Posts tagged Word Biblical Commentary

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.