Shayne,

As you mentioned, the "Seven Dispensations" by J R Graves appears to be copyrighted and available in book format only, not digital. Unless permission is received from the copyright holder, putting it in e-Sword format would be impossible.

By the way, Isaiah heard God's Words and prophesied correctly when speaking of today's world. Our only option is to cry out to the Lord, "Here I am. Send me!"... Isaiah 6:8.

May God bless...

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Josh Bond, his staff, and the many contributors who have made BibleSupport what it is. I know that God is using it for His Glory. I also give thanks that God's Word never returns to Him void. It always accomplishes His Will and Purpose. From the Home Page:

 

Total Modules: 9,009

Total Downloads: 4,583,816

Total Uploaders: 175

Thanks for the statistics. It truly shows what can be done with a group of people coming together in God's name...

"Good" in many cases is strictly a 'subjective' term, similar to the difference betwixt 'meat' and 'milk'.  There are literally hundreds of texts available to be processed into eSword modules, but the effort to transform these texts is more than most people are willing to expend.

 

Perhaps 'value' or how a person values an eSword module would be one perspective.  Transforming an old text of a missionaries biography doesn't seem to have much value when compared to a commentary, except for the young believer wondering how he may serve Christ amongst non-believers (which are increasing daily).  Apologetics and Islam is another group of modules missing.  Vast numbers of hymnals are available to feed the hungry hearts for those willing to sit down and transform them.  Then, of course, there are the many "Complete Works of ___ (fill in the blank)" available.  Everyone should be aware of the conversion of CH Spurgeon.  Where would the Christian Church be if that lonely pastor who preached salvation on a mundane Sunday morning have given up his post before Spurgeon sat down?

 

Acorns grow into mighty oak trees, given half the chance....

Well said...

Most of us tend to forget that we have all become believers by securing different roots... and God, being gracious, allows all denominations of faith to exist. This does to designate that we all end up upon heaven's threshold, but as Larry stated... this depends on whether we want to feed ourselves on milk or meat. There's only one true source of information, and that is what God has placed within our hands... the Holy Bible. If we are going to start judging and tossing out commentaries, this should have happened long ago...

May God bless us all...

As DSaw mentioned (and as most of us already know), converting books to the digital standard for e-Sword, not only requires a published book in print form, but also a scanner, and a lot of time for preparation and proofreading. Although Shayne seemed interested enough to possibly undertake reviewing and proofreading—from his comments, it didn’t seem that he had any tools for conversion. I’m assuming this also included a scanner… the most basic tool to get any book into the digital domain. As DSaw and Shayne also implied, transcribing any book word-for-word, may take years.

Now I know BibleSupport already has a Topic Heading for “Module Requests”, but given this dilemma, another option might be to send out a “request newsletter” once every couple of months, or so, to keep members informed of new e-Sword requests of which they could take part of. With a combined community effort, this may help to expand module support to some older works before they’re lost, and with such a large community of Bible readers, some of these older books may already be in one of the member’s collections. In this regard, a newsletter may also have the benefit of increasing member involvement, and in the least, could help keep members aware of BibleSupport’s presence.

Just an idea…

Blessings to all.

Thanks Tim,

Just thought it might open up some new avenues... maybe help stimulate some people to take action...

That free Bread of God tastes sweet when we eat of it ourselves, but to give it unto others can sometimes be bitter.

Blessings...

Someone requesting or suggesting a Bible translation should never be criticized, but, rather, encouraged as an opportunity to teach others God’s Truths. Nor should there exist criticism of a contributor, such as Jeff Benner, who has spent countless hours fulfilling a purpose on his path towards God. Without people like him, we could have no possibility of extending our knowledge beyond what we already know. And just because someone teaches or asks about something we can’t understand, it doesn’t mean we shut the door and place them in a category which falls in line with what we consider incorrect. Everyone grows in faith.

The request which was made had a foundation of truth based on what God had originally transcribed through His prophets. Without that original copy, none of the other translations could ever exist. It should be our desire to posses, rather than ridicule a search for the original, and a request of that nature should be no more subjected to criticism than any other Bible currently on the market.

Lastly, this website was designed to help others study God’s Word. Understanding comes by way of God, and not by judgment based on one’s opinions. If helping others has ceased to exist in this forum, and if God is being thrown out, I will graciously step aside… as I will not be part of that.

May God help us all…

I council you to seek to place your faith in the perfect God of the New Testament, not in some perfectly technical Old Testament Hebrew text which doesn't completely exist. Follow the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law which never brought perfection or righteousness.  Also make sure you take the time to get to know the author of the Bible, the Spirit of Holiness because he leads us into all truth and a more perfect understanding of the word.

Tim, your words are completely correct. The only addition/correction I'd like to make, is that the Spirit of Law and of Jesus can be found throughout ALL Scripture, New Testament and Old. This is the fullness of understanding, why Jesus recited the Old and became the New, and the importance of why God included both. The Spirit of Holiness is found in this completeness.

May God bless...

The closest Bible I've found as you described is the Aleppo Codex uploaded by "patchworkid". Here's the link. It still has the spaces but it does not contain any extras. Hope that helps.

Blessings...

I'll agree. Having a copy of the original Hebrew writings would most definitely help in studying, and should be the foremost place of reference in understanding.

Does anyone know of an uncopyrighted source of Hebrew Scripture?

When i search the HOT for Hebrew words it does not bring back any results. Only the English book name and numbers will return in a search. How do I overcome this, Gary? Its like my hebrew font is not registering in esword at all. 

Searching in Hebrew can be tricky, and you didn't mention if you were using the e-Sword version for Mac or PC so I'll try and give you info that applies to both.

