1) Create an Olive Tree account

By creating an Olive Tree account, you can register your in-app purchases and sync your notes, highlights, and bookmarks, etc.  Create one today by visiting: https://olivetree.com/store/register

2) Register your in-App purchases

Did you know that when you purchase a resource within the app, you are not buying it from Olive Tree directly, but are buying it from iTunes?  If for some reason you have to reinstall your Bible Study app, those resources will be difficult to get back.  To prevent this, all you need to do is tap one button.  By doing so, you’ll save all the extra time it takes to email Customer Support, provide proofs of purchase, and wait for your resources to be manually added to your Olive Tree account.

3) Sync your notes, highlights, and bookmarks, etc.

You’ve invested a lot of time and energy creating your notes, highlights, and bookmarks; please utilize our Study Sync feature to back them up.  It’s always unfortunate when we hear from customers that have lost days, week, and months worth of their notes because they had to reinstall their Bible Study app, but never backed those notes up.  At that point it’s too late and there is nothing we can do.  Don’t let this happen to you, especially since there is an easy way to prevent it.

The above instructions are for Apple devices running the Bible Study app version 5.2 or later and Android devices running the Bible Study app version 5.0.

For over 12 years Olive Tree has dedicated it’s time and resources to providing premier Bible study tools to your mobile device. With the advent of the iPhone, Olive Tree quickly became a leader for Bible study in the app world. And the iPad…Olive Tree brought you one of the best looking and best study tools available on a tablet.

Now, after meeting everyone on their favorite mobile platform, Olive Tree is stepping it up once again.
Olive Tree is excited to bring you a desktop app for Mac (PC coming soon)!

Taking the concepts from our iPad and iPhone app, we’ve brought a whole new experience to desktop Bible Software. Whether you just want to read with no distractions, study with the Resource Guide, take notes while you’re reading, or searching your library, you will find Olive Tree’s desktop app to be just as simple and beautiful to use as the app on your phone or tablet.

For more information about the BibleReader on Mac you can look here. 

To keep up with our latest news please follow us on Twitter or become a fan on our Facebook Page

For believers, more than failing physical bodies, growing older brings its share of challenging questions: What is God’s purpose for this time in my life? How do I serve God with my growing limitations? How do I remain hopeful when I’m surrounded by pain and loss?

These concerns are addressed honestly in Billy Graham’s Nearing Home: Life, Faith and Finishing Well. Written for more than just the elderly, Graham teaches readers of all ages how to prepare for the challenges of growing old. At ninety-three Billy Graham is no stranger to the difficulties of advanced age, but he doesn’t let it keep him from faithfully ministering to people around the world. His new book shows that old age is “not a time to be despised or a burden to be endured with gritted teeth.” Instead, Graham uses examples form Scripture to show how God continues to work through His people, no matter their age.

No one knows God’s plans for the future, but we can know for sure that whether or not we live to be ninety-three, someday all of us will be called home. It is Graham’s desire and ours here at Olive Tree that we would learn to grow older with grace and, like our mentors before us, find the guidance needed to finish well.

But here’s the concern: all these valuable resources can focus us so much on what the Bible says that we can neglect to focus on what the Bible says to do. Even beyond Bible study, our passion here at Olive Tree is going into all the world to make disciples. In fact, one of our mottos is “ Mobilize Your Bible Study,”  reflecting the value such portability gives when you are doing just that: going into all the world.

That’s why I’m excited to announce that this week we’ll be exhibiting at Catalyst Inland Northwest.  The featured speakers are Luis Palau, Ajay Pillai, and George Verwer.  Do you know how rare it is to be able to hear these three dynamic and missions-minded speakers in the same place, let alone the same continent? Millions have been touched through God’s use of these brothers and the people in their ministries.

And Olive Tree Bible Software will be there.  If you’re in the Pacific Northwest, stop by and see our display at Calvary Church in Spokane, Washington.

This pattern was true in my own studies.  I was fortunate enough to begin learning Greek at about fourteen years of age, and by age sixteen, I had read through the Gospels on my own.  Someone had told me early on not to use an analytical lexicon since it could become a sort of crutch, and to parse each word on my own, which I faithfully did.  The result was that after working through the entire New Testament, I had a very thorough understanding of Greek morphology and could parse nearly any noun or verb form with ease.

Imagine my shock then when I tried to make the same transition into reading Hebrew.  There were so many irregular verbs or verbs with disappearing letters!  This didn’t bother me too much at first, since I could generally page through the dictionary and find the root.  What really gave me trouble though were the verbs that dropped the first letter of the root, or even the occasional verb that lost two letters.  How in the world was I supposed to find the root in my lexicon?  I had dealt with irregular verbs in Greek, and my solution was simple and effective:  memorize them all.  I began the same process in Hebrew, but with several times more words to memorize, it was a long and slow process without much immediate payoff.  I finally broke down in frustration and purchased an analytical lexicon.

