Bible Study Book collections

[honico]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Yes I did goof and say literal translation. What I should have said was neutral translation ...snip...I don't want a Bible such as the KJV that has their own slant on things and also includes bits that are not really part of the Bible (the entire new testament).

---For Harry and others, interested in finding an original 'unslanted' Bible. Aside from the reader -which is the forum, one needs to first understand Rabbinical Studies and Hebrew before trying to judge "slant". The Bible is a writing of the times; Old and New. Acceptance of Christ notwithstanding, the idoms of the day, will always be lost on the masses in the centuries after the writing. Many have been pointed out already. I particularly like that of the 'yoke'. Most will never know it's Hebrew meaning!

But for the context, it's a true enough representation of God's word...Old and New. All but for the context. Until one understands that, much is lost in the old KJ, better to read a Living version of Old and New, asking guidance on how best to apply it all.

As for sources -you're looking at two avenues;
1. Learn Hebrew and it's application to the Torah under a trusted Rabbi. i.e. trusted Rabbinical study -or-
2. Something modern and digital for which you're not going to find anything as slick as a Sony or Hiebook for true Torah writings. I use that term as a loose blanket word to include other period writings ie. Josephus...et al.

As for the latter; I'd go with two devices:
1. A laptop with e-Sword loaded; with available lexicons and versions for parallel search and study. It's my tool of choice as I have no rabbi.
2. A Hiebook, using the Godspeed firmware and software. With that, you get a smaller more portable version -though not the Torah. Instead, you'll get concordances, 8 Bible translations (including Spanish), Lexicons for both Greek and Hebrew.

These will not substitute for learning true Hebrew language, life, culture (ie idioms...) or Torah research, but, will augment it.

I have these tools (Hiebook) -with bibles, etc. and, we perhaps could work something out...

-honico

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Yes I did goof and say literal translation. What I should have said was neutral translation with no slant on anything. As direct a translation as possible. That's what I want. I don't want a Bible such as the KJV that has their own slant on things and also includes bits that are not really part of the Bible (the entire new testament).

A neutral translation with no slant on anything? If you can get God to create one to order for you, you may have a chance. Failing that, good luck.

You are probably really looking at learning Hebrew and Aramaic and delving as much as possible into the original sources. Among other things, the bible is the result of a millennia long political process that determined just what texts are considered part of the bible. The RC bible, for instance, contains an assortment of things not in the Protestant version.

And "neutral translation" is in the eye of the beholder. Do you know enough of the original source material to determine whether the translation you have is neutral? You must also contend with the variance in languages, and the concept that "the map is not the territory". Many things won't have exact translations, because there may not be a word or phrase in English that exactly captures the meaning of the original statement.

And you must contend with your own inherent biases (which you can't help having), that will affect just what you consider to be a neutral translation of the text, and must confront the issue of "What did this statement mean to the folks who wrote it?" They lived in a very different time under very different conditions. The best translation we might devise would still be imperfect because of the difference in viewpoint. The words likely meant something different to the folks who wrote them than they do now.

And when you drop the New Testament from the equation, you still have choices. Are you interested only in Torah (in which case study under a Rabbi might be appropriate, depending upon which particular form of Judaism you espouse, and which Rabbi you would consider a good guide), or are you interested in the entire Old Testament?

And last, you have to consider why you are doing it, and what you expect to get from the process.

Personally, I like the KJV as a work of literature, because I like the language. I don't consider it authoritative, but then, I don't consider any work of scripture authoritative. I'm interested in religions in general, but a believer in none of them. What fascinates me the the manifold different ways the spiritual urge has manifested itself in human cultures through history. So I have a variety of sacred texts on my PDA, including several versions of the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, a version of the Babylonian Talmud, the Book of Mormon, and several other things.

My preferred view is Palm Bible+, an open source PalmOS program designed for displaying bibles, which has a split-screen view with synchronized scrolling, so you can do phrase by phrase comparisons of different texts, and (if you have the appropriate skin loaded) display in Greek or Hebrew as well as English). The format is documented, and what you read with it doesn't have the be the Bible: I have a version of the Koran in Bible+ format.

Good luck on your quest. I'm not sure your goal is attainable, but I think in this case the journey is more important than the destination.
_______
Dennis

[Yaakov]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The problem as I see it is that there are no Bibles that would work for me. What I want is what we have in print. I want a bible that does not have the new testament and that has a literal translation no no slant on things like most Bibles do. Most Bibles foe readers have some sort of slant to them due to the translation and are not proper Jewish Bibles.

The Jewish Publication Society has a 1917 and 1985 English translation of the Bible in print. The translation is from the "original" Masoretic Hebrew text.

The 1917 version is in the Mobileread archives in Sony Reader format.

Yaakov

[rebarnmom]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Not since the Godspeed eBible (a custom hiebook reader) has there been a good Bible study collection available for eBook Readers. I just found such a collection for MobiPocket which is good news for Cybook and iLiad users. Of course PDA users may find it useful as well. It is available from http://www.christiancdrom.com/ They have a collection of free eBooks and discounted eBooks.