First off, if there are any cantillation marks (dots, dashes, underlines, etc.) it is nearly impossible to do any searches in Hebrew. I know I'm in the minority concerning this, but I believe this is one of the faults of modernization and revising God's Word from the original. Regardless, as these marks are not used in the HOT, you should be fine. Just make sure that you're not typing them in. Sometimes you can work around this issue by copying and pasting the fonts direct from the HOT Bible.

But if you still not getting any results, you may have a compatibility issue with fonts. The best way to overcome this is by installing a good set of Hebrew fonts, such as, Ezra SIL. Make sure this font is selected from within e-Sword as your default font in the Hebrew font option.

The last scenario is that you may have incompatibility issues or improper set up with your computer or software. Needless to say, this may run into anything from a simple fix to a hair-pulling nightmare. But as you know, the good Lord will help you through whatever problems you may face.

Hope this helps in some way, and may the good Lord help you discover His Truths in your search....

I have recently started using a Mac again (I used to have a PowerMac and now have an older MacPro) and really liked eSword HD on my iPad so I am playing with the Mac version of eSword X.

 

I do windows two ways from my Mac.

1) I remote into my Windows machine using TeamViewer.

2) I run Windows in a VM using Parallels.

 

From trying to use another one of my Bible programs on the Mac by employing WINE/CrossOver I would suggest avoiding that route. I would recommend Parallels and a VM (Virtual Machine) for running the occasional Windows App. e-Sword actually works well this way.

Just a quick note... VrtualBox by Oracle is a free alternative to running a Virtual Machine on Mac. Works great with e-Sword.

Blessings...

As Stephen has suggested, programming a conversion utility for e-Sword within the OS X platform would be the ideal solution... and if anyone is capable of doing this, it would be a great benefit to many for someone to step up to the plate.

The only other solution is to install a second operating system as Windows 7 using a virtual machine as VirtualBox. Really quite easy to install and VirtualBox is a free download. You don't have to reboot and can be easily accessed directly from your Desktop. All you need is a copy of Windows to get all the benefits of e-Sword's PC version and its many bonus modules. 

Hope this helps,

God bless....

Earnest, Mike may be correct.

Where did you store your notes, under the "Topics Notes" tab in e-Sword, or in the "Study Notes" tab?

Blessings...

Hi Earnest,

The procedure is slightly different on the Windows 8.1 platform, so I will attempt to explain. And since you are not, as you say, IT literate, it may help to have someone at your side that is familiar to Windows to assist, as this may be the only chance you have in retrieving your hard-earned notes.

First off, with Windows open, go to you menu bar at the bottom and click on the icon that looks like a folder (usually the 3rd from the left). After this opens, look up the to the top right corner and you should see a search box. Type in the exact words "TOPIC.TOPX", without quotation marks, then hit search. It may take a couple of minutes to complete the search, but if this file shows up, then we can verify if your file exists.

Underneath the highlighted file, there should be a reference to the size of the file (Example - Size: 189 KB). The default file size for an fresh e-Sword installation is typically 2 KB, meaning that it is a blank, with no notes. The file you are looking for, which is YOUR file, and which holds YOUR notes, should be well-above 2 KB file size. If you find this file, take note of where it is located, and write down the path. The information for this is also listed underneath the highlighted file, the same as the size information (Example: C:\Desktop\Documents\e-Sword). After you do this, stop, and do nothing more, then close down the window. Again, this is only to verify the file exists and that it is above 2 KB in size.

Please let me know what you find, and if its positive news, then we can move on to help e-Sword locate this file so you can retrieve your notes.

Best, and may the good Lord bless...

Hi Patrick,

I saw that your question had been up here for a while without a reply, so I though I would help. 

To begin with, the majority of e-Sword users are of the PC gender, and not of Mac, and I'm guessing that's why this went unanswered. The other thing is, finding a solution may require a bit of digging. But as a website and forum designed for all e-Sword users, its implementation also falls inline with all questions. And as I, too, am part of this community of users, I greatly apologize for any delay in replying.

Needless to say, backups are always important and should be done regularly. Losing material from seven years of work can be devastating to say the least. I'm not sure if that's what happened related to your case, but it's possible that e-Sword just "lost sight" of your files. The most typical way that this could have happened is that you accidentally moved or renamed the folder where e-Sword retains it files. The other possibility is that you may have unintentionally deleted them. Either way you may still be in luck, that is, if you haven't emptied your Trash Bin.

Typically, the e-Sword files for Study and Topic Notes are hidden to prevent accidental deletion. In order to access them and determine if the file you need is present, open up a Finder window, hold down the Option key, then head up to the Menu Bar and click on Go. In the drop-down list, you should see Library... click on this. With the Library window open, navigate to Containers\net.e-sword.e-Sword-X\Data\Documents\

Once there, say a prayer to the good Lord, and look for a file called "study.noti". This is where your personal study notes are located. By the way, this is also where your Topic Notes are located (if you've created any of those) in a file called "topic.noti".

Verify that this file is present and that its size is above 0kb. In other words, this means that the file should show several kilobytes of data, reflecting your work of seven years. If it is not there, or if it is size is 0kb, you might want to look for this same file within your Trash Bin. If so, and you find it, then place it in the same exact location mentioned above. Of course if you do regular backups via Time Machine, this file might also be located there, and can be retrieved from the same location mentioned above in the backed up files. In a similar manner you can attempt to retrieve (or re-associate) this file via the Menu Bar option in e-Sword X via "File > User Files > Import..." Just be careful, as once these files are replaced and overwritten, there's no going back.

I hope this helps, and if you have any questions, please post again. By the way, if you're unable to access the file path mentioned above, then you, or someone else, may have accidentally renamed these folders. Just do some searching and you might find a way to fix your problem. Of course we should already know, searching to fix our problems is what the good Lord always desires from us... God bless.