What's New in Bible Software

In case you don't subscribe to their free online publication, Kevin Purcell at Christian Computing Magazine has a quick update on what the major Bible software companies are doing. (That link will open a PDF.) As he notes, there isn't a whole lot going on. Mainly companies are doing minor improvements and working on getting their software to work on various platforms.

Google Maps Gallery and National Geographic Lands of the Bible Maps

Thanks to a post on the Bible Gateway blog, I see that Google Maps recently announced the Google Maps Gallery.

Maps Gallery works like an interactive, digital atlas where anyone can search for and find rich, compelling maps. Maps included in the Gallery can be viewed in Google Earth and are discoverable through major search engines, making it seamless for citizens and stakeholders to access diverse mapping data, such as locations of municipal construction projects, historic city plans, population statistics, deforestation changes and up-to-date emergency evacuation routes. Organizations using Maps Gallery can communicate critical information, build awareness and inform the public at-large.

Basically what is happening is that organizations can share maps as overlays on Google Maps. There is a transparency slider that allows you to control the visibility of the overlay and the underlying Google Map. With the Google Map, you have the choice of displaying it as a map--with or without terrain shading--or satellite view.

Among the maps are a number of Lands of the Bible maps from National Geographic from 1938, 1946, 1956, and 1967. The citations of biblical sites does not change much in those maps, but, as you can imagine, there is a tremendous amount of geopolitical changes that occur over those years.

Making a Custom Bible Map - Accordance and ...

David Lang at Accordance recently posted a fine 11 minute video on the Accordance blog showing how to make a custom map of Genesis 19 using the map module in Accordance. It is a great feature that I don't think any of the other Bible software packages can handle. BibleWorks does include a map module, but it would be very difficult to create the kind of map you see above with the labeling and highlighting. What's more, you don't have the 3-D option that Accordance offers.

Of course, you don't always want to create your own maps. Accordance offers a number of overlays illustrating biblical events, some even with animations. There are also atlas modules available. The map module in BibleWorks also uses a more extensive system of overlays to highlight periods or books of the Bible or particular events. They also include The New Moody Atlas of the Bible which has a very good collection of maps. Logos 5 has a Bible Places Guide that is very helpful, and they have a large selection of very nice maps. (Don't buy one of the old map sets. What you want are the Bible Facts: Places and the Logos and Faithlife Infographics datasets that are included with most libraries.) All three of these programs have integration of the maps with biblical text and related resources.

Still, only Accordance has the map creation possibility that's as nice as one that David Lang created. There are two other possibilities, however.

•  One is using Google Earth. Lang's article partly caught my attention because I had occasion last fall to want to create exactly the same kind of map he did. Using this Google Earth KMZ file from the Geocoding page at OpenBible.info, I have quick access to all the biblical sites. Then I navigated around until I was able to capture the view above and put it into my PowerPoint. Compare it to Lang's map above!

• Another option is a standalone Bible mapping program called BibleMapper created by David P. Barrett. You can use version 3 for free (no limitations) or get the improved version 4 for $37. The map of the Seven Churches of Revelation is one I created in BibleMapper. One of the great virtues of this program is that any map you create is your own, and you don't need to obtain any copyright permissions or pay any costs to share your map. (Accordance allows free usage of any map you create, but they appreciate attribution. If you want to use their maps for any commercial project, however, you should contact them.)

If I'm missing something, let me know!

Related to this topic, Todd Bolen on the BiblePlaces blog recently pointed out the availability of physical 3-D topographical maps for various biblical and modern periods. (When I was a kid and we visited the USA national parks, I always used to get one of those 3-D maps of the park.) The maps are 9" x 14" and about $30 each.

Hacking the Bible

This just popped up in my Feedly... "Hacking the Bible: Inside the world of the new Bible coders—and how they will change the way you think about Scripture" You can read it online at Christianity Today. It's a really lively and fine article by Ted Olsen, a managing editor at CT.

Steve Smith, whose amazing work I've admired at OpenBible.info, is featured. They talk about the "Franken-Bible" project which I previously blogged about. There's a bunch of good stuff on Logos that's fun reading. I like Logos' Eli Evans' comment about what Bible tech is enabling: ""What we're doing here makes it very easy to run with theological scissors." I also think Logos' CEO Bob Pritchett is right when he talks about what technology enables. He says, "I like to follow rabbit trails. But I want curated rabbit trails. I want to be taken to places I'd never go to." I agree that hyperlinking is indeed an invitation to follow an endless array of rabbit trails. It's usually pretty fun, but it often leads to dead ends and is only occasionally helpful. So, yes, curated rabbit trails are needed, but even there we need to curate the curators.

There are some insightful concerns raised about atomization of the Bible (a 'vertical' reading enabled by Bible tech but one that loses sight of the context of a Scripture passage) and the role of biblical experts from the academy and the democratization of Scripture made possible by the Bible tech available at everyone's fingertips.

