to choose a larger number (up to 500).

5. Text to Speech

Palm OS5 devices with sound support can now make use of a text-to-speech function, provided there is sufficient memory
(requires 6 MB of free RAM and 2 MB of dynamic heap). This function uses a free programme called Talking Moose (another
link here). Due to memory limitations, I have not been able to test this.

6. Auto-scroll

A handy feature for reading Bible texts continuously is the new auto-scroll function. Tap once on the screen and the text begins
to scroll (speed is adjustable), tap again and it stops.

7. Link to Reading Planner

Users who like to read the Bible continuously can download the Reading Planner programme which selects the Bible 'books'
you wish to read, as well as the period of time over which you want to do so. The programme then divides the text into equal
sections and links to Bible+.

In Conclusion

Other programmes would no doubt have included a minor face-lift to the programme and then called this 'version 4': the
changes are significant enough to warrant this. Well done and thank you to the Bible+ developers' community!

Copyright © 2004-2008 Bible Software Review Best viewed at 1024 x 768 or above
All Rights Reserved. by Karan Media Design © Last updated: 02/06/2007

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/

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Computer Skills for Theology & Ministry
Bible Software & Resources
Holger Szesnat, 02/02/2009 (offered under Creative Commons Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk )
Personal contact details, extensive computer skills manual, and this sheet, with working links, available at:
http://radical-bible.org/computerskills Also see my Biblical Studies Resources CD

1. Bible Software: What Kind?

1. Bible texts in PDF, TXT or HTML format for downloading: eg. NRSV, TNIV, NET Bible
NRSV: http://web.archive.org/web/20060618181238/www.anova.org/sev
TNIV: http://web.archive.org/web/20050305180506/http://www.tniv.info/pdf/TNIV_Bible.pdf
NET Bible: http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=3086
2. Bible software proper: basic considerations
a. What to look out for: Bible versions? – Parallel display of different versions? –
What kind of search functions?
b. High-end commercial Bible software: Accordance (Macintosh) http://www.accordancebible.com
BibleWorks (Windows) http://www.bibleworks.com
c. Free/inexpensive Bible software: e-Sword and Online Bible (see below)
d. Logos.com (libronix database): http://www.logos.com
2. Using Bible Software: Generic Issues
Strong's numbers – Search accuracy – Limitations of software – Theological bias – User support groups
3. Installing free/inexpensive Bible software on your computer
Using e-Sword (http://www.e-sword.net )
Installation – User interface – Displaying texts – Parallel display of texts in different versions –
Searching for words & phrases – Graphics viewer – Dictionaries and footnotes – Strong's numbers
Using OnlineBible (http://www.onlinebible.org OR http://www.onlinebible.net )
Installation – Basic programme configuration – Simple text display – Parallel display of texts in different versions –
Search functions – Strong's numbers
5. Bible applications on the Internet
1. Internet-based English Bible translations (links at http://radical-bible.org/links/versions.html )
New English Translation of the LXX: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition
English Pseudepigrapha: http://wesley.nnu.edu/biblical_studies/noncanon
English Talmud Bavli (Soncino, partial): http://www.come-and-hear.com/tcontents.html
2. e-Sword Live: early version of e-Sword on an interactive website: http://live.e-sword.net
3. Internet-based Greek/Hebrew text and language utilities:
Greek NT and resources at http://www.zhubert.com
Greek NT and manuscript resources at http:// www.laparola.net/greco OR at
http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etcs/grie/gnt/gnt.htm
Classical and Hellenistic Greek, and Latin: Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu
OR at http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de AND http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/PERSEUS
Greek Pseudepipgrapha: http://ocp.acadiau.ca
Tanakh (Codex Leningradensis): http://www.tanach.us
Mishnah, Talmud, Tosephta (Hebrew / Aramaic): http://www.mechon-mamre.org
Overview / links at: http://www.ermc.cam.ac.uk/resources/links/languages.html
AND at: http://www.tyndalehouse.co.uk/links_Biblical.htm
AND at: http://www.biblicalgreek.org/grammar
AND at: http://perswww.kuleuven.be/~u0013314/greekg.htm
4. InsertBible utility: http://stead.streetlinemedia.com
5. Kalos software: Greek dictionary, parsing, etc. : http://www.kalos-software.com
6. Diogenes: using Lidell-Scott dictionary: http://www.dur.ac.uk/p.j.heslin/Software/Diogenes
7. Tyndale Toolbar: http://www.tabs-online.com/Toolbar/Help/Intro.htm
8. Bible Maps: Bible Atlas: Access Foundation: http://web.archive.org/web/20060618181238/www.anova.org/sev
BibleMapper: http://www.biblemapper.com
9. Vocabulary drills: Greek; e.g. WordBase at: http://greek.kihlman.eu
10. Greek and Hebrew fonts / unicode: see training manual at: http://radical-bible.org
Free online unicode typing: Hebrew at http://www.amhaaretz.org/translit ;
Greek at http://users.ox.ac.uk/%7Etayl0010/letters_table_caretpos2.htm or at http://www.typegreek.com
Or download Java programme at http://www.sgj.org.uk/BibleUnicodePad/index.html
Or (less preferable) transliterate: http://home.comcast.net/~rciampa/Translit.htm
Computer Skills for Theology & Ministry
Using the Internet: Theology & Ministry
Holger Szesnat, 02/02/2009 (offered under Creative Commons Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk )
Personal contact details, extensive computer skills manual, and this sheet, with working links, available at:
http://radical-bible.org/computerskills Also see my Biblical Studies Resources CD

