Greek and Hebrew on the iPod Touch!

A new beta of Olive Tree Software's Bible Reader was released with the NA27 and BHS loaded on it. Both texts have bugs. In fact, the NA27 is barely functional (more importantly for me, the BHS works fine). However, I'm still thrilled to see the first steps being taken towards a fully functional Hebrew and Greek text on the iPod.

Here are some pictures of the BHS and NA27:



As you can see, both the Hebrew and Greek fonts are very clear and easy to read. The font sizes are adjustable and the texts work in landscape mode, so if you like really large fonts, you won't get stuck with 1 or 2 words per line.

With the addition of the BHS and NA27, as limited as the functionality currently is (no search/morphology yet), Bible Reader nevertheless warrants a place on my dock bar since I plan on using it quite a bit.

The Best iPod Touch Bible App

Sorry about the lack of posts. I have a project coming near completion and have been busy the last several weeks. I can now see light at the end of the tunnel, however, so in the near future I'll be back blogging on what I consider a regular basis (i.e., one or two posts a week).

Anyways, I promised a review of Olive Tree Software's Bible Reader, so here it is.

Before I get to Bible Reader though, I must say that if I didn't know how to read the biblical languages (and if Olive Tree hadn't offered me this free beta!), I would definitely go with BibleXpress since it easily offers the best value for the money.

So far BibleXpress has five English translations: ESV, NASB, NRSV with Apocrypha, KJV, and ASV. Ben Spratling (the developer) is also attempting to get the NIV, the Message, the NLT, and a Greek NT and LXX, which would be added as a free update. All of this for the very reasonable price of $30. Go ahead and compare this value with any other bible program that offers a comparable set of core modern translations and texts that isn't tethered to the Internet in some way.

The same five translations already offered by BibleXpress (i.e., ESV, NASB, NRSV, KJV, and ASV) would cost $62.75 on Bible Reader when purchased individually, and this is without factoring in the additional translations that Ben Spratling will be adding for free at some point. In light of this, I think that those Christians who had the gall to complain about BibleXpress's initial purchase price are simply empty-headed.



Having said all that, since I can read the biblical languages, however, I will be adopting Bible Reader as my main bible app for the iPod Touch. While BibleXpress will eventually offer a Greek NT and LXX, it is highly unlikely that Ben Spratling will be able to offer the morphological data to go with these texts, and besides which, the Hebrew Bible isn't in the plans to this point and of all the potential texts available, that's the most important to me.

It appears that Olive Tree Software has a solution to the problem of combining all the various translations and texts into one program. On my beta version of Bible Reader, there is a way to access the store and my Olive Tree account to download translations and texts. On my beta version of Bible Reader, I have the following translations:

• Bible in Basic English*
  
• English Standard Version
  
• Green's Literal Translation*
• Holman Christian Standard
• JPS Tanakh
• King James Version
• New American Bible
• New American Standard Bible.
• New English Translation (with limited notes)*
  
• New International Version
• New King James Version
• New Living Translation (2nd ed.)
• New Revised Standard Version
• Revised Standard Version
• The Message
• Today's New International Version
• Young's Literal Translation

In order to purchase all these translations individually it would cost you just under $225 (* indicates a free translation). If you omit the KJV and Young's Literal translation which are very cheap ($5 and $2, respectively), the average price for the individual translations runs to about $18 each. The good news is that Olive Tree Software will offer many of these translations in combination in a variety of packages, bringing down the cost considerably (indeed they have already begun to do so).

Overall, this beta version (4.02.024) is remarkably bug free (it's the fourth one I've received). There are still a lot of formatting issues for many of the translations, but they are aware of them and are in the process of smoothing those out.



When I got my first bible app, I didn't really expect to use it much. Initially, I refused to bring it to church, since I thought it would be a distraction to those around me, but I noticed that there were quite a few others around me who actually use some sort of portable electronic device for not only referring to the bible, but also to take notes (there's a high yuppie quotient at my church).

So I started bringing it along with me on Sundays. The great thing is that I now have a lot of different translations at my fingertips. This comes in handy because at my church there is no standard translation used by everyone, though a couple of pastors appear to be partial to the ESV.

This can be rather problematic since it's quite rare for the same pastor/person to preach two Sundays in a row (and forget about three Sundays in a row, which almost never happens). For one thing, we have four pastors at our church. In addition, several members of the congregation have attended seminary (I can think of 6 off the top of my head, and I know there are others I can't think of at the moment) and are often called on to speak (I fall in this category). We also regularly have outside speakers as well. In fact, this past September we had four different outside speakers giving the sermon on four successive Sundays.

This generally means a different translation is used each Sunday, even if it happens to be the same pastor, since I've noticed that some of the pastors like to use different translations on different occasions.

In the past I simply had to follow along in my ESV regardless of the translation used by the pastor. So, for instance, when Eugene Peterson's The Message was used, as is sometimes the case (a couple of the pastors were students of his), trying to follow along in my ESV was next to useless. This is no longer a problem, thanks to Bible Reader.



Anyways, since it is a beta, rather than lauding the numerous things that the Bible Reader does right, I figure it would be far more useful to offer constructive criticism. Here are a list of some modest improvements in the interface that I would like to see:

1. Adjustable margins. I put my iPod Touch in a leather flip case that protects it. However, one drawback is that the protective leather tends to crowd the edge of the screen. This means that the biblical text runs right up against the leather edges, becoming a distraction.
2. Optional red letter text. It's nice that the font color can be changed. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the red letter text. It stays red no matter what color you change the surrounding text to. Of course, you can change the font to Dark Red, and Jesus' words will be indistinguishable from the rest of the text. However, looking at all that red text is simply annoying.
3. I'm not sure the verse chooser (which I like a lot) needs to go down to the verse level. I'd like to see this as an option you could toggle on and off.
   
4. There has to be a better way to switch chapters rather than scrolling downwards through the text to the next chapter. Perhaps a sideways swipe to change chapters could be implemented. Ben Spratling's BibleXpress already has such a feature.
5. There should be an easier way to change font sizes, rather than going to the setup menu. Perhaps a pinching motion on the screen could be implemented. Ben Spratling's BibleXpress already has such a feature.