The Sword Project

Since I’m now running strictly Linux on my Laptop, I’ve been looking around for some new Bible study software for Linux. I found the Sword Project, and I’m pretty happy with it. Check it out at http://www.crosswire.org. It’s just an API for Linux, but then I’m using BibleTime as a front end (scroll down on the same link), and I really like it. They have several modules you can add to it. Modules=translations,books,commentaries,lexicons, or glossaries. You then open any combination of the above and arrange them in any number of windows you like, or they can share the same window. Then there’s the magnifier on the left side. Scroll over a scripture reference, and it shows it to you in your favorite translation, or if you’re looking at a Greek/Hebrew translation, scroll your mouse over a word to see a definition plus the morphology of the word. You can usually find these features in a good commercial (as in not-free) product, but I haven’t seen an open-source and free one that I liked as well.

The problem with free Bible software is the modules available. Most modern translations come with copyrights that won’t allow them to be distributed for free. However, I do have some other Bible software, so I own digital versions of the translations I want, such as the NIV. So I was able to convert the NIV I had from another program to the proper format for the Sword Project to use it. It recognizes several formats, but I went with the easiest which they call VPL or verse per line. With VPL all I needed was a text file of the entire Bible with one verse on every line and each line began with the scripture reference. So it would begin like this:

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:2 Now the earth was formless and empty…

And so on. I have an old version of QuickVerse, which let’s you format how scripture is copied to the clipboard about any way you want. So it was a simple Select All -> Copy Formatted -> Pasted into a .txt file. Then copy it to my laptop and run vpl niv.txt /home/bamed/.sword/modules/rawtest/niv. Then I needed to setup a .conf file in /home/bamed/.sword/mods.d/niv.conf:

[NIV]
DataPath=./modules/texts/rawtext/niv/
ModDrv=RawText
SourceType=GBF
Lang=en
GlobalOptionFilter=GBFFootnotes
Description=NIV
About=I copied the NIV from a database table I got from someone else.
TextSource=http://www.chcchurch.org
LCSH=Bible, English
DistributionLicense=Public Domain

Once that was done I opened BibleTime and now NIV is one of my translations available. I’m going to try it on the Message next, but I need to find the digital copy of it that I have somewhere.

The other thing I’ve been working on is converting the Bible Study Textbook Series of commentaries published by College Press Publishing (http://www.collegepress.com). Those of you who may have gone to OCC in years past would know them as “The Old Green Commentaries”. I know my Dad has a bunch of them. Anyway, College Press has published new commentaries since these, so they have made the whole series available for free in PDF on their website. So now I’ve downloaded them all, and I’m working on converting them to IMP format to be imported into the Sword Project. The VPL format can only be used on Bible texts, while IMP can be used on anything. It’s pretty simple as well though. Basically above each section of the commentary I put a $$$. Right now I’m going through Romans, so I’ve started the Romans commentary first. So I go to the section that deals with Romans 1:1-8, and above it I insert a line:

$$$Romans 1:1-8