BibleReader Tips
Here’s how to get the most out of the BibleReader software by learning about its powerful features and how they can work for you.
Preparing a Sunday School Lesson on BibleReader
Jan 26th
Developing the BibleReader apps and resources isn’t just a job for us here at Olive Tree. Like you, we are passionate about reading the Bible and we love using BibleReader to enhance our study of God’s Word. Now that BibleReader for Mac and PC is available, planning sermons, Bible studies and Sunday school lessons has never been easier.
We thought you might like to see BibleReader in action. Keith, an Olive Tree engineer and avid BibleReader fan, put together a step-by-step guide for preparing a Sunday school lesson on the PC BibleReader. Here’s Keith:
“I’ve been preparing Sunday school lessons on the “Lord’s Prayer”-Matt 6:9-13, and next Sunday’s lesson is on Matthew 6:11: Give us today our daily bread.”
“With the ESV Bible open in my PC desktop BibleReader, I type Matt 6:9 in the search bar in the upper right corner of the window and press enter. This takes me to this passage in the main window.”
“I’d like to make some text from this passage be my lesson title, so I highlight “Give us today our daily bread” in the Bible window and right click the highlight. This displays a menu from which I click “Copy” and now I can paste the text into my word program.”
“I want to know more about the word “bread” in the Matthew passage, so I right click on “bread” in the text which highlights the word and displays a menu with various search options. I select “Look up bread” from the menu.”
“From “Look up bread,” a list of articles, notes, images, etc. about “bread” will appear. I choose Easton’s Dictionary of the Bible from the “Articles,” which gives me a great article with some background information. I highlight the first two paragraphs in the pop-up window and right-click/copy/paste the section into my lesson document. Here’s what I find in the Easton’s Bible Dictionary:”
Bread–
Among the Jews was generally made of wheat (Ex 29: 2 Judg 6: 19), though also sometimes of other grains (Gen 14: 18; Judg 7: 13). Parched grain was sometimes used for food without any other preparation (Ruth 2: 14).
Bread was prepared by kneading in wooden bowls or “kneading troughs” (Gen 18: 6 Ex 12: 34; Jer 7: 18).
“The term “daily bread” reminds me of “manna,” so I look up manna by typing it into the search bar and hitting enter. In the right window, I now see headings that guide me to topics, articles, Bibles, images, charts, all about “manna”. I can simply click on a result to go to any of the articles and Bible passages that pique my interest. In “Search results in Open Books,” I choose the Bible I’m using for study to see a list of every time “manna” is mentioned in the Bible. I highlight and copy the verses I want to paste into my lesson plan.”
“But what does the word “manna” mean in the original Greek and Hebrew? I go back to my search results for manna and scroll to the “Search results in Dictionaries” to select Olive Tree’s “Enhanced Strong’s Dictionary” that comes with Strong’s numbered Bibles. Now I have information about manna in Hebrew and Greek:”
h4478. מנ man; from 4100; literally, a whatness (so to speak), i. e. manna (so called from the question about it): — manna.
AV (14)- manna 14;
manna the bread from Heaven that fed the Israelites for 40 years of wilderness wanderings means ‘ What is it?’
“Olive Tree has many original language reference works available, including many Bibles with Strong’s definitions that are tied to the words in the biblical text. In a Strong’s numbered Bible you can click the word “bread” and the Strong’s definition pops up with further options for searching deeper into the word right in the popup.”
“With this research under my belt, I’m well on my way to bringing an excellent and thought-provoking lesson to my Sunday School class.”
Thanks Keith! That was only an introduction to the basics of how BibleReader can help you prepare for Bible studies, Sunday School classes, sermons, and more. Sign up for one of our BibleReader webinars to learn even more about the features inside BibleReader.
Webinars for BibleReader
Jan 23rd
At Olive Tree, we are committed to “Live the Bible” in 2012, and we’ve made it a goal to encourage you to get deeper into the Word as well. One way we hope to make it easier for you to study the Bible is through our new live webinars. Led by our helpful Customer Support representatives, webinars are an interactive way to learn how BibleReader can enhance your Bible study. In them, you can ask questions and follow along on your screen and on your device.
