Posts tagged Bible App
A Look Inside “A Visual Guide to Bible Events”
2May 3, 2013
This week, Olive Tree has an awesome sale on A Visual Guide to Bible Events. The book’s introduction states that its purpose is to be “a door through which to enter the world of the Bible and encounter the power and love of our Lord Jesus and the unity of Scripture.”
This resource does just that. This book is not written in your typical research academic resource. Rather, it has a conversational tone to which any person can relate. A Visual Guide to Bible Events is packed with over 500 photographs and maps brings a heightened awareness to the biblical text like no other.
For example, take the seven churches of Revelation.
With the addition of the map, you can visualize how John’s letter carrier would have made a circular trip and how closely the seven churches were geographically. You can also see the length of the Israelites’ detour around Edom in Numbers 20:14–21 and Deuteronomy 2:1–8.
Looking through the beautiful full-color photographs gives a sense of being “in the action” and gives a sense of realism and depth like no written resource could.
Another example is a section of the Jerusalem wall during Nehemiah’s time.
Or, seeing a scale model of the temple and envisioning what it would have been like to be with the early church in Solomon’s Colonnade.
Perhaps even seeing a picture of an altar to an unknown God and how that would have affected the Apostle Paul.
Bible history told and shown in this context is insightful for all those wanting to deepen their Bible knowledge. The Bible Study App enhances this resource to strengthen your Bible study. As you’re reading through A Visual Guide to Bible Events, tap or click on a scripture reference to instantly see the Bible text. You can also use the split screen feature to view the articles and pictures while reading your Bible to augment your daily reading.
This week you can pick up A Visual Guide to Bible Events for Half Off the regular price now through May 6th. It’s a resource I know you’ll enjoy!
Using Word Biblical Commentary in the Bible Study App
0November 30, 2012
The Word Biblical Commentary (WBC) is now available in the Bible Study app. We couldn’t be more excited to offer this outstanding commentary set to our users. I spoke with the content craftsman who formatted the WBC, Matthew Jonas, and asked him to talk a little about WBC and how it can best be used in the Bible Study App. He gave me a lot of great information, and I thought I’d pass it along to you here.
A Long History of Excellence
WBC currently contains 59 volumes and has been in progress since 1977. Written from an evangelical perspective, WBC strives to uphold the ideas of the Scripture as divine and revelation, and the truth and power of the Gospel message. All of the volumes were originally written in English, but are based on the original Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic texts of the books they cover. Each author was required to provide his own English translation for each passage, which always forms the first sub-section in each section of the commentary.
Using the WBC in the Bible Study App
If you saw our last article on WBC you will know that this is a hefty commentary series. Because of the vast information included in WBC, it presents some challenges for usage in a mobile platform. Each section of commentary in WBC (covering a range of verses) is further divided into a number of sub-sections which each approach the entire set of verses from different perspectives like “Bibliography”, “Translation” and more. As I mentioned before, each of these sub-sections covers the entire range of verses for the section. If we were to attach a Bible verse location to all of them, there would be no way to distinguish in the verse chooser between the sub-sections and you’d be given multiple results for every location.
To avoid this problem, only the translation section is tied to a Bible verse location. This means that if you select a verse in the verse chooser, you will be taken to that verse in the translation sub-section of the appropriate section in the commentary.
Why the Resource Guide Makes WBC Even More Awesome
The best way to use WBC in the Bible Study app is with the Resource Guide. Each of the sub-sections has been individually tagged based on content, meaning that if you have a particular Bible passage open in the main window, the Resource Guide will display the commentary notes for that passage in the WBC for each of the subsections. Using it like this with the Resource Guide like this makes it easy to drill down to one sub-section, then jump back up quickly and then back down to another sub-section on the same passage.
More Tips for Using WBC
When using WBC in your main window, you have the option to switch the Go To menu from grid view to list view. The list view will give you access to the full table of contents as outlined in the table of contents at the beginning of each printed volume. This is the recommended method of navigating from point to point in our version of WBC.
One more note on the WBC, if you have your main window and split window set up to track along with each other, moving the text in the other window will take you back to beginning of that section in the commentary. You can turn off the setting that sets windows to follow one another, which is recommended when using the WBC alongside another text.
Thanks Matt! If you missed out on the great savings we offered on WBC a couple of weeks ago (it was only $299.99 for this incredible set!), keep your eyes out. We are going to be running some great promotions during Christmas and a little birdy told me that WBC might just go on sale again.
