Context in Bible Study

Examining the verse:

• Instant: the entire verse; 

• Near Immediate: preceding and following verse;
• Distant Immediate: the entire Pericope;

• Near Distant: the entire chapter;
• Intermediate Distant: the entire book;
• Far Distant: The set of books:

1. Torah;
2. Poetry;
3. Major Prophets;
4. Minor Prophets;
5. History;
6. Gospels;
7. Pauline Epistles;
8. Catholic Epistles;
9. Prophecy;

• The Testament: 
1. The Tanakh;
2. The New Testament;
3. The Anagignoskomena;

• The Bible: the entire canon:
1. The Muslim Canon;
2. The Restoration Movement Canon;
3. The Protestant Canon;
4. The Catholic Canon;
5. The Lutheran Canon;
6. The Anglican Canon;
7. The Orthodox Christian Canon;
8. The Oriental Christian Canon;
9. The non-Chalcedonian Canon;

Bible study that ignores each of these types of context, is Bible study as pretext.

Library Size

I never thought I'd say this but: I think most worthwhile public domain content is now in e-Sword format!

BibleSupport.com claims to have 5,218 resources for e-Sword 10.x. There are at least 5,000 resources for e-Sword, that are legally distributable, but are not available from BibleSupport.com. Round that off to 10,000 resources.

QuickVerse 2013 Platinum Plus claims 574 Volumes.  Depending upon your POV, I'm either being very mean, or very generous, in assuming that QuickVerse 2012 has the same number of STEP resources. Findex counted resources in its packages, the same that Libronix counts resources in its packages.

Logos 5 Portofolio Edition contains 2,585 resources. ( https://www.logos.com/comparison . That page defaults to Logos Gold Edition, Click on the link for Portfolio Edition, to see the details.)

The Maryland State Department of Education requires schools have a library collection of at least 12,000 items.  A middle school collection is expected to have 15,000 items, whilst a high school collection is expected to have at least 18,000 items. (http://articles.herald-mail.com/2008-04-14/news/25088737_1_library-collection-collection-size-school-year ).

Resources for e-Sword, and Logos are counted differently.  If resources were counted the same, then Logos Gold Edition (1,100 resources) is the more appropriate comparison. The school library counts individual volumes, which is what e-Sword does, rather than sets of volumes, which is what Logos does.

Using Logos 5 Platinum Edition as one's starting point, it is fairly easy for one's Logos Library to be the size of a Maryland High School Library.  (I am deliberately excluding the damage to one's wallet, in the definition of "easy". If one wishes to have 18,000 volumes, with minimal impact on one's wallet, download the books from The Internet Archive Archive.org, and Project Gutenberg Gutenberg.org .)

For e-Sword 10.x,  getting to the minimum Maryland School library size (12,000 volumes), is doable, if STEP resources are actively sought out. Getting to Maryland High School library size (18,000 volumes) requires one to be creating resources.

In terms of "worthwhile public domain resources", the most obvious lack, for e-Sword, is in Greek and Latin material.  More specifically, the complete corpus of the church councils, Papal bulls, Papal briefs, and encyclicals.

The second major omission is apocrypha and pseudepigrapha material.  More specifically:

• The texts that made it into the Bible, and then were removed: For example, 3 Corinthians;
• The texts that almost made it into the Bible: For example, Shepherd of Hermas, Acts of Paul;
• The texts that did not make it into the Bible: For example,  4 Baruch, 5 Maccabees;

The third major omission is liturgical material.
 Whilst:

•  Book of Common Prayer (USA) (1976);
• The Scottish Communion service of 1764; 

are available, what is lacking are:

• Texts that explain the liturgy, such as James Davis' Manual of the Book of Common Prayer;
•  Protestant liturgies, such as  A Book of Common Order;
• Catholic Liturgies, such as Tridentine Missae;

 Then there are huge swathes of Christianity, material for which, in e-Sword format, is almost completely lacking:

• Orthodox Christianity;
• Oriental Christianity;
• Celtic Christianity;

If it were not for Gravel Hill Church of Christ (http://www.gravelhillchurchofchrist.com/), resources for/about Restoration Movement Christianity would also be almost completely lacking.

Consequently, I disagree that most worthwhile public domain content is now in e-Sword format.

Software Support

If customer interaction with developers is perceived to be a valuable thing, then:

• Have several people whose sole function is to act as a liaison between developers and end-users;
• Setup a very good customer service group:
  1. Have a web forum for each language spoken by users;
  2. Have mailing lists for each language spoken by users;
  3. Have micro-blogs for each language spoken by users, on at least a dozen portals that offer micro-blogging options;
  4. Have a social network presence for each language spoken by users, on the major social networking sites ---- this means roughly 250 sites, multiplied by the number of languages used in the geographic regions where those social networking sites dominate;
  5. Offer IRC in each language spoken by users;
  6. IM contacts for each language spoken by users;
  7. VoIP contacts for each language spoken by users;
• Setup a good documentation creation team:
  1. Create videos showing how to use every aspect of the software;
  2. Write documents (eBooks, hard copy books, PDFs) showing how to use every aspect of the software;
  3. Construct a wiki that covers every aspect of the software:
     • Installing the software;
     • Customizing the software;
     • Using the software;
     • Explains what each icon in the software is for;
     • Explains how, and when to use each icon;
     • Explains each item on each menu;
     • Explains how to use the software;
     • Includes at least ten examples, for each usage of each icon;
     • Includes functionality that is available, but has no icon;
     • Shows how to do things using a keyboard only --- no mouse allowed;
     • Shows how to work around when a mouse is required;
     • Recognizes that requiring a mouse is a major design flaw, and as such should be prohibited at all times, and in all places;
• Setup a good QA team:
  1. Use automated testing tools to crash the software;
  2. If you can't use the software after throwing away the keyboard, display monitor, and mouse, the software failed QA;
  3. Have end-user accessible Bug Tracking tools;
  4. Have end-user accessible Request For Enhancement reporting tools;