Covering a variety of topics, Olive Tree webinars are designed around each operating system. Whether you have an iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android phone or tablet, Mac, or PC, you will learn how to use BibleReader on your device. Join Olive Tree for the “BibleReader Basics” webinar that features a short presentation on topics like using bookmarks, highlights and notes, and for the “BibleReader Intermediate” webinar that covers topics including advanced searching, the Resource Guide and Strong’s numbers. If you have any suggestions for topics you would like to see covered in a webinar, let us know at support@olivetree.com.
Take a look at our schedule and sign up for one of the upcoming sessions. The webinars are well worth the time and they’re free!
3 Steps To Prevent BibleReader Heartache
Oct 21st
One of our wonderful customer service representatives is Danielle L. She has come up with some great advice to help you keep your purchases, notes, and highlights in three easy steps.
1) Create an Olive Tree account
By creating an Olive Tree account, you can register your in-app purchases and backup your notes, highlights, and bookmarks, etc. Create one today by visiting: https://olivetree.com/store/register.php
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 Bible Software directly? If for some reason you have to reinstall your BibleReader 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.
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iOS Instructions
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Android Instructions
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3) Backup 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 BibleReader app, but never backed those notes up. At that point it’s too late and there is nothing we can do. Do not let this happen to you, especially since there is an easy way to prevent it.
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iOS Instructions
Login in to your Olive Tree account (https://www.olivetree.com/store/secure_login.php), and select the Olive Tree Study Sync link to make sure that your notes have been successfully uploaded.
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Android Instructions
Login in to your Olive Tree account (https://www.olivetree.com/store/secure_login.php), and select the Olive Tree Study Sync link to make sure that your notes have been successfully uploaded.
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Bible Reader 5.0 Videos
Nov 29th
There are some minor changes since these videos were made, but here is an idea as to what BibleReader 5.0 will look like. We had these on a loop at the recent Evangelical Theological Society and Society for Biblical Literature Conferences in Atlanta, GA.
Bible Study Tips: Using Study Bibles
Sep 20th
You may have noticed a focus here at Olive Tree on Bible Study and how it can be done with our software. Olive Tree has focused on giving powerful Bible Study tools in a clean, beautiful application. I wrote previously on using Strong’s-tagged Bibles. I will now continue my series by discussing the benefit and ease of using Study Bible Notes in Olive Tree’s BibleReader.
For those who are unfamiliar with these resources, Study Bible Notes go through the Bible, book-by-book, providing background information, historical details, word studies, and brief commentary. They also usually provide an introduction to each book that includes information on the author, date, audience, timeline, outline, and more. Study Bible Notes are a veritable one-stop-shop for understanding the basics about a passage. If you are fairly new to Bible Study tools, Study Bible Notes are probably the first place I would point you.
I have been preparing to teach a Sunday school class on the book of Jude, and have found Study Bible Notes to be an excellent source of background information and quick reference tools. In particular I have been using the ESV Study Bible, the Reformation Study Bible Notes, the Harper Collins Study Bible Notes, and the NIV Study Bible Notes. The screen shots taken throughout this post come from one of those four resources.
One of the first questions I wanted answered when preparing for my class was who the author Jude was. By looking at the introduction to Jude in several Study Bible Notes, I was able to quickly learn all about him. I learned that a better translation of his name is actually Judas (not Iscariot, the betrayer), that there are a few different Judases in the Bible that could be the author, and that the most likely person is the brother of Jesus.
Another question that I sought answers for in the introductory section of the Study Bible Notes on Jude was why the letter was written, or what the intent of the letter is. I can get a quick summary of what was going on in the churches Jude was addressing and see what the discordant views he was combating were. In the case of Jude, he is writing to warn congregations against false teaching rising within the church claiming that because they had forgiveness of sins, they could go on sinning as much as they wanted to. This antinomian mindset is not only combated in Jude, but in 2 Peter and other books as well, a fact that I again am able to learn about in the Study Bible Notes.
