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 Hub An excellent resource for studying the Bible. It includes multiple translations, commentaries, concordances, dictionaries, lexicons, timelines, and more.

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 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

The Center for New Testament Restoration contains a large collection of computer-generated texts of various manuscripts, which are aimed at accuracy. Of strong interest are the comparison charts of 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

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 apologetic 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 the Disciples of Christ. No effort is made to distinguish good writing from bad writing 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

Bible Analyzer The program and several add-on books are free to download. Many additional books are available at very inexpensive prices. When I looked at the available modules, the number of quality translations was seriously lacking. It has built-in text-to-speech for the books and tools for statistical analysis of 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 can play MIDI hymn files.

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 free program allows you to create your own maps of Bible places, and 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 many books, which is surprising since it is a web-based tool.

e-Sword This is another free program. The manufacturer operates on 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. They are mostly royalty fees and inexpensive. It can read STEP-formatted books.

PowerBible This has remained my favorite program over the years. The price has always been low (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 switching 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 are that it is not extensible (you can't add your own books) and the ESV is unavailable.


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

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

The Puzzles of Job by Ord L. Morrow

The Survey of Western Palestine

The Writings of Sir William M. Ramsay An archeologist from the late 1800s to early 1900s.

Torrey's Topical Textbook

Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words

Word Pictures in the New Testament


Resource Lists

Ferrell Jekins' Resource List

Joe Neil Clayton's List of Favorite Sites

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