The major flaw in most software projects is inadequate documentation, and non-existent customer support;

Every Bible Study program that is currently (20131105) available, fails QA # 3: If you throw away your keyboard, mouse, and display monitor, you can not use the program. This is true for every platform that Biblical Software is currently available on.

e-Sword4iPad

On the 10 October 2012, Rick announced, via a popup in e-Sword, that
e-Sword4iPad would be released on 15 October.

It was released today. Unfortunately, I don't have an iPad. I did search in the app store using my iPhone 4S, to no avail. :(

This is not a review, per se, but rather impressions I've gained from reading various comments, reviews about the program, and other things.

The most comprehensive review I've seen thus far has been Rubén Gómez' on BSR. http://www.bsreview.org/blog/2012/10/e-sword-hd-for-ipad.html .

The YouTube video can be directly viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqxDJv2akME 

Price:
The app costs US$4.99.
Statistics from http://148apps.biz/app-store-metrics/?mpage=appprice
2.7% of the apps on The iTunes App Store sell for US$4.99;
94.55% of the apps on The iTunes App Store sell for US4.99, or less.
51.72% of the apps on The iTunes App Store are gratis;

As such, it is within the norms of iOS pricing.

Potential Issue:
Logos For iPad, Accordance, and Laridian's PocketBible are all gratis.  You do have to pay for the resources, but they can be used on other devices/platforms.

My iPhone offers 10 categories, when typing "Bibl".  Selecting "Bible", 4.042 apps are offered. My iPhone more or less gave up, when I tried to scroll past the 70th app in the "Bible" search.

e-Sword4iPad could easily get lost in those numbers.

Can current e-Sword users generate enough buzz for it to break out of the 788 applications per day that are added to The iTunes App Store each day?

Supported Canon:

None of the reviews or comments I've come across, have specifically discussed the supported canon. In two different video reviews, I noticed that the Douay-Rheims Bible is available.  That implies that at least the 73 book Catholic Canon is supported.  This canon was also supported in Pocket e-Sword.

Available Resources:

• Only official resources can be installed.  This is due to limitations imposed by security model used by iOS. 
• Resources use HTML, rather than RTF for presentation markup; 
• Currently, only English Language resources are available;

I expect a utility that enables users to create their own resources, will be available within three months.  Installing those resources probably will require the user to jailbreak the device.

Search:

Basic search functionality is available.  I haven't seen anything about Boolean or Regex search.

2009 SBL Bible Software Shootout:

Inasmuch as only English language resources are available, it fails all five criteria. This should change, when resources in Biblical languages are released.

Synopsis:

If I had an iPad, I'd install and use it.  However, it is not yet compelling enough for me to specifically purchase an iPad.

1 & 1/8 M

As of 20120822:23:56:00 UT, BibleSupport.com users had downloaded 1 145 146 resources.  At the current rate, it should have 2 000 000 downloads by 1 March 2013.

In terms of users, that figure implies that the average user has downloaded 38.9161 resources.

To get on the list of top 20 down-loaders, one has to have downloaded 4 366 resources. To be in the top five, one needs to have downloaded 11 631 resources.


I don't know how that works, since the site currently offers 6 466 different files.

In terms of uploading resources:

• 14 resources will squeak one into twentieth place;
• 52 resources will drop one into tenth place;
• 143 resources will edge one into fifth place;
• 3 681 resources  will get one into first place;

Create a resource.  Provide it for e-Sword 8.x, e-Sword 9.x, Pocket e-Sword, and MySword, and an instant four resources.

Meanwhile, WordModules.com continues to grow:

• 1714 members;
• 294 resources;
• 42 682 downloads;

That is an average of 24.901 downloads per user.

I noticed in passing that the top seventeen downloaders had retrieved at least 309 resources each.

For those wishing to submit resources:

• Two will put one in the top forteen;
• Five resources will place one in the top ten;
• Eighteen will place one in the top five;
• One hundred and twenty-eight will place one in top place;

For both sites, (BibleSupport.com & WordModules.com) the emphasis is on resource quality, over resource quantity.  

The criteria for what constitutes "high quality" resources is the same for both sites:

• The text is faithful to the original;
• Font parameters can be adjusted by the user;
• If there are images in the original, they are to be included within the resources;
• All scripture citations are correctly tooltipped;
• Presentation markup is consistent with other resources for the same software;
• Text flow must be consistent, regardless of screen size;
• Content is consistent for the type of resource that is constructed;