Olive Tree’s BibleReader makes using Study Bible Notes easy and very helpful. You can open them in the main window, as my previous screen shots have shown, or you can keep your Bible open in the top window and open up the Study Bible Notes in the bottom window (this is for those platforms that allow split windows). The great thing about using them in split windows is that it not only allows you to see the Biblical text and the notes side by side for easy reference, but the notes will stay in sync as you navigate through the Bible, and vice-versa!
Sometimes you will come to a point when using split windows where you might not want the two windows to sync up. The screen shot above shows an example that I came across where I wanted to tap on the “Angels” link but I didn’t want my Bible text to leave Jude to go to Zechariah. BibleReader does let you “uncouple” the two windows from each other. In you bring up your Settings menu, and tap on “Split Window Settings,” you will see a list of settings related to split windows (see below). By tapping on “Sync Split Windows,” you are presented with the option to completely turn off syncing between windows, or to change which window “leads” the syncing (see below). If I were to select “Main window lead split window,” I would then be able to tap on the “Angels” link without changing the Bible location in the top window!
Hopefully this background of using Study Bible Notes has been helpful and informative. If you would like to see the complete selection of Study Bible Notes available at Olive Tree, click here.
-Steven C; Resource Conversion and Formatting
Bible Study Tips: Using Strong’s Numbers
Aug 9th
Olive Tree Bible Software’s BibleReader is probably the most sophisticated Bible study tool you can get for your mobile device, though I admit I’m a little biased. I would like to start a small series of posts on how using the rich feature set of BibleReader can enhance your Bible study. In this first installment, we will take a look at the importance of doing word studies for your Bible study, and how a Strong’s-tagged Bible from Olive Tree makes doing a word study easy, intuitive and enjoyable.
What is a word study? It is a study on a particular word in a passage you are reading, usually going back to the original language to find a richer, fuller meaning. The primary reason this is important for Bible study is that the Bible wasn’t written in English or any other language used today. Even modern Hebrew and Greek are different than the languages used to pen the Bible. Some of the difficulties that a word study can address are: being able to track and sort out one Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic word that is translated in multiple ways, multiple Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic words that are translated into the same word in English (or another modern language), and being able to find all the places a certain Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic word is used. The translators of the versions we all use to read the Bible in our own language have done an excellent job conveying the what the original languages say and mean. However, it is inevitable that some things get lost in the translation.
An example of this can be easily seen in the exchange between Jesus and Peter after the resurrection in John 21:15-17. Without a word study, it just appears that Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him and Peter responds three times that he does, though he is cut to the heart after the third time, likely a parallel to the thrice denial by Peter before the crucifixion. However, a word study on the word “love,” used seven times in the passage, reveals that two different Greek words are being used. Both “agapao” and “phileo” are translated with the word “love” in the passage, yet we lose the sense of what kind of love is being mentioned. Without this word study, we would never know to ask why Peter is using a different word than Jesus, why Jesus changes the word he uses in the third instance of the question, and if Jesus’ word change is why Peter is “cut to the heart” as the passage describes.
A Strong’s-tagged Bible from Olive Tree can greatly aid this type of study. I use it quite a bit in my own personal study and greatly enjoy the ease which the BibleReader brings to this method of study. Olive Tree offers a Strong’s-tagged version of the following Bible versions: KJV, NASB, ESV, HCSB, and Almeida Revista e Atualizada (Portuguese), with hopefully more to come! BibleReader offers you the ability to view Strong’s numbers in the text or to hide them. 
Hiding them makes each word with a Strong’s number a hyperlink to bring up the dictionary entry for the word in a pop-up with a simple tap. I prefer to hide mine to maintain an visually-pleasing reading experience. You can choose to show or hide the numbers in your settings under “Other Settings -> Show Strong’s Numbers.”
