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The Sword Project has more than 200 texts available now with more on the way.
 technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

T e c h n o f i l e
'Sword' project makes hundreds of scriptures available free for reading and study on your computer


April 11, 2004


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2004, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2004, The Post-Standard

   The computer revolution has not left religion behind.
   Among the millions of documents converted to electronic form are many translations of the Bible and other religious texts. They can be read on your computer screen and easily searched to locate specific passages using an outstanding Open Source program from the Sword Project at www.crosswire.org/crosswire/sword.
   The Sword Project has more than 200 texts available now with more on the way as they are turned into electronic form. They are available in 50 different languages.
   The Sword project -- the name suggests the phrase "God's Word" -- is sponsored by the CrossWire Bible Society of Tempe, Ariiz. CrossWire's Sword Project scripture software is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux personal computers and for Zaurus and iPaq personal digital assistants (handheld PDAs). Texts come in two versions -- in the Windows format and in the Unix format. (Linux and OS X use Unix format texts.)
   Everything related to the Sword Project is free. There is no charge for any of the programs and no charge for any of the scriptural texts. Everything can be downloaded from the Sword Project Web site or from sites linked to the project site.
   I chose the Mac OS X version, called MacSword, for my daily use and found it easy to use and generally well behaved.
   I downloaded and installed 37 text modules and the main software program. Everything went smoothly once I realized how I was supposed to deal with the texts. The individual text folders (named, for example, "KJV" for the King James Version) need to be placed inside a main folder named "Modules." The "Modules" folder needs to be in the same overall folder as the program.
   Among the full-text Bible versions I installed are the Apostles' Bible, the American King James Version, the Analytical-Literal Translation, the American Standard Version of 1901, a version called "The Bible in Worldwide English," a version referred to as "The Emphatic Diaglott," God's Word Translation, the Hebrew Names Version of the World English Bible, the International Standard Version , the Joseph Smith Translation, the King James Version of 1769 "with Strong's Numbers and Morphology," Green's Modern King James Version, the Revised Standard Version, the Twentieth Century New Testament, the William Tyndale Bible 1525/1530 and the John Wycliffe Bible.
   I also installed six major commentaries, five lexicons and two devotional texts. One of the lexicons was non-Biblical -- the 1913 edition of Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language. The dictionary was a delight. Choosing "Find" from the Sword menu offered a search of any word or phrase, and clicking once on any of the brief entries that showed up in the results window gave me a larger view of the complete definition.
   Most of the Biblical texts are Protestant versions, but the Sword Project has Roman Catholic Bible texts, too. Two Douay-Rheims versions, historically associated with the official Roman Catholic Scripture, are available. Also on the list are the Jewish Publication Society's Old Testament and Jerome's Latin Vulgate Bible from 405 A.D.
   Some texts are shown as "locked" in the download list. They're ready to be added but are not yet available because of copyright problems. You'll see a form you can use to write to copyright holders of such texts urging them to make the works available.