Reference Works

General Resources

Bible Commentary Free online Bible commentaries.

Bible Gateway Online access to many versions of the Bible. Includes the ability to search one or more translations at once.

Bible History and Geography

Bible Places Mostly a place for photographs, it also contains material on life in the days of the Bible.

Bible Research This site is for Bible students who are looking for detailed information on the history of the canon, texts, and versions of Scripture.

Bible Resource Center Run by the American Bible Society, this contains a huge collection of Bibles (over 55,0000!) as well as other interesting material. The articles do have a denominational slant.

Bible.org Features a downloadable Bible called Net Bible.

Biblos Tons of Bible study tools. This is a must bookmark site.

Blue Letter Bible Online Bibles and study tools

Center for New Testament Restoration Contains a large collection of computer-generated texts of various manuscripts with an aim toward accuracy. Of strong interest are the comparison charts of both ancient manuscripts and various composite texts.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library An extensive collection of public domain books.

English Bible History A history of the English translations of the Bible, including a timeline.

53 People in the Bible Confirmed Archaeologically

Gravel Hill Church of Christ e-Books A large collection of out-of-print books, mostly written by brethren.

Greek and Latin Educational Links

Greek Online Study Course An introductory course to the Koine Greek used in the New Testament.

How Big Was Noah's Ark? This page contains numerous details about the size and capacity of Noah's ark.

How to Gird Up Your Loins Illustration of what the concept means

International College of the Bible: Gospel Books An extensive collection of e-books categorized by subject.

Interpreting Ancient Manuscripts Deals with textual criticism of the Bible's manuscripts

James E. Cooper Library A private collection of works, of which the public domain information is being scanned into PDF.

J. W. McGarvey's Collective Works An extensive collection of the writings of J. W. McGarvey. The site is down, but you can find the material in the Internet Archives.

Know that God IS A collection of apologetics articles.

Leon's Message Board A blog by Leon Mauldin on the history and geography of the Bible. Leon conducts tours regularly to the Bible lands and his blog is filled with photos and information about the places he has visited.

New Testament Greek A study course

Plain Talk This series of articles by Robert F. Turner was published for 20 years, starting in 1964. It is famous for its down-home illustrations and gentle humor.

Realized Eschatology Lesson outlines refuting what is commonly referred to as the A.D. 70 Theory

Searching the Scriptures This magazine was published for 33 years, from 1960 to 1992. Each issue is reproduced in PDF files. A link is given to HTML versions of the same files.

Study Bible An online Bible with reference works. You can create parallel versions to compare translations or ancient texts.

The Interactive Bible Extensive notes on a variety of subjects. Pages tend to be very large and not very well organized. There is a lot of unique material here but there are also a few odd ideas being promoted.

The Restoration Movement Writings by authors in the churches of Christ, the Christian churches, and Disciples of Christ. No effort is made to distinguish good writings from bad writings in this collection. The site is down, but you can find the material in the Internet Archives.

The Story of Jesus Essentially this is a site giving a composite or harmony of the four Gospels. It is well illustrated and pop-ups give extensive definition and historical background to many terms.

Traces of the Kingdom This site attempts to document early examples of Christians meeting prior to the Restoration Movement.

Truth Magazine / Guardian of Truth back issues from 1956 to the present.

Viz.Bible A set of charts and maps to help visualize the information in the Bible. Many are interactive.

Software

AGES Digital Library The company sells PDF files of many classic works. The price is far lower than purchasing printed copies. Check around for prices. Some retailers offer the same products at a discount. I would strongly recommend not using their downloadable option. It would not work for me despite repeated attempts and I found out afterward that the company does not stand behind its downloaded products (you can't get a refund if it doesn't work).

Bible Analyzer The program and a number of add-on books are free to download. Many additional books are available that are very inexpensive. The number of quality translations is seriously lacking at the time I looked at the available modules. It has built-in text to speech for the books and tools to do statistical analysis on word usage. The layout of the panels is not flexible, such as only one Bible translation at a time can be shown, though tabs allow a quick switch between translations. It has a few built-in quizzes and the ability to play MIDI hymn files.