Whether you have chosen to show or hide your Strong’s numbers, a tap is all it takes to bring up the dictionary entry for that word. If you come to a longer dictionary entry, or would like to leave it up while you scroll, you can tap the window icon in the top right corner of the pop-up to open the dictionary, at the current entry, in either the split window (for those platforms that have this feature) or the main window.
As you begin to use the dictionary, you will become accustomed to seeing the code for each word at the beginning of the entry. One of the great features of doing a word study in an Olive Tree Strong’s-tagged Bible is the ability to create an Englishman’s Concordance on the fly. Using our example from above, if you were studying the word “love” and wanted to see all the places in the New Testament where “phileo” is used, no matter how it was translated, BibleReader lets you do it easily. Just take the Strong’s number for the word “phileo,” which is g5368 if you were wondering, and search your Strong’s-tagged Bible for “g5368.” The search result will be a list of every instance of that Strong’s number, no matter how it was translated. Pretty handy!
I hope this brief tutorial of how to enhance your Bible study with a Strong’s-tagged Bible from Olive Tree has been helpful. I hope to do more of these in the future.
-Steven C; Resource Conversion and Formatting
Watch Olive Tree on YouTube, learn BibleReader’s newest features
Dec 8th
We’d like to welcome you to Olive Tree’s YouTube Channel, the home for BibleReader demo videos.
Have you ever wished someone could sit down and walk you through how to use BibleReader’s more advanced features, like morphological searches? Our demo videos are designed to do just that. These demonstrations are created by our engineers and book formatters—the people who know BibleReader best—and they contain explanations and walk-throughs of BibleReader’s features, from basic to advanced. There are already 14 demo videos posted, and more will be added periodically.
You’ll find demos on advanced topics . . .
. . . and learn how to adjust the little things to make your bible-reading experience just right.
You can watch general demos for a BibleReader overview . . .
. . . and new users can get started with the basics.
We recently introduced Olive Tree University on BibleReader for iPhone, a collection of tips and information to help familiarize users with BibleReader’s newest features. Many of the same demonstration videos are available through Olive Tree University, directly on your iPhone.
Visit us on YouTube at www.youtube.com/OliveTreeBible, and learn more!
Bible Software Shootout Presentation
Nov 24th
Olive Tree was proud to perform in SBL’s Bible Software Shootout, a friendly competition that pitted Bible software contenders like Logos, Bible Works, Accordance, and SESB against each other, showcasing each software’s ability to perform detailed original language research.
To see Olive Tree’s presentation from SBL’s Bible Software Shootout, click here to read the presentation (.pdf), especially if you use BibleReader’s Greek and Hebrew tools.
Many thanks to everyone who stopped by the Olive Tree booth at ETS and SBL. Engineers Stephen J (@stephenljohnson) and David T (@dtrotzjr) and original language specialists Drayton B and Steven C (@steventcummings) enjoyed meeting you! Meeting our users makes a big difference for us. You can read David T’s blog post about his ETS experience to learn why.
Thanks also to those of you who signed up for the Olive Tree Newsletter and entered the ETS/SBL prize drawings. We’ll announce the winners of our drawing for a free iPod Touch, preloaded with Olive Tree resources, soon!
“Olive Tree University” is Live on iPhone BibleReader
Nov 19th
New in BibleReader 4 for iPhone, we’ve released a library of instructional videos to teach you about BibleReader’s features. Learning your way around BibleReader has never been easier!
From the main reading screen, touch Menu (bottom right), then touch Olive Tree University in the pop-up menu. You’ll see a list of instructional features that begins with “What’s New in This Version”. It opens a short instructional video that demonstrates all the new additions to the latest BibleReader release for iPhone.
Watch this video to learn about
- new original languages support, including parsing, glosses, and lexical information for Greek and Hebrew texts. Take advantage of our highly advanced search function and learn how to search by morphological code.
- online backup for notes. By syncing notes with your EverNote account, you can keep a backup of notes in your Bible and access it on your device or on your desktop.
