Audio Treasure

Audio Treasure

This is a simple yet very effective free site which allows you to either listen to recordings of the Bible or various sermons online (only if you have winamp installed), or download them as mp3s.

I find audio bibles to be really useful, for various reasons. They are easy to listen to and allow you to take in the entire Bible quickly, within a few days. When somebody else is reading to you it gives you time to contemplate what is being said.(Although you can do this when reading, I find it easier to comprehend the text when it is being read, and when I am not concentrating on the task of reading, itself). There are names of people and places in the Bible that can be hard to pronounce, an audio Bible will pronounce them correctly for you.

The available versions are public domain editions of the Bible: The King James Version, The World English Bible and various other Bibles in numerous languages including Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic etc.

The King James Version is read by Stephen Johnston, who reads well, and is easy to listen to and understand. Light music accompanies the reading in the background.

There are also worship songs and free christian audio books, which include 'At the masters feet', 'God of all comfort', 'Inspiration of the Bible' and many more.

It is a very simple site to navigate and immensely useful, particularly for the hard of sight or the blind.

You also have the option of buying the audio Bibles and/or books on CDs for a small price.

Check out the links page for other great audio Bible sources.

http://www.audiotreasure.com/

The Gospel of John

The Gospel of John is in my opinion one of the greatest biblical movies ever made. Produced by a company called Visual Bible International, this is the third biblical movie from that company, (the first two being the Gospel of Matthew and the second being Acts). The films are unique in that they are word for word accurate translations of the Bible.

The Good News Bible is the translation used for this version, which is a good choice for readability and ease of understanding. It is almost like watching the Bible, a narrator narrates while actors play out the various roles, but it is amazingly word for word accurate to the Bible!

It is the perfect movie for those who have never read the Bible, and also much loved for those who know the Bible off by heart.

It is a big budget production. The locations are pretty accurate looking. The costumes are spot on and there are some very fine actors involved. The Narrator is the very well respected Christopher Plummer and Henry Ian Cussick plays the role of Jesus. He does a fantastic job. He plays the role exactly as I imagined Jesus to be as I read the Bible.

The film, however, is only available on Region 1 DVD, meaning it will only play in the United States. Anyone wanting to play it outside of the US must have a multi-regional player.

There are two discs. One is the original three hour theatrical version, the other disc is an edited down two hour presentation.

If you go to Amazon.com and do a search for this movie you will see an almost unanimous 5 star rating from reviewers, all who proclaim how great this movie is. (Ignore the review that states this film is a Mormon production. It is not in any way affiliated with Mormons, the reviewer there has not done the research).

So if you are looking for a great Christian film to watch for Easter I highly recommend this one.

Bible Map

This is a very useful tool that I use along side one of the other free Bible tools listed below.

It is a map of Israel featuring all of the cities mentioned in the Bible. It is quite detailed featuring hundreds of cities and towns as well as regions. They are all clickable. When you click on a city or region you are given plenty of information.

You are given the meaning of the name if applicable.

Historical background. (As well as a summary of things of great importance which appear in the Bible that took place here).

Where it appears in the Bible along with the full verses where it does appear.

Obviously you can see how it would be helpful for example if you were reading about Nazareth, and you wanted to find out where in Israel it is located, its historical background and where else it appears in the Bible.

The map can be found at the following address:

http://www.bible-history.com/geography/ancient-israel/geography-overview.html

Other useful Biblical maps can also be found at the following address:

http://www.bible-history.com/geography/helpful_maps.html

They are hosted on a website dedicated to Biblical history. It is quite simply a huge site with thousands of pages, and thousands more links to other pages on other sites covering thousands more subjects including the history of ancient cultures like Egypt, Greece, Israel, Rome etc. Church history, geography, literature and art and much more.

The site is located here: http://www.bible-history.com

Certainly go there and you will learn plenty about these ancient cultures.

I have drawn your attention to this map in particular as I feel that this is of incredible importance as a Biblical tool. It is free and very quick to use. When you use it along side other Biblical study tools it can really help you to appreciate the text in a greater way.

ccel.org

www.ccel.org - Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Imagine a virtual online library that has hundreds of classic books on Christianity, many written by the early church fathers themselves, including St Augustine. Imagine that you could read them all for free. Well imagine no more, because you have just found the Christian Classics Ethereal Library!

It contains hundreds of public domain works written by hundreds of writers throughout history on multitudes of Christian subjects. I don't believe that there is any other website collection quite like it anywhere. (If I am wrong please share with me other resources like this).

"The mission of the CCEL is to build up the church by making classic Christian writings available and promoting their use." - Taken from their site.

At first navigating the site is a little overwhelming, because there is so much to browse through! However, once you become accustomed to it, you will appreciate how incredibly useful this site is.

Browsing the library

There are options to browse by keywords relevant to subject matter, so that if, for example, you were searching for hope and love, it would then search all the text WITHIN the hundreds of books online to deliver the ones that you need. (Wow!)

You can search by book title or book author.

You can search by Bible Chapter and verse.

Early Church Fathers

You will notice that there is a section called Church Fathers which collects the writings of all the early Church Fathers covering the ante-nicene, nicene and post-nicene eras, covering the writings from the second century AD through to more modern times. I find this section to be very useful. Here you can read the writings of Polycarp, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Anatolius and many more. Special prominence has been placed on the St Augustine volumes which give a valuable insight into the growth and and understanding of the early church.


Bible Study

The section labeled study Bible allows you to find related books specific to each chapter of each book of the Bible. The sections where available offer books relating to background information on the writing and translation, commentaries written about the books, any audio bibles available, expository outlines, studies and notes.

Any of these books can be viewed online for free. You also have the option to download the books in multiple formats: pdf, microsoft reader ebook, palmbook, word document, html or rtf (rich text formatting). You are required to register to download the books in any format other than rtf. Some books may not be free for download in all formats, but you have the option of buying the book in for example pdf format.

(I have myself downloaded books in rtf from here in the past, and although this is good, the files are huge, and can be quite difficult to browse through), I would recommend either viewing them online, or downloading in a superior format, pdf, microsoft reader format etc.

Bible Browser

It has its own bible browser, so you can browse through the Bible on screen, in different translations including the American Standard Version, the Douay-Rheims, the King James Version, Webster's Bible and the New International Version and many more. It also allows you to browse Bibles in multiple languages including Chinese, Spanish, English, Dutch, Italian, Swedish etc.

The real power of this browser however, is that the Bible translation is displayed on the left side of the screen, while on the right side of the screen are options to browse the hundreds of commentaries, writings, notes etc. available in their online library. This is completely free and does not require registration to use. It is very powerful. This is my favourite and most used section of the site.


Store

It has an online store where you can buy plenty of classic books, CDs etc. There is also a very good forum with some really great posts.

If you are curious try this ccel research tool. Type in any Chapter and verse from the Bible that you would be interested in researching, press enter and it will display a list of relevant books to your search, (remember, they are all free to view online), enjoy.

Research a Bible passage: