NET Bible Blog

I have just completed an interview on the NET Bible with Andy Cheung of Midlands Bible College, UK. They have posted the interview online at http://www.midbible.ac.uk/content/view/124/.

In an earlier post I mentioned that one major producer of Bible software actually suggested that aside from the Bible itself, major reference works like lexicons and grammars are about the only electronic resources one would want to use on a computer. Commentaries, individual books, and theological journals (just to name a few things) would continue to be used in printed form, not in electronic format. The article went on to suggest that because software companies go out of business and software formats change, a large investment in electronic resources for your computer did not make sense.

In an earlier post I said that I would cover Bible software in future post(s). I realize it is going to take more than one to do this topic any justice at all. For several years now I have been teaching two courses on the use of software and Internet tools for New Testament exegesis (master's level elective) and for biblical exegesis (D.Min. level). Every year the list of available programs and resources gets longer. It's best to start with some basics.

A recent comment on my post "Using lexical tools in Bible study" asked a question about the lexical tools keyed to the Strong's numbers in the NeXtBible Learning Environment.

The current NET Bible logo uses as background an image of an ancient Greek manuscript of the Gospel of John (P66) which fades into the English translation of the NET Bible, suggesting the transparency between the NET Bible as a translation and the original language text of the New Testament.

Occasionally I'm asked by both seminary students and people at church about the use of commentaries in one's personal study of the Bible. First, let's define what a commentary is: Commentaries are books that contain comments (observations) on the biblical text. Usually the comments are arranged in verse order, that is, in the same order as the text of the Bible.

This CD marked one of the early offline software releases of the NET Bible. The CD contained the New Testament only, in Logos Bible Software format (1998). Its release coincided with the first print publication of the NET Bible New Testament version 1.0 (no longer beta version) with a color, hardbound cover.

Today the vast distance between the cultural context of the 21st century and that of first century Judea got emphasized all over again as Time Magazine reported yesterday that the controversy from last spring over the "Lost Tomb of Jesus" has been reopened again as Prof. James Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary convened the "Third Princeton Symnposium on Judaism and Christian Origins: Jewish Views of the After Life and Burial Practices in Second Temple Judaism: Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context" which met in Jerusalem earlier

Some of you may be wondering about the tagline for this blog: "Understand Yoda perfectly well you can, even if natural English speak he does not." There's a story behind this, as you might expect, but it also raises some interesting and even highly debated issues regarding modern translations of the Bible. The background for the tagline was a panel discussion that took place at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Toronto in November 2002.