The analytical lexicon helped me considerably, but still not enough to make the jump to fluent reading.  It allowed me to consistently work through a passage without getting completely stuck, but it was very slow.  Often my progress through a passage was reduced to a crawl.  I eventually made it through the entire book of Genesis after a year of consistent reading.  I was discouraged by this relatively slow pace.  After all, I had made it through John’s Letters, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Matthew, Mark, John, and Revelation in the same period of studying Greek.  I gradually lost interest in Hebrew and spent more time developing my proficiency in Greek and Latin.  I even learned Syriac during that time period and was amazed at how much easier it seemed than Hebrew.

My interest in Hebrew didn’t return until I was asked to tutor some students in it.  I was teaching classics at a small private high school and a couple of seniors asked if I would help them learn Hebrew.  During our first few sessions, I was struck with how much better I understood Greek and Latin, and how shaky my understanding of Hebrew verb forms seemed in comparison.  I chalked it up to the fact that I had never done as much reading in Hebrew.  I knew that if I wanted to help these students reach a point where they could read Hebrew prose that my own reading abilities needed to improve.

Fortunately, there was a new resource available that allowed me to improve my reading skills.  It was A Reader’s Hebrew Bible published by Zondervan.  It had all of the high frequency words in a glossary in the back.  Any words that were not high frequency were listed on the bottom of each page of text.  I already knew all (or nearly all) of the high frequency words, so this allowed me to read quickly over a passage without a separate dictionary.  If I was unsure what the root of a word was, I could just look at the bottom of the page.  I started by rereading the book of Genesis, which took me just over a month (compared to over a year the first time through).  I was worried at first that this was only a crutch and that I wouldn’t actually learn to read Hebrew any better, but was pleased when I began recognizing more and more words that were not in the high frequency lists and was able to identify them without look at the bottom of the page.  This renewed my interest in reading Hebrew, and I revived the practice of reading each day from my Hebrew Bible.  Consequently, my understanding of the language and my ability to teach it increased significantly over the next year or two.

I eventually left my position at the school and started working for Olive Tree Bible Software.  I was immediately amazed with Olive Tree’s parsed text of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.  It allowed me to look up the parsing for any word in the Hebrew text by simply tapping on it.  As much as I liked my Reader’s Hebrew Bible, this was even better!  I could access not only the root and definition, but also the full parsing with a simple tap of the screen.  I could even open up a commentary, an English Bible, or the Septuagint in a split window and set it up to follow along with the Hebrew text.  As was the case with the analytical lexicon and the Reader’s Hebrew Bible, I was afraid that this would only be a crutch.  Once again, I was pleased to discover that the more I used the parsed BHS with Olive Tree’s Bible Study app, the more my ability to parse Hebrew texts on my own increased.

BHS and parallel text for Septuagint

Looking back, I would say that discovering Zondervan’s A Reader’s Hebrew Bible and Olive Tree Bible Software’s parsed text of the BHS were both key turning points in my efforts to become fluent in reading Hebrew.  After first finding each of these resources, the amount that I read from my Hebrew Bible increased dramatically.  After using each of these resources, I found that my ability to read Hebrew without a dictionary had increased drastically.  If someone asked me for a good print resource to break into reading the Hebrew Bible, I would highly recommend A Reader’s Hebrew Bible.  If the same person had an iPad, iPhone, or Android device, I would recommend even more strongly that he or she purchase OIive Tree Bible Software’s parsed BHS.  After all, it provides not only the root and definition, but the parsing information as well.  The price may seem a little high at first, but is really not much if you consider what it would cost to purchase and carry around printed copies of each of the three resources it contains.

Breaking into reading my Hebrew Bible on my own on a regular basis was a huge challenge.  I started out completely unassisted and wasn’t able to make a lot of progress.  Even when using an analytical lexicon, I wasn’t able to get very far.  When I use Olive Tree’s parsed Hebrew text, I’m amazed at the beauty of the Hebrew text and incredible functionality that it provides. I often think about how much time I could have saved and how much frustration I could have avoided if I had a resource like this when I was first learning Hebrew.  I’m glad that students today have such a great resource available and am proud to be part of the company that provides it.

Matt J

Matt works as a Digital Content Engineer, producing the resources we are proud to offer within the Bible Study app.

The product details for our parsed BHS text can be found here.

I bet you’re not thinking about what are probably the greatest thinkers among Biblical scholars. But that’s who is gathering to the city by the bay in the coming weeks.

