Why Your Tech Support Questions Go Unanswered

Have you checked your spam folder lately?

The most common reason that we are unable to help a PocketBible user solve a problem is that they have an over-aggressive spam filter, and it is redirecting all our helpful replies to the user’s spam folder.

This means that not only do they not ever see our answer to their problem, but they won’t see any subsequent email in which we tell them to check their spam folder. This problem happens about once a week. In most cases, the user eventually figures it out. But in the worst cases, they never do. We’ll get a message from them every day or two for a month, then they’ll curse us and give up.

Spam is an Inconvenient Fact of Life

Almost as long as their has been email, there has been spam. Various methods have been implemented to deal with it, but none are perfect. In particular, none of the fully automated methods are any good at all.

What this means is that you must manually go through all your spam every day even if it is being routed to a spam folder. Sorry to say it, but if you don’t do that, you will miss some measurable percentage of your very legitimate email.

That Applies to Us, Too

We hate sorting through spam as much as you do. We’ve been doing this for a very long time and have found the best we can do is install some kind of spam filter, then check its activity every single day. Fortunately the service we use (a link to which you’ll find a link at the bottom of this page) sends us a summary by email each day, so it’s fairly easy to scan in the normal course of business. Every morning, our tech support department gets a list of all the email that has been quarantined by our spam filter. They have to sort through it looking for email from customers. A couple times each week, we find messages that have been incorrectly categorized as spam. We release these from quarantine so that we can answer them.

We Answer ALL Tech Support Emails

If you ever send us a message and don’t get a response, you should immediately be suspicious of your spam folder. This is especially true if you use Yahoo for email. Their filters are very aggressive, to the point of even deleting email rather than delivering it to your spam folder.

We have people monitoring Tech Support tickets 7 days a week, 52.18 weeks per year. We answer every question even if it is just to ask you for more information. If you don’t get an answer from us, check your spam folder.

For Your “Allow” List

We send support email from [email protected], customer service email from [email protected], and marketing email from [email protected]. From time to time we send email to beta testers and VIPs (including any of you who have ever given us a High5!) from [email protected]. You might find it helps to add these to your email server’s “allow” list so that it will always get through. We do the same for you if we receive an email that gets incorrectly categorized as spam.

PocketBible for Windows Progress Update #14

Seriously, this should have been our first clue, right?

The last 3 months have been interesting. One of our ticking time-bombs exploded and we’re working hard to rebuild. Let me explain…

As we explained in the video that launched this project, when we originally designed PocketBible we put a lot of intelligence about specific Bibles into the program itself. This was done so that PocketBible could handle differences in versification between Bibles. A simple example is 3 John 14-15. These are two separate verses in some Bibles and are combined into verse 14 in other Bibles. As a result, if you highlight 3 John 15 in a Bible that has that verse but are reading a Bible that does not have that verse, we apply the 3 John 15 highlight to 3 John 14 (if it isn’t already highlighted), not because it’s the last verse of the chapter and there isn’t a verse 15, but because, in a 14-verse version of 3 John, verse 14 contains the contents of verse 15 and therefore is verse 15 (and verse 14).

3 John 13-14 (King James Version)3 John 13-15 (New American Standard Bible)
13I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee:
14But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.
13I had many things to write to you, but I do not want to write to you with pen and ink; 14but I hope to see you shortly, and we will speak face to face.
15Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends by name.
Some Bibles split 3 John 14 into two verses (or, if you prefer, some Bibles combine verses 14 and 15 into one verse and call it 14).

Solving issues like this was originally done in the code. So there’d be a whole sequence of steps like, “If this Bible references is in 3 John and the verse number is 15 but the Bible you want to map it to has a version of 3 John that only has 14 verses, then set the verse number to 14.” This was fine when the number of these cases was relatively small. But as we added more and more Bibles, there turned out to be hundreds of these.

The solution was to describe all the mappings in a table containing the “from” book, chapter, and verse, and the “to” book, chapter, and verse for each weird situation. The data tables that describe this mapping are huge and complicated. There are between 1500 and 2000 of these “special cases” in PocketBible. And this is just one of the required data tables. There is another table that tell us which version of each book of the Bible is in each of the Bibles (so we can tell if a particular Bible has the version of 3 John with 14 or 15 verses, for example). Another table maps each of these different versions of the books of the Bible to their names. (So that we can tell that both versions of 3 John should be called “3 John”.) A variety of other data tables help us deal with these issues.