Ah, just read the article!

BTW, the article describes and links to Vincent Setterholm's (also at Logos) The Toracle: Oxen Law. That's a rabbit trail worth checking out for a bit!

HT: OpenBible.Info

"Presence and pixels: Some impacts of electronically mediated communication on Christian living" by Tim Bulkeley

Tim Bulkeley reports that his article, "Presence and pixels: Some impacts of electronically mediated communication on Christian living," has just been published at Review and Expositor (111,1, 2014, 56-63). I think you can read the whole article for free (at least for now) on the Sage site. HERE is the PDF. Here's the abstract:

The cultural changes we are experiencing as progressively more of our lives are digitally mediated provoke strong hopes and fears. Among many potentially striking impacts, new technologies offer new possibilities in mission. In particular, past difficulties in making good culturally appropriate Christian teaching available in developing contexts may be overcome. Yet we have hardly begun to adapt our thinking and Christian practice to this new world. The public reading of Scripture from tablets instead of print books has recently begun to provoke discussion. As well as practical concerns, the symbolism of such actions needs consideration. Christians understand these issues in the context of faith in God incarnate in Christ. Yet digital mediation raises questions about the incarnation of human contact. For all conversation is mediated, often by technologies. Some of these are familiar and so “invisible” as technology, like the acoustics of a church building, or writing on paper. Different media communicate a sense of the person communicating in different ways (sound, vision, directly, or with a time delay), and different people respond differently to these media. Our understanding of real presence needs to accommodate not only differing degrees of presence, but also different media preferences.

To give you my take on the article, I'll adapt a comment I left there.

Helpful facts, even more helpful reflection. As you might guess, I lean to the advantages (and inevitability) of the technological opportunities. Like Bulkeley , I don’t see it being a simple matter of one being better than the other. Rather, old and new media and forms of communication are simply different with inherent and potential strengths and weaknesses. To paraphrase John 4.20ff, our ancestors may have read and used the Bible the old way, but you say we must use the new technology. Which is it? The hour is coming, and is now here, when neither of those is really the point of the matter!

As for the part about the Bible, I’m imagining a day when it will be possible to have a microchip embedded in our brains. Would you choose to have a Bible embedded and instantaneously available just by thinking it? (Is this a fulfillment of Deut 6:8; 11:18 or Revelation 14:9?)

As for the communication part, Bulkeley does a good job of showing the potentials and pitfalls of technologically mediated forms. In my own experiences, I’ve had both good and bad. In part, as you noted at the end, it works to varying degrees with different kinds of people. But in defining “presence as a measure of the sense of relating to a real person,” I think one needs to consider both quality and quantity. I’m thinking of Facebook in particular. There isn’t much quality interaction there, but the frequency of it has enabled me to reconnect and ‘keep in touch’ with friends and even family that would have disappeared long ago. It also greatly improves the quality of interaction when we do have something substantive to discuss or, even better, are able to meet face to face. So, thanks again. I’m with him. (Figuratively and in a presence kind of way!) 

If you would like to comment on the article, go to Tim's page.

BTW, as another way I'm trying to communicate, I'll be offering a free MOOC in the fall of 2014 entitled "Survey of the Lands of the Bible." Within a couple months I'll say more about it on this blog, but I'm hoping to catch people interested in this new technologically opportunity.

Helpful facts, even more helpful reflection. As you might guess, I lean to the advantages (and inevitability) of the technological opportunities. Like you, I don’t see it being a simple matter of one being better than the other. Rather, old and new media and forms of communication are simply different with inherent and potential strengths and weaknesses. To paraphrase John 4.20ff, our ancestors may have read and used the Bible the old way, but you say we must use the new technology. Which is it? The hour is coming, and is now here, when neither of those is really the point of the matter!
As for the part about the Bible, I’m imagining a day when it will be possible to have a microchip embedded in our brains. Would you choose to have a Bible embedded and instantaneously available just by thinking it? (Is this a fulfillment of Deut 6:8; 11:18 or Revelation 14:9?)
As for the communication part, you do a good job again of showing the potentials and pitfalls of technologically mediated forms. In my own experiences, I’ve had both good and bad. In part, as you noted at the end, it works to varying degrees with different kinds of people. But in defining “presence as a measure of the sense of relating to a real person,” I think you need to consider both quality and quantity. I’m thinking of Facebook in particular. There isn’t much quality interaction there, but the frequency of it has enabled me to reconnect and ‘keep in touch’ with friends and even family that would have disappeared long ago. It also greatly improves the quality of interaction when we do have something substantive to discuss or, even better, are able to meet face to face.
So, thanks again. I’m with you. (Figuratively and in a presence kind of way!)