[Faith-talk] Looking up Scripture and words

[Tom Vos]

Ashley,
Optasia materials are of two basic kinds.
The Optasia formatted Bibles are in html format, and run in Internet
Explorer, to allow links to books, chapters and verses.
Note that the Optasia Bible Library allows you to easily link to 15
different Bible versions very easily.
Our books, including the study Bibles are in rtf format.
They open easily in any word processor.
For the NIV Study Bible I divided the concordance up into a file for each of
the letters of the alphabet.
So if you wanted to find verses that contained the word, "light"
You would open the "L" file, and do a word search for "light"
Then you could arrow down the list of references under it.

A dictionary might give you a summary paragraph about how light is used in
the Bible, with only a few references. 
The concordance will give you most, and sometimes all the references to
where a certain word is used in the Bible.
A dictionary is helpful for looking up information on a person, place or for
information perhaps on a feast of Israel.
We have several Bible dictionaries.
The NIV Bible Dictionary is a good, basic one.
The Anchor Bible Dictionary is larger and more exhaustive.
We have Bakers Dictionary of Religious Terms, which includes names and terms
from church history as well as from the Bible.
For commentaries, we try to divide them up so that the commentary on
Genesis, for example, will have many files.  Sometimes each chapter is a
separate file, but sometimes the author combines two or three chapters into
one section, because a single theme or story spreads over more than one
chapter.
You will find our resources to be very accessible for those using screen
readers.
All our resources are free to those who are blind.
Blessings,
Tom Vos, director
www.optasiaministry.org
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 19:28:02 -0500
From: "Ashley Bramlett" <bookwormahb at earthlink.net>
To: "Faith-talk,	for the discussion of faith and religion"
	<faith-talk at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [Faith-talk] Looking up Scripture and words
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	reply-type=original

Hi all,
Thanks  to Tom for pointing out the two study bibles from his ministry.
How do you read Optasia materials?
I know a concordance is to help you look up material. How is that used? Is 
it alphabetized?
How does that differ from a dictionary? Speaking of that, any bible term 
dictionaries you use?

If you get a commentary, how is that organized? Does the writer comment by 
book, chapter, or what?

I would  read Charles Stanley's commentary if there is one, and its 
accessible.

Ashley