Enjoy,
Dale

Hi! I realize that this is an old thread, but I'm new to all of this. And I wonder if there is any new info on Bible Study bundles for current or up & coming soon eBook devices. I've written to Pocket eSword and Olive Tree Bible Software to ask if they plan on releasing anything for dedicated eBook devices. No answer from Pocket eSword and Olive Tree said "nothing planned at this time". I really like what's out there for palm devices, but they just seem too small to read from. The iPod Touch shows a picture with 2 verses on it! How many page turns before you get through a book?! Just wondering... as I contemplate purchasing my first eBook reader.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by rebarnmom

Hi! I realize that this is an old thread, but I'm new to all of this. And I wonder if there is any new info on Bible Study bundles for current or up & coming soon eBook devices. I've written to Pocket eSword and Olive Tree Bible Software to ask if they plan on releasing anything for dedicated eBook devices. No answer from Pocket eSword and Olive Tree said "nothing planned at this time". I really like what's out there for palm devices, but they just seem too small to read from. The iPod Touch shows a picture with 2 verses on it! How many page turns before you get through a book?! Just wondering... as I contemplate purchasing my first eBook reader.

Most Bible software is for desktops and laptops. I know of nothing new for any dedicated readers except what I already posted. I have a page on my web site devoted to this topic.

Dale

[rebarnmom]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Most Bible software is for desktops and laptops. I know of nothing new for any dedicated readers except what I already posted. I have a page on my web site devoted to this topic.

Dale

Thanks! I've already read it. Just wishful thinking that that there was something in the works.

[GatorDeb]

I hate misleading advertisement. It's not 12 collections. It's 6 collections in two formats.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by GatorDeb

I hate misleading advertisement. It's not 12 collections. It's 6 collections in two formats.

Well, since the content of the PC version and the content of the Handheld version are different exactly how can you say it is only 6 collections in 2 formats. There are some overlaps in titles I am sure but they are not the same collections. They seem to have combined several independent products that are available at the web site. I think your version is more misleading than the one they have.

Dale

[GatorDeb]

The pocket one is a subset of the desktop one. It's a stripped version. It's not really 12 collections, it's 6 collections for the desktop and subsets of that collection for the handheld.

I.e. I was selling 10,000 ebooks in mobi format and 10,000 ebooks in prc format and billed it as 20,000 ebooks, half for your kindle and half for your Sony.

It's exactly what I said.

[gfoster]

None of these ever seem to offer the bible I use though... I'm looking for an eBook version of the New American Bible translation (NAB). Anyone know where I can get that?

I saw it offered on iTunes from Olivetree, but it looked like it was a completely separate app. I'd prefer to have just a prc/ebook/pdb etc.

Thanks!

-- Gary F.

[Patricia]

Here's an html version which, unfortunately, one has to download a book at a time.
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/
Otherwise the Olive Tree version seems to be all that's available.

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by gfoster

None of these ever seem to offer the bible I use though... I'm looking for an eBook version of the New American Bible translation (NAB). Anyone know where I can get that?

I saw it offered on iTunes from Olivetree, but it looked like it was a completely separate app. I'd prefer to have just a prc/ebook/pdb etc.

Thanks!

-- Gary F.

The complete NAB is online here!

If you know how to use a Website Copier (I use HTTrack Website Copier), you can roll your own version (for personal use). I did!

Last year, I downloaded the WHOLE site and placed it onto my reader (Gemstar REB1200)! It was an arduous task, but I felt a "calling"! The ebook is a 15MB .imp, has 7000+ pages and has fully functional footnotes. I'm very happy with the results!

I actually found a lot of "errors" (100+) in the references within the website bible, but noticed them also in my print version of same. I corrected them as best I could and only had a dozen or so I couldn't figure out!

Unfortunately, the website is copyrighted and I do not have permission to distribute same. Otherwise, I would!

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by nrapallo

If you know how to use a Website Copier (I use HTTrack Website Copier), you can roll your own version (for personal use). I did!

I use the Spiderzilla extension for Firefox, which uses HTTrack, and includes it as part of the extension.

It's not fully compatible with Firefox 3, and must be fiddled to install, but it works once you have. (The part that doesn't work is the bit that tells you the progress and when the mirroring is completed. You have to keep an eye on that manually.)
______
Dennis

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I use the Spiderzilla extension for Firefox, which uses HTTrack, and includes it as part of the extension.

It's not fully compatible with Firefox 3, and must be fiddled to install, but it works once you have. (The part that doesn't work is the bit that tells you the progress and when the mirroring is completed. You have to keep an eye on that manually.)
______
Dennis

When I used HTTrack to get the entire NAB website, I just used the default settings. It was a "well behaved" website and allowed the completion without incident. I actually "grabbed" the website April 2006, but didn't finish the ebook until April 2007 (no it wasn't a full-time effort )

The hard part was then editing the 1400+ .html files "retrieved" and then combining them properly into the ebook. I added the "back-reference" from any footnote using a regex-aware text editor (TextPad) so that the reader could go off to a footnote and then return back to the passage they were reading.

Aside: The .imp file I produced for the eBookwise 1150 would not work as it was too large for its limited memory. I even contacted the manufacturer ETI to see if they had any insights why this ebook could not be made to work. Alas, I had max'ed out the EBW1150! My original idea was to have the ebook available with the eBookwise 1150 (low-cost LCD reader) along the lines of the Hiebook/Godspeed combination. It does work well with the my REB1200, though those units are scarce and would not be a low-cost way to get the "word out to the masses". See some sample ebook pages from my REB1200 version below:

[honico]

Originally Posted by gfoster

... I'm looking for an eBook version of the New American Bible translation (NAB). Anyone know where I can get that?...

Thanks!

-- Gary F.

Hi Gary

I can email you the New Testament of the NASB;
Bible - NASB - New Test.htm 1.3MB

alternately, if you have a Godspeed Ebible, I have it on a card, which can be transferred to another card...

honico
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