What is your favorite way to read and study the Holy Bible? Here are some of my favorites, because they work with hundreds of minority language Scriptures as well as with the World English Bible. They are also almost free to use (except for whatever your device and Internet access might cost you).
Web Sites
- EBible.org, especially if you follow the “More Bible translations in more languages” link.
- Find.Bible (also known as FindaBible.org).
- InScript.org, which is similar to eBible.org/study, but has some of the limited-distribution Bibles, like the NASB and NIV on it.
- Bible.is for integrated text and audio Bibles
- Bible.com has the same Scriptures as YouVersion
- Bibles.org AKA BibleSearch
There are many more Bible web sites, but you can find links to most of them from the first two of the above sites. That isn’t all-inclusive, but many of the stragglers can be found using one of the major search engines with a phrase found in the Bible in your favorite language.
Bible study apps
There are literally hundreds of Bible study apps available for English. For Numanggang or Kapingamarangi, not so much. One of my favorite sets of Bible study apps for everyone belong to the Sword Project by the Crosswire Bible Society. All of these use the same module format, and can access the repository at ftp://ftp.eBible.org/sword/ or http://eBible.org/sword/, where the latest language update of the World English Bible and many minority-language Scriptures can be found:
- Xiphos for Windows or Linux
- Eloquent for Mac OS X
- And Bible for Android devices
- PocketSword for iOS devices
In addition to the apps listed above, an honorable mention goes to YouVersion, which is one of the first and most popular Bible apps for mobile devices. You can find it in the app stores and at Free.Bible. The developers of this Bible app draw Scriptures from the Every Tribe Every Nation Digital Bible Library, which I also share Scriptures with, so it has most of the minority-language Bibles that I host in the eBible.org Sword repository, plus many of the popular majority-language Bibles.
Another good app is Faith Comes by Hearing’s Bible.is app and web site. It is particularly good for including audio along with text of the Bible. I also share Scriptures with them for their app.
EPubs
You can download Bibles in ePub 3 format from eBible.org/epub and read them in several popular readers, including:
- IBooks for iOS devices. Just download an ePub and open it in iBooks, then you have it to read off line.
- Google Play Books for Android devices. On the My Books Page of Google Play Books web site, there is an Upload File button that lets you add your own free books.
- Gitden Reader works for both Android and iOS devices.
- Readium plugin for Google Chrome works on every platform that Google Chrome works on.
- Azardi works for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
There are others, but those are the ones that support the ePub 3 standard and that I have tried.
Amazon Kindle Devices and Apps
You can get a free .mobi ebook from eBible.org/epub and upload it to your Kindle device or app several different ways. Amazon.com provides instructions, or see Leo Notenboom’s article.
PDF Files
Portable Document Format (PDF) was started by Adobe Systems Incorporated and made into an open standard. You probably already have a PDF reader. If not, you can get it from Adobe, Foxit, or many others, for pretty much any computing platform. You can get free Bible PDF files from eBible.org/pdf in a few different sizes. These are good for reading on screen, but they really shine as a format to print. Sometimes I like to print out a passage of Scripture for a Bible study and take notes on the printed Bible pages.
Offline HTML
You can download a zipped HTML file from eBible.org/bible, unzip it into its own directory on your computer, then read it with any modern web browser. It is like reading it online, but you don’t have to be connected to the Internet to read the Bible.
Offline InScript
InScript is an HTML and JavaScript Bible browser application that runs in a web browser. It can be used offline on a local computer or device as well as on a web site. It has some nice Bible study application features, but requires no installation and leaves no trace on the host computer when kept on an external memory stick or card. Just open the main index.html file in Firefox or selected other web browsers. Google Chrome blocks this application by default, but will run it if you start Google Chrome with the command line option “–allow-file-access-from-files”, it will work, too. That usually means manually creating a startup shortcut with the full path to the Chrome executable, the command line option, and the full path to the index.html file. If the last two sentences were incomprehensible to you, just use Firefox, instead.
The easiest way to get an onffline implementation of InScript is to get it pre-made in a Treasures Library from the Digital Bible Society.
Read the Holy Bible Daily
Now you know how to get a copy of the Holy Bible to read and/or listen to. You would do well to read it every day. It will feed your spirit, strengthen your faith in God, and help you overcome obstacles in your life. The Holy Bible is unlike any other book, because the same God who inspired it keeps his Word. He really does do the good things written in the Holy Bible.