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WEB WATCH - with Peter Carswell
E-SWORD!
I was recently reading an article about the failure of computers to deliver a paperless office or the Utopian fantasy of cutting our working day in half. Far from making our work easier, I think most would agree computers have made our work and lives much more complex.
There are some situations, however, where a computer is an essential tool and a great time saver. One of these is the ability of the computer to catalogue and search through staggering amounts of information.
Being able to search through the Bible is a great bonus. Rather than having to pay money for Bible software there are two options available to us which don't cost a cent. The first is a Bible with search facilities online, the other you can download and run on your computer.
http://www.biblegateway.com/
On this site there are more than fifty (50) versions of the Bible available, including twenty (20) in English. There are also some available as audio. There are three main search options, inlcuding:
Passage Lookup
Keyword Search, and
Topical Index
The site is very straight forward and simple to use. However, there is a tutorial to help –
http://www.biblegateway.com/help/tutorial/
This is a very thorough tutorial and so I won't repeat it here. It is sufficient to highlight some of the main features.
Passage Lookup is where you want to go to a particular passage, for example, "Genesis 1:1-2:10". You can even look up multiple passages at the same time.
Within the Keyword Search there are a number of search options available, including:
Matching Any Word
Matching All Word
Matching Exact Phrase
with the additional option of being able to search either whole words of part of a word
You can also limit your search to specific sections of the bible (and some non-biblical writings) such as:
Old Testament; New Testament; Major or Minor Prophets; Gospels— To name only a few.
If you experiment with the phrase “am the vine” you will see quite different results depending on which search options you select.
The Topic Index is self explanatory, here you can either search on a particular topic or else browse using an Alphabetic Index.
If you click on the “Preferences” link you can save some settings, presuming you allow cookies to be set on your computer. The two most appropriate settings are probably:
Preferred Version, and
Font size
While Biblegateway requires you to have an Internet Connection, there is an alternative for when you aren't connected. E-Sword (http://www.e-sword.net/).
E-Sword is a fabulous tool, though I should say from the outset, that there are available downloads which may not be of a Reformed nature.
If you click onto the Download link, you will see the first download you need “e-Sword”. It is a 17MB download. And as stated included the “King James Version w/ Strong's numbers and Strong's dictionary”. I would certainly recommend downloading another version of the Bible, for example, just the standard King James Version, as the one with Strong's numbers is quite hard to read.
Above the e-Sword downloads you should be able to see a drop-down combo box. Using the arrow you can change to one of the following sections
Bibles
Commentaries
Dictionaries
Graphics
Extras
Devotions
STEP Libraries
In most of these sections there are both free and commercial downloads available. I cannot comment too much on any of the commercial ones as I have only used the free ones. There are too many downloads to mention but if you take your time to look you will see that there is some need for caution. Better people than I would need to give guidance here, I tend to stick with those whose name I read among my father's library (Spurgeon, Henry, Strong's,), perhaps this is a good chance to have a discussion with your Christian friends and dare I say Elders.
There are works by Dispensationalists such as Darby and Scofield which should cause us to be cautious.
I must particularly highlight the Extras section as there is available there a wealth of excellent material. With titles like Absolute Surrender (Andrew Murray), All of Grace (Charles H. Spurgeon), Fox's Book of Martyrs (John Fox), Sketches of Jewish Social Life (Alfred Edersheim), Antiquities of the Jews and Wars of the Jews (Flavius Josephus), there is much reading to be done.
Installation is straight-forward, simply a matter of stepping through the wizard.
The “additional” downloads are normally installed in like manner. Simply download, virus check, and install. The wizard should “find” where you installed e-Sword and install the “add-on” in the correct location. Also take note of any information displayed during the install as it will tell you how to use it inside of e-Sword. Some things to watch out for, when installing say a commentary on the Psalms, most likely it will be display only while you actually have the Book of Psalms selected in the Bible. Others are added as Topic Notes, the tab to select is at the top right of the e-Sword window, while the actual contents of the book are accessed through the drop-down arrow at the bottom right of the screen.
When you install multiple Bibles you should be able to switch between using tabs located above the Bible. You can even read them in parallel by selecting that option.