I'm getting a lesson in the use of internet resources for Bible study this week. The BSD studies require a LOT of looking up of different scriptural references. Although the lessons vary, you usually look up 10 to 20 different citations in addition to the assigned reading. That's a lot of thumbing through your Bible.There are several websites that let you search the Bible by book, chapter and verse in many many different translations. One of the most straightforward and easy to use is Bible Gateway. It seems some diligent ladies in the group have used this method to find the verses for every lesson for the entire year and printed them out.
I got a copy of one of these supplements and used it this week. It is a great timesaver, which I really needed today. When I have more time, I like to use these sites to compare different translations, especially when I find the meaning of the verses difficult. It's always interesting to see what The Message version is.
It's probably a generational thing, but it doesn't seem as much like Bible study to me if I'm not putting my hands on my trusty Access Bible while working through the lesson. And I think of myself as being pretty good with computers! I bet that is not the reaction of the young women in the group who have used computers all their lives.
When El Jefe and I were in New Haven last weekend we stopped at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where he worked in his student days. We saw the copy of the Gutenburg Bible which is a very large folio-size volume with calligraphic style printing of the Latin text, bound in fine leather.
Whether hewn on stone tablets, handwritten on papyrus, printed on a primitive press, published with modern word processing, or residing on the internet in the form of electric impulses, the Bible is the Word, regardless of its medium. The medium is not the message, after all, just the messenger.I must remind myself of that!
7 comments:
When I was at the Evangelism Conference in Nashville I was in two different worship services where the pastors read the Bible of of their PDAs.
One was a pastor from a more contemporary evangelical church and the other from a Presbyterian African-American church.
I'm pretty open in how I like my worship, but I still found it a little odd.
I have grave doubts about “electronic” versions of books and documents – including the Bible. We can read books printed on paper hundreds of years ago. We can read parchment and similar documents that are well over one thousand years old. We are still reading the Dead Sea Scrolls that are about two thousand years old. But we can’t read files we saved on 5.25 inch floppy disks 15 years ago. Keeping those electronic versions readable as time and technology march on is going to take as much effort as the old library. Yes, I agree that electronic text is editable, can be easily analyzed and even translated by machines. But there is something special about a book – starting with the feel of the paper, the look of the font, the position of the words on the paper and the graphic impression of the whole page. Text on a screen just can’t compare.
Our bulletin is put on the church web site in PDF and I cut and paste my sermon into the site as well. When I preach. We have a computer with a 14" LCD screen at an angle that I can see through a clear plastic cover.
The sight comes up with the bulletin, sermon and two blank tabs for Bible gateway. All I have to do before worship is enter the passage/s I'm reading and click on it and I'm ready to rock and roll.
What I find great about it is that there is no fumbling pages and the font size can be made really large if I'm really tired. The down side is when you lose the internet connection--happened once in the last 18 months we've been doing this.
I guess it's pretty strange for guest preachers however.
Alan
I know what you mean!
Sometimes I print out the week's lectionary to carry places with me, and I wonder later if I missed something on either side?
I prefer books over e-books nearly all the time, but I have to admit that my Zondervan Leaders Edition with several modern translations, commentaries, and add-ins such as the big NIV commentary (lots of volumes) is pretty useful.
I can have several windows open, which scroll together, keeping the text in line with the commentary. Searching for words and phrases is easy, and right-clicking on a word will provide options, including definitions and links to a Hebrew or Greek lexicon.
But somehow I can't see myself carrying the laptop to church and booting it up when it's time to follow along with the daily lectionary...
I like using e-bible for bible study assignments, especially when there is a need to bounce around a lot. I also like to keep an e-bible up in the background at work, for when I need a moment with the word in a busy day. Still, I am a luddite when it comes to worship. I so much prefer the printed work in hand. I feel at times like I'm at the tail end of the last book generation.
I definitely prefer paper over electronic. I am probably one of the only three Houston Chronicle subscribers left.
My Mom gave me a parallel bible when I became a believer again. It had the King James, New Revised, Good News, and one other version, all side-by-side, verse-to-verse. It was infinitely helpful in discerning what a particular passage meant to me and also emphasized how someone can read the same verse and get something completely different out of it. I carried it to church in Wichita for a long time until I got another, red lined NRSV bible, again as a present from my Mom.
The parallel bible was softcover; one Sunday I dropped it in a muddy puddle on my way back to the car after church (we had to park on the street because we were building a new multi-purpose building that took up our parking lot). I quickly picked it up and wiped it off but it still carries that sign of use.
Funny what will trigger certain memories!
God Bless,
Dsutin
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