- new display and navigation customization to make pop-up reference windows even more useful.
Olive Tree University is new in version 4.10 of BibleReader for iPhone. Version 4.10 has been submitted to Apple, and Apple has approved the upgrade for some BibleReader Apps, but others are still in the approval process. If you haven’t yet been notified that an upgrade is available for your BibleReader App, be patient—you will soon!
Running Olive Tree Software on the Palm Pre
Jul 20th
With the latest update to MotionApps Classic application, Olive Tree’s Palm 5.x software can now be installed and run from it.
You can follow the installation instructions that you’ll find at www.olivetree.com/palm/palm_pre to get your product up and working. But right away, given the size of the screen, and the inability to use a stylus, you may experience some problems with accessing certain features with a screen tap.
I’d like to share with you a number of suggestions to make the process of operating our software on the Pre as painless as possible, minimizing the number of screen taps that are necessary to operate the program.
The Keyboard
One of the advantages of the Palm Pre is its built-in keyboard, which can become the simplest means to access certain features of the BibleReader program. By simply pressing a key you can access a number of features, listed below:
| L | Library |
| V | Verse Chooser |
| B | Bookmarks |
| M | Notes |
| F | Search |
| N | Search Next |
| W | Split Screen |
| T | Toggle Full Screen |
| S | Toggle Strong’s |
| H | Verse History |
| A | Toggle Tabs iLumina |
| E | History Back |
| D | Line Forward |
| Space | Chapter Forward |
| Backspace | Chapter Back |
If you don’t care for this particular list of choices, you can go into Tree>Options>Preferences and select Shortcuts – Alpha from the drop down list.
Select the shortcut and select modify, or hit the add button, and set up the shortcut that you really want and makes sense to you. If you get a little too ambitious creating and changing your shortcuts and get confused, you can rest easy knowing that the developers thoughtfully left a default button for you to make it all right again.
Shortcuts Via the Buttons
If you are not much for memorizing a bunch of keyboard commands, another option is to assign many of these same functions to buttons. What button goes with which number? Here is a list so you can keep it straight:
| Button | Number |
| Contacts | 1 |
| Calendar | 2 |
| 3 | |
| Home | 4 |
The opportunities are somewhat limited, in that there are only so many buttons to assign, but it can be helpful if you, like me, tend to hit the home key by accident on occasion and move the app out of view. Reassigning this key alone to something fairly unobtrusive might save you some anguish as you attempt to aim for the 5-way navigator button. The down side of this reassignment is that you have removed the button assignment that is the means to get back to the main Classic screen.
You can also control the behavior of the navigator button while in BibleReader by setting the options at Tree>Options>Preferences, and select Scrolling. Designate the navigator to move your text by line, verse, or screen among other choices. I set the right and left taps of the navigator for screen scrolling, but you will probably have your own preference on this. In this same screen, you can also designate the location and size of the scroll bar, and setting it for large does help however it is still pretty useless if you have your screen split. Down at the bottom were some check boxes I never investigated before, but now think will be quite useful: I set the Up/Down action of the 5-way navigator for next hyperlink/scroll, and so when I use this feature I can jump from note icon to note icon, hit the center select button and the note opens up.
Shortcuts Via the Toolbar
If you go into Tree>Options>Preferences, and select Secondary Toolbar, you get a number of helpful options. I moved the toolbar to left and changed it to large buttons, which is a necessity if you are really going to use it. Of course, as soon as you go to large icons so much less will fit on the screen, so you can use the options available under this preference choice to set your most used choices to the top (visible) part of the toolbar. My choices were split screen, daily reading, notes, maximize screen, and some highlighting choices.
Final Notes
You’ll definitely want to make sure you’ve listened to and dealt with your voicemails, as the voicemail strip will cover up the bottom of the screen and interfere with the 5-way navigation button.
Because of the small screen size, I would recommend setting your BibleReader program for a maximum of two windows (Tree>Options>Preferences, select Split Screen).