1. Safe internet tools & work practices

a. Safe use of the Internet: anti-virus programmes; firewalls; system / programme updates
b. Virus, hoax, SPAM: the darker side of the internet
c. Browsing the WWW: which browser? ... and how to clean up browser detritus
Use of CCleaner (caution: look at what is to be deleted!): http://www.ccleaner.com
d. Safe email work practices
e. Backing up, eg. with Cobian Backup 8, http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm
2. Working with the internet for academic purposes
Can you trust anything on the Internet? – The nature of sources. – Bad habits, and how to avoid them
3. How to find and utilize useful material
a. Search engines and their limitations
b. Meta-sites / gateway sites / portals
c. Evaluate websites / documents
d. Reference material downloaded from the Internet
e. Archive material as PDF with PDF Creator http://www.pdfforge.org or online: https://online.primopdf.com
f. Dead links recovery: the Internet Archive at http://www.archive.org
g. Wikipedia: proceed with caution: http://en.wikipedia.org
4. More on search engines and other ways to look for useful (and mostly free) resources
a. Which search engine? http://www.google.com – and others
b. Search strategies: the art of asking the right question
c. Read (parts of) book online: Google Books (current and older books): http://books.google.com
AND 'Search inside' amazon books (current books): http://amazon.com OR http://a9.com
AND Internet Archive (Texts) (older books): http://www.archive.org/details/texts
OR TynCat: indirect access to both 'google books' and 'amazon.com': http://www.tyncat.com
Selected book links: Biblical Studies: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=d9xh4s8_21x7n3f
AND http://home.comcast.net/~rciampa/AmazonResearch.htm
ALSO Classics, Judaism, Christianity: http://www.luc.edu/faculty/mhooker
d. Large library catalogues (without full text access): UK: http://copac.ac.uk/wzgw USA: http://catalog.loc.gov
France: http://catalogue.bnf.fr Germany: http://www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/kvk.html
5. Metasites / gateway sites
a. Theology, religious studies, and philosophy in general: http://radical-bible.org
http://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/resources
http://www.religiousworlds.com http://bubl.ac.uk/link/r/religiousstudies.htm
http://www.intute.ac.uk/artsandhumanities/religion http://www.fambof.nl/links/philosophy
b. Specific subject links:
Hebrew Bible: http://itanakh.org New Testament: http://www.ntgateway.com
Biblical Studies in general: http://www.tyndalehouse.co.uk/links_Biblical.htm
Lectionary texts & links: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com
Ancient History: http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/asbook.html
Medieval History: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html
Modern History: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.html
6. Journals/Periodicals
a. General links and information (including open access journals): http://radical-bible.org/links/journals.html
b. Individual journal access (subscription): eg. Interpretation : http://www.interpretation.org
c. ATLAS journal collection: http://www.atla.com/trial/textweek.html (Currently not available)
7. Other useful online / electronic resources (usually costly!)
a. Cokesbury's iPreach: https://www.cokesbury.com/forms/subscriptions.aspx?lvl=iPreach
b. Ebrary: http://shop.ebrary.com
c. Questia: http://www.questia.com
d. Online books via amazon upgrade: http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=si3_store_su/?node=293522011
e. Open Courseware: e.g. http://oyc.yale.edu ; or http://ocw.nd.edu/theology
or other course material via iTunes U: first download iTunes at http://www.apple.com/itunes ;
then try university links like: Stanford University : http://itunes.stanford.edu ;
or: Concordia Seminary : http://itunes.csl.edu ;
or: Fuller Theological Seminary : http://www.fuller.edu/atc/itunesu.asp
f. Books with CD-ROMs (mostly Libronix / www.logos.com); e.g.:
Hermeneia commentaries (40 vols.), http://www.logos.com/products/details/2735
Essential IVP Reference Collection 2: http://www.logos.com/products/details/1516
Augsburg Fortress Collection (incl. paperback): http://www.logos.com/products/details/2466
or individually at http://www.augsburgfortress.org/store/category.jsp?clsid=150643
Collegeville Catholic Reference Library 2: http://www.logos.com/products/details/2460