Hey Mac users, be sure to download the 5.0.3 update to BibleReader, now available in the Mac App Store. We implemented many of your requests in the update, and we think you’ll be as excited as we are about the new features.

Some of the features in BibleReader 5.0.3 for Mac:

Verses Start On New Line

Go to BibleReader: Preferences and select “Verses Start a New Line” to start each verse of the Bible on a new line.

Show/Hide Strong’s Numbers

Display the Strong’s information in your Bible text. You also have the option to hide the Strong’s numbers for uninterrupted reading.

How To Access the New Features

From inside Mac BibleReader 5.0.3, click on the “BibleReader” menu on the top Mac menu bar. Select “Preferences” to see the new feature options.

Simply check or uncheck the box for “Verses Start a New Line” to see the new display for Bibles. Check “Show Strong’s Numbers” to view Strong’s information in your Bible text.

Additional Features in this Update

• Improved window management with tear outs. Click on the “Window” menu to group all of your floating windows into one window.
• Adjust fonts for Greek and Hebrew independently. New “Original Language Fonts” option inside the font menu let you re-size Greek and Hebrew text.

The competitor? Partners International, a mission organization full of humble, Christ-like individuals who also enjoy a little spirited competition during their lunch hour.

Following the Opening Ceremony on January 26, complete with the Olympics theme song, participants and onlookers alike snacked on olives to represent Olive Tree and cheese and crackers to represent “Partners.” After an early Olive Tree victory, Partners and Olive Tree employees played round robin ping pong, foosball, and cheered on those eager to hone their skills before playing their own tournament games.

This week, Olive Tree employees Aaron and Ian faced two worthy Partners’ opponents, Mark and Bob, in a heated intermediate-level contest. Here are the contenders, ready to play. From left to right, Bob and Mark for Partners, and team Olive Tree players Ian and Aaron. Aaron works in our Customer Support department, and Ian is our Quality Assurance engineer (or, as Ian puts it, the Uber Tester).

Team Olive Tree in action!

Eager spectators watching the game!

In the end, Partners took home the win for this intermediate bracket round. In light of the Superbowl this Sunday, the question remains: Who will take home the Grand Prize in this highly anticipated, highly competitive Ping Pong Doubles Tournament?

Stay tuned.

At Olive Tree, we carry several different sets of maps, and even recently released our own set of maps, produced by the Olive Tree team. We often get asked about the differences between each map collection. In particular, many customers have asked how Olive Tree Bible Maps differs from the other collections available in the Olive Tree Store. To answer this question, I turned to Brandon, one of the creators of our Olive Tree Bible Maps, to explain some of the advantages of our collection.

“With the Olive Tree Bible Maps, you get a dynamic product that will continually receive updates as scholars dig deeper into the archaeological world.  Our maps are built on satellite imagery of the Holy Land and surrounding areas, displaying with clarity the geographical features that shape the landscape. We already have plans to add more maps to expand our existing product, taking your Bible study to an even further level—and our updates are always free!  If the city, valley, or river that appears in your nightly Bible reading doesn’t appear in our maps, you can bet that it will be added soon.

“In my opinion, however, that’s not even the best thing about our Olive Tree Bible Maps.  If you’re a fan of BibleReader’s Resource Guide (and if you’re not, you should check it out. Click here), then you can bet that any reference books that we produce under the Olive Tree name are going to be tailored for ease of use in the app.  With Olive Tree Bible Maps, users will have the best maps product available for discovering geographic biblical places with our Resource Guide.  Almost any place that is mentioned in the Bible (and also discovered by scholars and archaeologists with a reasonable amount of certainty) is on our maps, and with just a couple of clicks or taps in the Resource Guide, you’ll easily be able to find any biblical location.”

Brandon is right, the Olive Tree Bible Maps works wonders in your Resource Guide, ensuring that almost any city you search for can be found on a map. Keep in mind that, unlike some other atlases, the Olive Tree Bible Maps set is strictly a set of Bible maps. Currently there is no additional commentary or information about the maps. For a map set that includes commentary on the biblical locations and events, I’d recommend checking out the HarperCollins Atlas of Bible History or the Zondervan Atlas of the Bible.

Click here to find out more about the Olive Tree Bible Maps or see for yourself below. Click on an image to view samples of the maps in the set.

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.

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!

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).

Sync your notes, bookmarks and highlights from your other devices, download your purchased books, and use the resource guide to dig deeper into the Bible. Most of your favorite BibleReader features are already available in the Windows 7 beta preview and our engineers are hard at work adding more tools to enhance Bible study. While this is just a preview of our software for PC, we are encouraged by the feedback from our users already testing BibleReader on their Windows 7 PC. If you have tried it out, let us know what you think on Facebook. Click on any of the images below to take a look at the Windows 7 BibleReader beta preview in use:

With the start of a new year upon us, we want to encourage you to commit to live the Bible every day. For some that may mean connecting with God by reading the Bible and praying daily. For others, it might mean an even deeper commitment to understand and study God’s Word.

All of us need a reminder to take what we’ve read and put it into action. We encourage you to make a new beginning with God and Live the Bible in 2012. As we read in James 1:22: “…be doers of the word, and not hearers only.” We are cheering you on!

We are passionate about living the Bible in 2012 because we know that God’s Word changes lives. We are excited to share that passion with you through great Bible study software and resources in 2012. Together we can be partners in knowing God through his Word, making Him known in our communities and across the world.

Have a blessed New Year!

Olive Tree Team

p.s. If you have a story of how the Bible has changed your life in 2011 let us know here!

A few of the PC features we are excited about include a full Resource Guide, multi-window reading, and free sync capability from the PC to mobile devices and Mac. As always, the Olive Tree BibleReader software will be completely free. Look for more news and release information for the PC BibleReader in January and February.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest updates!

The evening began with a fun mixer and time to catch up and talk together. Drew Haninger, company president, opened our dinner with prayer and a reading from Isaiah 9:6-7. After getting our food, two employees read the Christmas Story from the Gospel of Luke and another employee treated us with a reading from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young.

During dinner, we enjoyed delicious food and conversation around seven tables. After dinner and dessert, we had a white elephant gift exchange with many clever gifts, lots of good-natured stealing, and frequent bursts of laughter. Perhaps the most popular gift was a pair of plush toy Angry Birds. And with the number of Starbucks gift cards in the gift exchange, our staff should be wired and ready for the push of the Christmas season.

As we finished the night by singing Joy to the World and Hark! the Herald Angels Sing, we were reminded of our privilege as a Bible software company to be a part of proclaiming the Gospel message with the angels of heaven:

“Don’t be afraid…I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today…Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” 

Luke 2: 10-11,14  NLT

From the staff at Olive Tree Bible Software, we pray that the Word of God, in both the form of Scripture and Christ himself, Emmanuel, would dwell richly in your hearts this season.