Why all the Biblical discussion? It’s time for the Society for Biblical Literature (SBL) and the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) annual brouhahas.

At SBL you’ll find out about the latest in Biblical research. There will be books and digital resources and of course, that’s where we come in with Olive Tree Bible Software.

If you’re around on Sunday, November 20 be sure and check out the Bible software shootout. Along with Accordance and Logos Bible Software we’ll be demonstrating the usefulness of our software in the classroom with a 35 minute presentation followed by questions. The goal is to demonstrate how easily software can be used in the classroom for English Bible classes and/or original languages. Why not plan on attending the Shoot Out and stopping by our booth to see Daniel, or one of our other fine representatives?

The MacInites, the PCites, Tabletites, and Phone-ites discuss Bible software platforms

We’ll also be proudly displaying our digital prowess at ETS. “Founded in 1949, the Evangelical Theological Society is a group of scholars, teachers, pastors, students, and others dedicated to the oral exchange and written expression of theological thought and research.” Their theme this year is “No Other Name,” and promises to have presentations that will definitely challenge your thinking in this complex world. So if you’re headed to ETS definitely come by and see us.

I know what most of you are saying: “Finally!”

Well, if you’re from Norway, this is actually a really big deal. Olive Tree Bible Software is the first to offer the Bibelen 2011 for mobile devices!

Out of necessity, most translations of God’s Word in Norwegian have been idiomatic to a greater or lesser extent.

On the other hand, “Bibel 2011″ is based rather upon a concordant translation principle, where the translators aim to reproduce the Biblical texts as close to the original as possible.

The language used is good and makes biblical text understandable for today’s people. This version comes in two dialects: The Bokmål and the Nynorsk. We also have the Bibelen 1978/85 Bokmål.

Another thing we, at Olive Tree are excited about is that since the translation is based on the oldest manuscripts it’s very reliable.

To view all Norwegian Bibles Click HERE.

John’s excitement about Olive Tree is infectious. Over the years he has witnessed how technology has helped make God’s Word even more available, however the explosive potential of mobile and desktop software astounds him with its possibilities:  “We can reach more people in the most remote places now with Smartphones,” John says. This means that those who couldn’t be reached before might at last be able to have the Word.

Our CEO, Drew Haninger said of John:”With over 14 years of various executive positions at the International Bible Society, Mr. Cruz will bring a wealth of talent and experience to the Olive Tree staff.  We’re excited about the contribution he will bring in the area of publisher relationships.”

This week, John will be representing us at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the annual meeting place of experts in publishing, booksellers, film producers, agents, or authors.

You probably can't see John in this shot

“I’m looking forward to seeing familiar faces from around the world I’ve worked with for many years. I’m thrilled to be part of a company that has generated so much excitement around the growth of unique and innovative software solutions for the casual Bible reader and serious Bible student,” John says regarding his new position, “Es una alegría ser parte de Árbol Olive!”

John is married to Kristine, and has three sons in college.

Drew Haninger, President, Olive Tree Bible Software:

By the Lord’s leading, I’ve used my abilities as a software designer to make God’s Word accessible to computer users since 1984.  There was a lot going on in 1984.  January of that year Hitachi announced it had developed the first memory chip capable of holding 1 MB!  Also in that year about 25-percent of workers used a computer at their jobs.

And, in 1984, Steve Jobs’ now famous Super Bowl ad ran, introducing the Apple Macintosh.

Mobile Technology was still in its infancy.  Today, the industry is growing so fast the stats can’t keep up.  Cell phone subscribers worldwide have reached over 5 billion—and Smartphones have become an ever larger and more important part of that figure.  That’s billions of souls with the potential of carrying around a Bible or Olive Tree’s whole Bible study library in their hand.  Talk about the potential of following Christ’s command to get the Word out!

Steve Jobs was in many ways at the center of Smartphone development as we know it today.  Whether he knew it or not, the technology he helped develop has been used by God to enable us to preach the good news of Christ’s redeeming love.  People download worship music on their iPods, they read the Bible on their iPhones, and can even lead a Bible Study in the middle of the Sudan using their iPads.  Apple technology is a beautiful thing that we hope and pray it is being used in God’s cause to make all things beautiful in His time.

The business principles Steve applied have inspired an industry.  His encouragement was to keep innovating. He said, “If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, and don’t settle,” which echo our Lord’s encouragement to, “ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

He instructed his company members to, “Be passionate about every product you work on.”  And we, as Christians in the business community, are held to no less a standard, for, “if anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 4:11).”  Of course the highest standard we must follow is always to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, all our souls, and all our minds.

Our hearts go out to the family members of an industry pioneer. His vision created platforms that help enable us to “strain toward what lies ahead and press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call.”