I have all the major Bible modules purchased from either American Bible Sales, Estudysource or downloaded from this site and a few others I have picked up over the years. So, what else was there to get. Then I notice a Bible appearing in other programs (eg YouVersion on my phone and elsewhere) – the Modern English Version, which supposedly has a Pentecostal/Charismatic flavour which is sort on my ‘bent’.
I got in touch with Estudysource to find out if they had any plans to make this available as a module for Esword. Their reply included the following – “We deeply appreciate your suggestion and it is on our list of considerations, but no release date has been set.”
So during our Covid lockdown here in New Zealand I set about making a Modern English Version module. Using SQLite Database, I started copying in line by line, verse by verse from the Bible Gateway site. I soon realised this was going to take forever. On searching the net, I found a site that had SQLite files for all sorts of Bibles (looked like every Bible ever produced). I downloaded the MEV module for MyBible (how they get all these modules I don’t know) and by using SQLite and Excel and much, much patience over lockdown I was able to produce my first module.
It was very rewarding developing this – as I worked through the books, chapters and verses I saw things about Scripture I had not ‘seen’ before. As I looked at various passages, believing I was reading the Word of God, God spoke. He spoke of the history of Israel, He spoke of the plans He as for the rescuing of people from the clutches of sin, He spoke of His Son Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world and He spoke of much more.
So, the building of a Bible module became much, much more than just a technical exercise, it became much more that long hours of correcting mistakes that SQLite had made in exporting to Excel, it became much more as I corrected the ‘mistakes’ the Excel made in ‘translating’, it became a dialogue with the Living God.
Lockdown is over and I have for my personal use the Modern English Version. (Because it is under copyright, I will not be uploading it).
Bobs