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 Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 7:05 pm
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Hey all, I wanted to share a good website I've been using, www.esv.org. You can type in any section of the Bible, by verse, chapter, or book, and it will display the whole thing for you to read, with footnotes and everything. More usefully, you can type in any word or phrase and it will show you every single verse where that word appears. Much faster, and much more complete, than looking something up in a Bible concordance. It's very useful for either researching a topic, or if you know a quote from the Bible but don't know where it is, just type the key words in.
Of most interest is the fact that you can download MP3 files of any chapters of the Bible for free. You do have to do it one chapter at a time, it just takes a second for each, but it's probably only worth your time to download books you'll actually listen to. They are good quality and it's really nice to have them. Here's a step-by-step on how to do it:
1. On the website, type in something in the search bar (anything) to be taken to the Bible viewing page.
2. Click on the link that says "Options," in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
3. Under "Audio Options," you can choose between a couple different people reading the text. I think David Heath is best to listen to, he sounds the most normal =P But you can pick whoever you want. Just select an MP3 option, not a Flash, so you can download it.
4. After you've selected an mp3 option, click "Save" at the bottom.
5. In the search bar at the top of the page, type in whatever book you want to download, and click "Search."
6. It will display the first chapter of that book. Next to the heading with the name of the book and chapter, is a link that says "(Listen)." Give that a right click, and select "Save Link As." I suggest naming the file for the book and chapter, putting an extra zero for numbers 1-9 so they stay in order when you get past 10.
7. Now that the first chapter's saved, just below the heading are links that will take you to the chapters before and after the one you're looking at. Click on the next chapter, then repeat by right-clicking "listen" and save, and so on.
It only takes a second for each chapter. Start listening to it while you're downloading them! They already have track info filled out, so programs like iTunes will know how to classify and order them. Do it for as many chapters and as many books as you want, it's perfectly legal, and the website actually said it was fine to do this.
The site uses the English Standard Version translation. It's a recent translation (just printed in 200 cool , a literal word-for-word translation put into readable modern English. It's rather like an updated version of American Standard and New American Standard, if you're familiar with those. Translations like the New International Version (NIV) are popular because they are easy to read and understand, but those aren't literal word-for-word translations, so they aren't the most accurate. They're still very useful for casual study, of course, I'm not not saying they're bad. But the newer ESV kind of takes the best of both worlds - it's very readable, modern English, while still being literal.
Anyway, I'm not trying to sell the translation, I'm just introducing it since it's still new and some may not be familiar. =) The search tool on the site is useful, and the mp3 downloads are very good quality (and free!).
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:13 am
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