Bible Explorer The base version is free for downloading. Some of the free material is only available if you register. It is available for both PC and Mac. The base version is useful. My two main complaints is that it loves to open windows, so it is very easy to end up with multiple copies of the same book open at the same time. Second, in my brief usage of it, I could not find a way to click on a Strong's reference number and get the Strong's dictionary to jump to that entry; I had to manually type in the reference number in that window. One feature that I especially liked in the Strong's dictionary is vocal pronunciation -- you can click on the phonetic representation of the Greek or Hebrew word and it will pronounce the word for you. The program uses the STEP system for electronic book formats. Any book in STEP format can be added to the system. It even allows you to bring in your own books through a built-in word processor and create your own STEP books -- this is a feature I hope to explore further in the future. Much of the system pushes for you to buy from the large collection of add-on books (this is how the company manages to afford to give away a free copy).

Bible Mapper Bible Mapper is a fully interactive, highly accurate Bible mapping system that helps you quickly and easily create customized maps of the Holy Lands or study a particular period and aspect of Bible history. This is a free program that allows you to create your own maps of Bible places. The license allows you to use the maps you create freely as well.

eBible This is a web-based application. This means you can access it from any computer or smartphone. Since all your notes are stored on their system, whatever you do is available, even if you switch systems. If you pay a small monthly fee, you avoid the advertisements and can enter more notes each month. One interesting feature is the ability to highlight your text, just as you do your own Bibles. The biggest downside to the system is that you must have an Internet connection. This is not a stand-alone application. By the way, the dictionaries, commentaries, and lexicons are found by clicking "Explain." This application does not have very many books, which is surprising since it is a web-based tool.

e-Sword This is another free program. The manufacturer operates off of donations. I especially like this one because it has a version available for smartphones. It is not very fast. Searches are very slow. A few resources have price tags, but most do not. Mostly they are royalty fees and are inexpensive. It has the ability to read STEP formatted books.

PowerBible This has remained my favorite program over the years. The price has always been cheap (currently $12) and the amount that you get for that price is jaw-dropping. The interconnections between books are excellent. I especially like the hover feature that lets you put your mouse over a reference tag and read the reference without having to switch to that point. The NASB, NRSV, and NIV are on the disk, but are locked until the publishers' royalty fee is paid (still low, $37 for all three currently). The two main faults with the program is that it is not extensible (you can't add your own books to it) and the ESV is not available.

Specific Works

Acts Of The Apostles by J. W. McGarvey

Baker's Evangelical Dictionary Of Biblical Theology

Barnes' Notes on the New Testament

Bible Study Textbook Series (The Old Green Commentaries)

Codex Sinaiticus Scans of the world's oldest Greek New Testament text.

Condensed Bible Cyclopedia

Easton's Bible Dictionary

Early Church Fathers

Expository Notes on the Prophet Isaiah by Harry A. Ironside

Flavius Josephus

Against Apion. ed. William Whiston, A.M. (English)
Antiquities of the Jews. ed. William Whiston, A.M. (English)
The Life of Flavius Josephus. ed. William Whiston, A.M. (English)
The Wars of the Jews. ed. William Whiston, A.M. (English)

The Fourfold Gospel by J. W. McGarvey

Fox's Book of Martyrs

Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary

Instrumental Music in the Worship of the Church by John L. Girardeau. Though a Presbyterian writer, the information presented is all that more noteworthy.

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

James Burton Coffman's Commentaries

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary

Liddell Scott Greek/English Lexicon

Manners and Customs of Bible Lands by Floyd H. Wright

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible

Nave's Topical Bible

Realized Eschatology A set of material on the topic of preterism.

Sermon Illustrations

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance

The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge

The People's New Testament Commentary by B. W. Johnson

Volume 1 The site is down, but the book can be found in the Internet Archives.
Volume 2 The site is down, but the book can be found in the Internet Archives.
Volume 3 The site is down, but the book can be found in the Internet Archives.

The Puzzles of Job by Ord L. Morrow