Bible Gateway

Bible Gateway is a searchable online Bible, that offers its users the ability to search multiple translations of the Bible in multiple languages! To put it finely, it is one of the finest online Biblical study tools available.

"The Bible Gateway was first started in 1993 by Nick Hengeveld who was attending Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI at the time. In 1995 Nick became the first webmaster at Gospelcom.net, now Gospel.com. He brought the Bible Gateway with him, and for 13 years the Bible Gateway has been a favorite online resource. Today, the Bible Gateway team continues to add new translations, languages, and functionality to the site." - Taken from www.biblegateway.com

Review:

The interface is simple yet effective. Buttons on the left give you access to the pages on the site, and a search bar is available at the top of the site, present on every page. It allows you to search by chapter, verse or book, as well as by keyword. Imagine if you want to find all the places in the Bible where the word Messiah is used, then this tool will help you do that.

The site has a specific section to do a passage lookup. Imagine if you have a passage memorised, or perhaps written down, but you can't remember where it appears in the Bible. Enter it into the passage lookup box and it will show you where it appears in the Bible, and even show you if it appears multiple times throughout the Bible. Very useful tool.

Another search section allows you to search by keywords. You can of course also choose which version of the Bible you want to search, and you can choose to search the entire Bible, or limit your search to a specific book, or constrain the search beginning from one book, extending to another book. (eg from Exodus to Kings) You also have the option to include or exclude the Deuterocanonical books (apocrypha).

There are 22 versions of the Bible appearing in English including the New International Version, The King James Version, The Good News Translation and The Douay Rheims version.

There are 54 languages represented including English, Spanish, Chinese, Italian, French, German, and many others. The interface you use to navigate the site however, appears only in English and Spanish. So you must by fluent in one of those two languages to fully utilise the site, however, if you are more comfortable in another language then you can search the Bible in your chosen language.

You have the option to use a couple of public domain commentaries to help understand the scriptures. They are the IVP New Testament Commentaries and the Matthew Henry Commentary. These must be enabled, under the additional resources page.

You also have the option to access three dictionaries, which offer great insight into elements of the Bible. The dictionaries are the Eastons 1897 Bible Dictionary, Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary and Smith's Bible Names Dictionary. All very useful.

It is completely free to use, and you do not need to sign up to use the service.

One of my favourite parts of the site is a very neat option to listen to the Bible! It is read by Max McLean, and you can choose to listen to any book, using either real player or by flash. It has a soft melodic music background that is non obtrusive to the reading. It is easy to listen to and well read. You can also listen to readings of the Bible from any of the English translations! This is the perfect tool for those who have difficulty reading the Bible, or those with sight difficulty or the blind.

Once again this is a completely free service!

If you are wanting to buy Christian products they even have an online shop, selling lots of cool stuff, including various versions of the Bible.

You can access the site on your mobile, since there is an option that is designed specifically for mobiles.

When you reach their home page you are greeted with a verse of the day:



http://www.biblegateway.com/

Welcome

Welcome to Free Bible Tools.

The intention of this blog is to bring you the best tools and utilities available on the internet to help you in your study of the Bible.

I will give indepth reviews on sites offering free bible search, free biblical texts and commentaries, free software and more.

Please feel free to leave comments, I would love to hear from you.