How exciting it is to see what God is doing among his people through computer technology, and how he has gifted us to make new tools to access and explore the infinite content of the Bible.  Among these tools, some of the most promising are not expensive, platform-specific packages, but rather they are web applications which are typically available to anyone with internet access.  Tyndale House, Residential Center for Biblical Research in Cambridge, England, has recently published a list of some very interesting new tools on their Tyndale Tech blog, and we would like to share two of those tools with you.

The NET Bible project, both its text and its notes, have provided a huge help to both English readers as well as biblical language students who want to get a glimpse of what goes on inside the minds of experienced translators.  They have expanded their work with the NExT Interlinear online project.

Although not polished yet, the basic functionality of this online application seems to all be in place.  The NExT Interlinear is a complete Old and New Testament interlinear Bible providing Hebrew and Greek text along with in-line hyperlinks to a) the NASB word numbers, which on mouseover also give the KJV (Strong’s) numbers with several glosses and b) the NET translation notes.  In addition, the words themselves provide mouseover parsing and comparison with the translation choices made by the NASB and KJV.

One of the major advantages of this tool is the availability of the Hebrew and Greek texts, though the texts are not accented or pointed.  If the Hebrew or Greek text does not display correctly, be sure to install the NET Bible Fonts.  This page will compare how the fonts may display on your computer with the way the fonts are intended to display, and it also includes a link to a downloadable font pack if any font display adjustments are needed.

Obviously, it is still a work in progress, but as a taste of what is to come the NExT Interlinear Bible already proves to be a useful resource for any computer-user with even a marginal internet connection.

(Those looking for a more polished experience with pointed Hebrew, accented Greek, and a choice of parallel texts, should check out the Bible Web App also listed by Tyndale Tech.)

For more in-depth exegesis, Bethlehem College & Seminary’s BibleArc.com is an awesome, accessible tool.  Designed as a graphical exegesis tool, BibleArc includes a 44-step, multi-hour tutorial (Arcing 101) as well as 15 video examples (and counting) showing an expert “Arcer” doing the work of applying the tool to the text.  The examples are divided about evenly into “beginner” and “intermediate” levels, but these difficulty levels must be measured in their relative context.

Unlike the NExT Interliner project, there is a nominal cost to maintain an account on BibleArc. Currently, registration is “$10/year or whatever-you-can-afford” in order to offset BibleArc’s operation cost.

We encourage all Bible readers to look through the full list on Tyndale Tech for something that will be useful to your specific Bible study needs.  One does not have to be able to read Greek or Hebrew to grow here, just the desire to know more about God’s Word will do.  We’re confident you won’t be disappointed!

Cheers,

HaMoreh