In 1890, James Strong published a book that was to become a favorite of Bible students for the next 100 years. His exhaustive concordance of the Bible is now considered an invaluable resource and indispensable for the serious student of God’s Word. If you have never used a concordance, see Jim McKendrick’s article in the February 1991 Uplook for an explanation of this important Bible study tool.
Despite the incredible usefulness of Mr. Strong’s book, there is now something even better. With the advent of the computer age, many Christians have begun to use computers in their work for the Lord. One tremendous use for the computer is in studying the Scriptures. There are now many concordance programs available, ranging in price from $20 to over $250. However, by far the best of these is the “Online Bible.” Not only is the Online Bible superior to most, if not all, of the commercial programs, it is also free!
Now, if you have not yet joined the “Computer Age,” don’t stop reading here. The Online Bible is enough to convince you to take the plunge and acquire a computer.
Online Bible was developed by Larry Pierce of Woodside Bible Fellowship, an assembly in Elmira, Ontario. Larry and his band of devoted volunteers have poured thousands of hours into producing and enhancing this program. Ken Hamel of Oakhurst, NJ, has taken the original version of the program, written for the DOS operating system, and rewritten it for use on Macintosh computers. Christians are greatly indebted to these men for their labors in producing this wonderful Bible study tool.
Hopefully by now you are asking, “Just what is the Online Bible?” Online Bible is a Bible study tool that combines the best features of several study books with the referencing capabilities of a computer. It contains the complete text of the Authorized Version of the Bible (NIV and RSV versions are also available). You can easily call up on screen any verse or passage in the Bible almost instantly. If you are looking for a verse but can’t remember the reference, Online Bible will find it for you. Like any concordance, it provides a list of all the verses in the Bible where a particular word occurs.
Unlike a conventional concordance, it can also do searches for phrases or for combinations of words. Let’s say you wanted to study the use of the phrase “grace and truth” in the New Testament. If you were using Strong’s, you would need to first look up “grace” and note all the references. Then you would have to go through them one by one to determine if “truth” also appeared in that verse. Online Bible will do all of this for you almost instantly.
As well, it can do searches for verses where certain words do not appear. For example, say you were doing a study on how the Bible writers addressed the Lord. You wanted to look at all the verses where He was simply referred to as “Jesus” without the titles “Lord” or “Christ” added. The program will do this for you.
You can also do proximity searches. For instance, say you wanted to find instances where “righteousness” and “justification” appear close together, but not necessarily in the same verse. You could search for all verses where these two words appear within one or two (or whatever you choose) number of verses of each other. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, you can do searches based on the underlying Greek and Hebrew words of the original languages.
Interspaced with the English text of Scripture are the Strong’s reference numbers that correspond to the words in the original language, similar to the Word Study New Testament. See the example below. You have the option of displaying the text in this mode or in the conventional mode without the numbers.
The example in the next column shows a search on Strong’s number 4309. All six occurrences in the Bible are listed. In Acts 4:28, in the KJV, it has been translated “determined before”; in 1 Corinthians 2:7, it has been translated “ordained”; twice in Romans 8 it has been translated “did predestinate” and twice in Ephesians 1 it has been translated “predestinated.”
The Strong’s numbering system is used by many other Bible language tools. Online Bible integrates three of these in the form of a Greek and Hebrew lexicon. This lexicon provides detailed information on the meanings of the Greek and Hebrew words.
The Greek is based on Thayer’s Lexicon and Smith’s Bible Dictionary. The Hebrew is based on Brown, Driver and Brigg’s Lexicon and Smith’s Bible Dictionary. In the next column is a sample lexicon entry for Strong’s number 4309.
For each word, the lexicon provides a transliteration, pronunciation guide, derivation (if not a root word), and the part of speech–noun, verb, etc. For further study, the page reference to Kittel’s 10 volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) is provided as well as the reference to the one volume “little Kittel.” (The Old Testament references are to the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament.)
The lexicon also provides details of the usage of the word in the Bible with the number of times it is used in each manner and a brief explanation of its meaning. What’s more, these lexicon entries can be edited so that you can include the results of your own studies.
Whenever you do a verse search, the output on the screen consists of the entire verse for each reference where the subject word appears, not just a brief phrase as with a conventional concordance. The subject word is highlighted and you can scroll back and forth among the verses.
If you want to look at the passage containing one of the verses you have found, a single keyboard command will show you the context of the verse in question. You can also do additional searches while the result of your first search stays on screen. There is no limit to the number of search windows you can have open at one time.
You can also ask for cross-references to any of the verses resulting from your search. Included in the Online Bible are the 570,000 cross-references from the Treasury of Bible Knowledge. You can add your own references as well.
Notes can also be added to any verse. When a verse comes up in a search to which you have attached a note, an asterisk appears beside the reference, indicating the presence of a note. In the example on the preceding page, a note is indicated for Romans 8:29.
You can save the results of your word searches under a particular topic heading. These topics are completely user defined. Thus you can create indexes of verses on literally hundreds of topics. When you want to study that topic, the Online Bible will display all the verses in your list without you having to repeat the searches that produced the list.
Other features of the Online Bible include a built-in mini word processor for editing text and adding cross-references and notes. While its features are limited, you can use it for preparing message outlines, study notes, reports, etc. It performs all of the low level functions you would expect, including cutting and pasting of text, printing and limited formatting. You can also import/ export text from/to other programs.
One of the features I like most is the ability to access the Scriptures from within other programs. Included with the Online Bible is a “hot key” command that automatically retrieves verses from the program. Do you need a quotation from the Bible for an article you are writing? Just type a predefined key sequence and the computer produces a dialog box asking what verse(s) you would like. You type the reference of the verse(s) you need and they are instantly inserted in your document. This feature works from within any program that handles text. The Online Bible does not even have to be running. You are assured of totally accurate quotations with minimal typing.
James Strong probably never imagined his numbering system would ever be put to use in such a fashion. But just as his concordance opened up the Greek and Hebrew roots of the English words of the Bible to a multitude of non-linguists, even so will the Online Bible, and other programs like it, once again revolutionize the study of God’s Word. There is no longer any excuse for lack of thoroughness in Bible study. This tool easily lets you find any verse of Scripture that bears on a passage or subject. This program is a must for any computer user. It will help make you a better student of the Word.