What's New?
Read company news as well information about new products and new Bible Study App releases.
Olive Tree Summer Bible Reading Plan!
May 31, 2012
When I was a sophomore in college, I took an Old Testament Survey class in which we read the entire Old Testament in one semester. I remember reading the syllabus during our first class and balking at some of our homework assignments. Read Psalms 76-150 for Wednesday’s homework. Read Isaiah for Friday. Yes, that’s right. Read all of Isaiah.
Without a doubt, the volume of reading that semester was a challenge. But in hindsight, I am thankful for the lightning-speed pace with which we moved through the Old Testament because it revealed an overarching narrative to the Bible that I’d never noticed. There is a profound continuity between the Old and New Testament. God really is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8) and his desire is for the salvation of all people, first for the Jew and also for the Gentile (Romans 1:16).
When we were discussing overarching themes for the summer here at Olive Tree, we got hooked on this idea of reading through parts of the whole Bible in one summer. Rather like New Year’s, summer carries its own set of resolutions and to-dos. We invite you to make Olive Tree’s Summer Bible Reading Plan your goal for the summer.
Here’s the lowdown on reading plan:
- The reading plan organizes the Bible’s 66 books into eight literary genres: Law, History, Poetry, Major Prophets, Minor Prophets, Gospels and Acts, Paul’s Letters, and the General Letters/Revelation.
- Each genre and book of the Bible includes a succinct introduction written by Olive Tree staff members that will help both mature and new Christians understand the basic historical context and themes.
- The plan’s dates are from June 1 to September 11. In most cases, you’ll be reading several chapters a day.
- The plan will be available as a free download until Friday, June 8. After that, it will be available at OliveTree.com for 99 cents.
Olive Tree is excited to help you dive into the Word of God. Our end goal for the Summer Reading Plan is that you become so steeped in God’s story that it begins both to define and transform your life.
“Let your roots grow down into [Christ Jesus], and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.” (Colossians 2:7, NLT)
New Resources for Greek Students and Scholars
May 23, 2012
by Cherylyn
in What's New?
Olive Tree just released four new Greek resources: 1) The Greek New Testament, 4th Edition with Critical Apparatus, 2) The Greek New Testament (NA27) with Critical Apparatus, 3) The Analytical Greek New Testament (AGNT – Friberg) with Morphology, Lexicon, and UBS4 Critical Apparatus, and 4) The Greek New Testament (NA27) with Critical Apparatus, Mounce-Koivisto Morphology, and Concise Dictionary.
I’ll give you a brief overview of these four titles, but to see the full details on each of the Greek resources, follow the links to view them on OliveTree.com.
Greek New Testament, 4th Edition (UBS-4) with Critical Apparatus
- Contains both the UBS-4, an edition of the Greek New Testament aimed at pastors, translators and students, and the UBS-4 Critical Apparatus
- Text in the UBS-4 is the same as the Neslte-Aland, 27th edition, but UBS-4 has additional formatting
- UBS-4 Critical Apparatus shows variants that were deemed meaningful to students and translators, not an exhaustive list
Novum Testamentum Graece (NA-27) with Critical Apparatus
- Contains the NA-27, a scholarly edition of the Greek New Testament and the NA-27 Critical Apparatus
- NA-27 is the product of 100 years of work from the Institute for New Testament Textual Research
- The NA-27 critical apparatus is one of the most exhaustive available and includes variants in orthography
- Contains the UBS-4, and UBS-4 Critical Apparatus
- Contains searchable lexical form and parsing information from Friberg Morphology and Parsings
- Contains definitions and grammatical analysis of Greek word forms from the Analytical Lexicon of the Greek New Testament
- Contains the NA-27 and the NA-27 Critical Apparatus
- Contains the lexical form and parsing information with a brief English gloss from Mounce-Koivisto Morphology
- Contains definitions for each Greek word from the Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament
Special upgrade pricing is available on many of these resources. Check them out on OliveTree.com to find out more!
Good News for Spanish Speakers
May 1, 2012
by Cherylyn
in What's New?
At the 20th anniversary of the annual Expolit conference, the largest trade fair in the U.S. for Spanish-language Christian literature and music, we are partnering with Unilit to debut the Biblia del Discípulo (Discipleship Bible).
Expolit, held this year in Miami, Florida, May 3-8, attracts thousands of daily visitors while showcasing Christian Spanish products and music with exhibitions, training seminars, workshops, powerful speakers and concerts. This is the first Spanish-speaking conference Olive Tree has attended, and our partnership with Unilit opens a new and exciting direction for us to build our Spanish-language offerings.
Biblia del Discípulo
Created by Unilit to help believers “walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10) and formatted by Olive Tree for use in BibleReader, Biblia del Discípulo will
prepare believers for evangelism, and help develop spiritual and personal growth through knowledge of the Bible.
Get 25% off of this great resource and other Spanish titles this week at OliveTree.com.
New Titles Published by Olive Tree
April 24, 2012
Olive Tree has two fantastic new resources that have been written and compiled by Olive Tree employees! Check out these resources that will bring new insight to your Bible study and depth to your personal devotions.
Olive Tree 30 Day Devotional
Compiled from great writers of the 19th century—Charles Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, Dwight L. Moody, F.B. Meyer and others — the Olive Tree 30 Day Devotional is a free resource that includes excerpted passages from the writings of these authors. Each day also includes a hyperlinked passage of Scripture and a topic for the day. Topics covered from day to day include faith, humility, witnessing, joy, prayer, provision, and many more. The words in this devotional will challenge you, encourage you, and spur you on to love the Lord with all your heart and to proclaim the Gospel with courage.