Preparing a Sunday School Lesson with Olive Tree
2Developing the Bible Study app 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 our app to enhance our study of God’s Word.
We thought you might like to see the Olive Tree app in action. Keith, an Olive Tree engineer, put together a step-by-step guide for preparing a Sunday school lesson on the Bible Study app for Windows 7. 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 Windows 7 Bible Study app, 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 the Bible Study app can help you prepare for Bible studies, Sunday School classes, sermons, and more. Subscribe to our blog or follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay on top of all the latest updates and news for the Bible Study app.
This blog is a re-post from the best of 2011 Olive Tree blogs.
Top 5 Features in The Bible Study App
15I teased you last week with some exciting new features that are making their way to The Bible Study App, but I realized that everyone might not know about all the great features already available in our app. Here are my top 5 favorite features:
1. The Resource Guide
This is hands down the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in a Bible study app. While I’m reading the Bible, I can open the Resource Guide in the split window to see cross references, study Bible notes, maps, topics and more that are all related to my current reading. As I continue to read, the Resource Guide tracks with me and updates the material to match the Scripture I’m reading.
2. Search
I’m not very good at remembering verse references and often find myself asking things like, “Where is that verse about the mustard seed?” Instead of flipping through the Bible or searching through an index, I can tap (more…)
An Olive Tree Technophobe?
2September 21, 2012
I am something of a technophobe.
I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I work at a Bible software company.
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
In the bubble of college two years ago, I was vaguely aware that technology existed, that some of my classmates were getting smartphones and that people actually used computers for something other than writing papers. But my mind was tied up with others things, i.e. what I was going to do after college with a Theology major and English minor.
A year and a half after graduating and 11 months after starting at Olive Tree, I purchased my first device: a brand-new Kindle Fire HD. The package arrived after work on a Monday afternoon. I saw the package on my dining room table and immediately regarded it with suspicion. What was I actually supposed to do with this thing? I sat on the couch and it sat next to me. I stared at it and it stared back.
I took the Fire to work the next day and called over my developer coworker, Ian. He couldn’t believe I hadn’t opened it yet and helped me set it up with a few quick swipes and taps. On my own, I downloaded Olive Tree’s app, found the icon in my carousel, and confidently tapped on it. I saw the green splash screen, and immediately got this message:
BibleReader has stopped working.
Back to Basics: Using Tags on iPad
0Tags are one of Olive Tree Bible app’s most useful features. When you create a tag, you can add your notes, bookmarks, and highlights into this one top-level category. Any bookmark, highlighted word, phrase, or verse, and any note can be added to a single tag so that selecting the tag displays the list of all its annotations—the bookmarked verses, highlighted words and verses, and the notes that are tied to the tag. Thus using tags allows you to create custom topical studies. Here’s how this works.
How to Create a Tag
To create a tag, tap the My Stuff briefcase icon, make sure you are on the My Stuff main page, and scroll down so that the Tags option is displayed. Tap the Tags option to display the My Tags dialog. At the bottom of this dialog, tap the Create New Tag button to display the Create Tag dialog. In the Name field of this dialog, enter a name for the tag you wish to create, for example, Marriage.
Tap the Create button in the top right corner to create the tag. This takes you back to the My Tags dialog where you will see the new Marriage tag listed.
Adding a Tag to a Highlight or Bookmark
Having created the Marriage tag, we can now add stuff to that tag. To associate one of your existing highlights or bookmarks with the Marriage tag, tap the My Stuff briefcase icon, make sure you are on the My Stuff main page, and then select either Highlights or Bookmarks from the My Stuff menu. Find the highlight or bookmark that you would like to tag and tap the blue button to the right to edit the highlight for this verse.
In the dialog that pops up, tap the “Edit Tags” button to display the My Tags list. On that list, tap the Marriage tag. (Tapping the Marriage tag displays a check mark by it.)
Adding a Tag to a Note
To add a tag to one of your notes, go into the My Stuff folder and tap on the note you would like to edit. On the bottom of the edit note pop up, tap on the icon that looks like a sale tag, it should be the middle icon.
Tap on “Marriage” to add the tag to your note. You can also add a tag to a note at the time you are creating that note. Just make sure to hit “Save” before exiting the note you’ve just created.
I somehow managed to make this seem far more difficult than it really is. Follow along and try it for yourself to see how easy it is to use Tags to aid in your Bible study!
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