The Bible Tool

"...The Bible Tool-- a free, evolving open source tool for exploring the Bible and related texts online. Created by CrossWire Bible Society, the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Bible Society as the first in a number of coming Bible engagement tools using an XML standard called OSIS , we provide power searching capabilities to help you engage the Bible at a deeper level.The Bible Tool began as part of an effort by the SBL and ABS to bridge the gap between academia and the church. We want both scholars and laypeople to engage the Bible, gaining contextual understanding through: * the use of technology to dig deeper into the text; * accessing scholarly articles, to understand the implications of what academic discoveries might have in understanding the context of society in Bible timesWe plan to further this effort by: * making free, open source Bible tools available which people can customize for themselves and others, built by the hundreds of technical experts who volunteer their time to the CrossWire Bible Society; * providing an OSIS editor using MS Word 2003, so you can encode your texts and make them available for others * leveraging our existing distribution channels: making the tool available soon to the 20,000 churches who have Web sites using ABS''s ForMinistry.com, and the thousands of SBL members who engage the Bible from numerous academic perspectives..."