After fellowshipping around our chili bowls, Olive Tree CEO Drew Haninger shared our company goals and achievements from 2011 and discussed the future of Olive Tree for 2012. 2011 marked great milestones for Olive Tree, including the release of BibleReader for Nook, Kindle, Mac and a beta for Windows. We also reached 1,000 titles (now over 1300) available on our Olive Tree store for Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad and Android. Our book formatters kept track of our progress, completing the “unicornometer” of titles at the end of August.

Our company lunches often include a time for our employees to learn more about the features and resources we offer. At this recent meeting one of our knowledgeable book formatters presented information about two original language resources: HALOT and Louw-Nida Greek Lexicon. HALOT, or the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, is a new resource soon to be available in the Olive Tree store. Over 80 years in the making, HALOT is widely considered to be the standard scholarly lexicon for Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic. Learn more about HALOT and its extensive features by visiting the Olive Tree store.

A resource that has often led to confusion for our Olive Tree customers, Louw-Nida Greek Lexicon is a uniquely different Greek lexicon. Based on “semantic domains”, Louw-Nida groups similar words under contextual categories. Best used for advanced and intermediate Greek translators, find out more about this resource at the Olive Tree store.

As proud as we are of the achievements, resources, and software that we’ve produced in 2011, we look forward to 2012 as a year for even greater improvement. Olive Tree’s mission, however, remains the same: “Inspire people to connect with God and the Bible.” We strive to encourage everyone not only to study the Bible, but to “Live the Bible” in 2012 (Matthew 4:4).

Cloud Sync
Here at Olive Tree, we are constantly refining and enhancing our products to make them the best they can be. We take pride in our software and gladly offer our customers the latest updates for their devices free of charge. We’ve continued that same philosophy with our new Mac software. Not only are we offering Mac BibleReader for free, but your books, notes and content on your other devices are shared with your Mac BibleReader with our free Cloud sync feature. With an Olive Tree account, your library, notes, bookmarks and more are accessible for future study and editing from any of your devices, including your Mac. You will never have to pay for a book more than once.

Resource Guide
As you read along in your Mac BibleReader, instantly discover new insight into the people and places in your text. The Resource Guide will search your library for all the information relevant to the passage you’re reading and present right alongside your Bible text. Maps, images, charts and more in the Resource Guide bring the Bible to life on your screen. Check out our new Resource Guide video on YouTube!

The new and improved features offered in the Mac BibleReader will soon be available in a PC version of our software. Our engineers are working hard to take BibleReader to Windows 7. Keep checking back with us in the coming months to find out more about all the exciting things happening at Olive Tree Bible Software.

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 BibleReader, 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 BibleReader.

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

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.

Click to view resource

Of those, 24 prophecies concerned specifics about the way he would die.  

For example:
• He would be a Passover sacrifice and none of his bones would be broken
• He would be hung on a tree and his hands and feet would be pierced, indicating a death by crucifixion
• His executioners would cast lots for his clothing
• He would be betrayed by a friend
• He would refuse to answer those who accused him falsely.

Any one of these individually might not be conclusive, but put together the 100 prophecies, and they form a strong argument for Jesus as the promised Messiah.

Imagine having the entire list of 100 prophecies at your fingertips—just as close as your mobile device.

You can download it right now. Click Here to download.

BONUS:
Along with the 100 Prophecies Fulfilled by Jesus, you’ll also get —
•  50 Archaeological proofs that the New Testament is accurate.
•  8 Reasons we believe the Gospels are reliable
•  Evidence that the Dead Sea Scrolls show the accuracy of Bible translation over the centuries
•  10 answers to skeptic’s questions about the Bible

Why Trust the Bible contains—
• Dozens of illustrations, photos, and diagrams
• Charts
• Time Lines
• Maps

Have it on your mobile device all the time. Perfect for conversing with skeptics or just for your own information.

Like this? Comment on our Facebook page.

The recent videos by Dr. Bill Mounce on the usefulness of Study Bibles and Concordances gave me an interesting idea.  If a study bible and concordance are the two items every student of the Word should have in their library, does BibleReader allow them to be used at the same time?  I decided to try it out.  Using the iPhone split screen, I can essentially have three products open simultaneously. Looking at Hebrews 1 using the ESV with Strong’s and the ESV Study Bible Notes I decided to see what both Strong’s and the study bible notes said on the word “glory” in the phrase “He is the radiance of the glory of God.” Strong’s gives me the original meaning for the word “glory” and the study notes takes the context of the passage into account, while also cross-referencing “glory” with other passages in Scripture. As you can see in this screenshot, the Bible, Strong’s, and the study notes can all be open at the same time!

Speaking of screenshots…be sure to subscribe to Olive Tree’s newsletter at this link to see Project Glacier begin to take shape! The next newsletter will hopefully be out by the end of this week (or next week).

Daniel