Olive Tree Places of the Bible
With careful research and many Scripture references, Olive Tree’s Places of the Bible is an invaluable resource for Bible study. Listed alphabetically, the places included in this resource range from Old to New Testament, from Greco-Roman cities like Alexandria to the Old Testament stronghold of Canaan to the Apostle Paul’s hometown of Tarsus. The descriptions for each city include a brief history of the place or city mentioned and its relevance to the biblical text.
This resource is best utilized in BibleReader’s Resource Guide. While reading 2 Chronicles 36 I came across “Babylon” and was curious about the significance of this place in the biblical text. I highlighted the word “Babylon” in verse 18 and then selected ‘Look Up Babylon.’ From there, a list of resources on Babylon appeared in a pop-up window, including an article from Olive Tree’s Places of the Bible. After reading the article, my understanding of the passage was greatly enhanced because the article provided me with history of the Israelites’ exile to Babylon and parallel texts in both the major and minor Prophets.
We encourage you to try Olive Tree’s excellent study tool on the places of the Bible to learn more about both the chronology and geography of the Bible. You can find a free sample of this resource here.
We pray these resources give you a deeper understanding of faith in Christ and of the richness of God’s Word.
New Concordances from Olive Tree
April 17, 2012
Olive Tree’s Content Creation department has been busy building some great resources for Bible Study. They recently published the Olive Tree Bible Maps, and now they’ve come out with another helpful tool to enhance your time in God’s Word: the Olive Tree Concordance, available with the ESV, NKJV and KJV translations.
Why use a concordance in BibleReader? Read below to see what a concordance can do for you. Screenshots are taken from BibleReader running on Windows.
Dictionary Look up
As you read along in your Bible or other resource, you can highlight a word and select “Look Up” from the menu of options. Immediately BibleReader searches your library for resources related to your selected word.
Click on the Olive Tree Concordance from the list of articles to see the entry for the selected word. Similar to a traditional concordance, the Olive Tree concordance gives you a listing of all the other places in the Bible where that word is used. BibleReader goes beyond the traditional concordance by creating hyperlinks for all the verse references, so as you click on one, a pop up window will take you to the Bible text, making a word study quick and easy.
Strong’s Numbering
You may have noticed that there is a number listed next to each verse reference in the concordance. This is the Strong’s number for your selected word. Strong’s numbers represent the word in the original language that was translated into your English word.
For example, when you look up “mercy,” you will get a different Strong’s number for the Hebrew words raḥam and ḥânan which are both translated as mercy in English, but have different meanings in Hebrew. When you tap or click on the Strong’s number h7356, the search will bring up all of the verse references in the Bible that contain the Hebrew word raḥam.
Strong’s Dictionary
In addition to the Strong’s Numbers, you will also receive access to the Strong’s Dictionary when you purchase the Olive Tree concordances. Next to each Strong’s Number in the concordance is a hyperlink to the “Dictionary.” When you tap or click on “Dictionary” a pop up will provide the original language definition. For example, when selecting “Dictionary” for h7356 (raḥam) the entry is:
h7356. רַחַם raḥam; from 7355; compassion (in the plural); by extension, the womb (as cherishing the fetus); by implication, a maiden: — bowels, compassion, damsel, tender love, (great, tender) mercy, pity, womb.
AV (44)- mercy 30, compassion 4, womb 4, bowels 2, pity 2, damsel 1, tender love 1; n m
The dictionary information tells me that raḥam comes from the Hebrew root word with the Strong’s number h7355. I can find the dictionary information for the root word if I click or tap on h7355. The dictionary entry also gives a definition for raḥam and lists the occurrences of the word and how it is translated. There are 44 instances of the Hebrew word in the Bible, 30 of which are translated as “mercy,” four are translated “compassion,” and so on.
As you can see, the Olive Tree Concordances are much more than a list of cross references for each word in the Bible. With dictionary information tied to the original language, these resources are valuable tools for Bible study. Each concordance comes with a copy of the Bible in the selected translation. If you already have the ESV or NKJV Bible in your Olive Tree account, you will get a significant discount on the concordances at OliveTree.com.
Head to our online store to check out these new offerings from Olive Tree!
Android BibleReader 5.0
March 29, 2012
by Cherylyn
in What's New?
The wait is over! BibleReader 5.0 is available for immediate download on Google Play. Android users have reason to rejoice with this latest update. BibleReader 5.0 packs a punch with new features, speed optimization, and several bug fixes. We’ll cover all of the great new features soon, but today we want to focus on the biggest enhancement in the latest BibleReader for Android: the Resource Guide. Learn about the ways that the Resource Guide makes Bible study easier with the features below.
Searching is a snap
With the Resource Guide, don’t waste any more time flipping through your resources or searching through stacks of books. The Resource Guide pulls all of the relevant information in your library, categorizes it, and brings it to your fingertips.
Open a Bible in your main window and select Resource Guide from the split-screen menu to see related material for your Bible passage, including commentaries, maps, charts, images, outlines, related verses, articles on people, places and topics in your text, and much, much more. The Resource Guide does all the work for you. It’s like having your very own research assistant.
Configure search results to see only what you want to see
Tap on the gear icon at the top of the Resource Guide to configure your settings and select the type of information you’d like to see displayed in the Resource Guide. You can prioritize search categories by moving them up or down the list and also enable or disable categories so only the information you want to see is visible in the Resource Guide.
Resource Guide follows you wherever you go
As you read through the Bible, the Resource Guide will track along with you. When you switch from John to Luke, the Resource Guide will go with you and display the results for Luke. Switch back to John and the Resource Guide switches, too.
Download Android BibleReader 5 to enhance your Bible study with the tools in the Resource Guide.
