I receive questions about online Bibles and being a Christian I am familiar with a couple of the sources out there. Here are two that I am familiar with and currently use.
One is a source for most anything in the "study" category that you could need. The other is a great source to help me read through the bible in a year and take a quick read via my smart phone when I want to. If you are so inclined you might want to try it out also.
First up is e-Sword (e-sword.net). e-Sword is an excellent application for multiple versions of the Bible and study tools. The default installation includes the King James Version, King James Version w/ Strong’s numbers, Strong’s dictionary, and the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge cross-references. Right off the bat you get more than you do with several of the more popular paid versions. e-Sword is free and it is for Windows. I believe there is a slight charge for Mac and Linux versions.
After the initial download you can choose to install many free or paid Bible versions (the costs depend on copyrights) and also many study guides from mainline sources. I have bought two versions of the Bible over the years which were not available for free; the NKJV and the NASB versions. They were very reasonably priced.
You may also get the Mathew Henry, Wesley, Thayer’s and Scofield study notes and commentaries along with Nave’s Topical Bible. Again, all of these were free and you can get many others also free or sensibly priced.
The latest version of e-Sword (version 9.9.1) allows you to create your own Parallel Bible with up to eight different versions. There is also a comparison window where you can look at a particular verse and compare it in different versions. I haven’t even mentioned yet that is has a built-in editor which allows you to create commentaries and take notes of your own.
It has a great search feature so you can find most anything you can think of in the Scriptures. Give it a try if you are interested and let me know what you think. I have not mentioned all of e-Sword’s features and there are quite a few more that you can investigate on their site.
Next, let me mention a program I use every day; well OK, most every day. It is called YouVersion (youversion.com). I first stumbled onto YouVersion when I had a Windows phone many years ago. It was a great free app that allowed me to read, search and study the Bible via my phone. It is still free and now available on all of the "i" products such as Blackberry, Android (where I now use it) and most of the others out there today.
One thing I appreciate is the ability to pick out a "Read through the Bible in a year" plan and sync it between your phone and their site. I try to do my daily reading every morning, via phone, before I head off to work. If I forget or am running late and do not have time I can catch up on a computer later. YouVersion has many other features and you can check them out at the site.
One last mention for you folks reading the online version of Double Clicks. Check out Bible Gateway (biblegateway.com), which is an excellent Bible Study and reading site.