The problem with putting this information into PocketBible (whether directly in the code in a series of “if this then do this” statements or in tables that can be iterated and processed by code) is that anytime we release a new Bible with a new versification scheme for one or more of its books, we have to update every version of PocketBible. Currently that list would include PocketBible for iOS, Android, macOS, Windows Store, Windows Desktop, and the new Windows Version — six different apps would have to be modified. Three of those six share the code that contains these tables. That is, they all use the same code in the same language to process Bible references, and it is written in C++. So once we add a new Bible to the C++ code, the iOS, macOS, and Windows Desktop products are done. But the Android app is in Java, the Windows Store app is in C#, and the new Windows app is in JavaScript. So that means the same changes have to be made in 4 different languages, then 6 different apps have to be rebuilt.

Building the app for every platform is tedious, error-prone, and time-consuming. On top of that, over time it gets to where it can’t be done. We were still supporting PocketBible for Palm OS long after it got to where it was impractical to build a new version of the app. Ditto PocketBible for Windows CE and Pocket PC. And then there was PocketBible for webOS and Blackberry that were created by outside developers. In other words, this was just a bad design.

So in 2015 we decided to redesign our LBK files so that these tasks were not performed in the code, but were all described in tables that could be packaged with each Bible. That way, the app could look at each Bible as it was installed and if it contained a more recent version of these tables than what the app already knew about, it would update its tables with those contained in the LBK file. This would allow a new Bible completely unknown to PocketBible to be released and it would function as if PocketBible knew about it all along.

When we contacted the developer of the Windows Store app about these changes, he wasn’t excited about making them because of the time involved. And when we started digging into the old (old at that time; older still now) Windows Desktop code, we realized it would be all but impossible to update that app to include compatibility with these new Bibles. (Remember also that at this time it was unclear whether the Windows Desktop app was even going to continue to be used because supposedly the world was transitioning to the awful Modern User Interface paradigm of Windows 8. So it was unclear whether or not it would be worth the time to update it.)

We decided to go ahead with the new LBK Bible format anyway. It would just mean that new Bibles wouldn’t work on the Windows platform — at least not until the Windows Store version was updated. What we didn’t know at the time was that it never would be.

As you know, this became one of the primary motivations to re-write PocketBible for Windows. The new version already implements compatibility with the new LBK format for Bibles.

Psalm 68:11-14 NASBPsalm 68:12a-15 NAB
11The Lord gives the command;
The women who proclaim good news are a great army:
12“Kings of armies flee, they flee,
And she who remains at home will divide the spoils!”
13When you lie down among the sheepfolds,
You are like the wings of a dove covered with silver,
And its pinions with glistening gold.
14When the Almighty scattered the kings there,
It was snowing in Zalmon.
12aThe Lord announced the news of victory:
13a“The kings and their armies are in desperate flight.
12bAll you people so numerous,
14awill you stay by the sheepfolds?
13bEvery household will share the booty,
14bperhaps a dove sheathed with silver,
14cits wings covered with yellow gold.”
15When the Almighty routed the kings there, the spoils were scattered like snow on Zalmon.
This is the same passage in two different Bibles. Verse division is completely different and involves the rearranging of the text and suffixes on the verse numbers.

What we didn’t realize is that we had been lying to ourselves about no longer needing to update the code in PocketBible when a new Bible was released. There were conditions under which that lie was definitely true. But there were still small, special cases scattered throughout the code and not handled by a data table in the LBK file. For example, some Bibles contain verses with suffixes, like Isaiah 14:25b and Psalm 68:12a, 12b, 13a, 13b, 14a, 14b, and 14c. In the apocrypha, Sirach has a chapter called “Prologue” that is called “Forward” in some Bibles. Esther has chapters A-F in addition to its numbered chapters. While we could map all of these verses to their corresponding verses in other Bibles using the tables that we had moved into the LBK file, when we wanted to print out the Bible reference “Psalm 68:12b” there was a piece of code that got called to look at the stored verse number (which was 14 in this case — 12a was 12, 13a was 13, and 12b was 14) and return the correct “spelling” of that verse number (the 14th verse in Psalm 68 is “12b”).

This all came to the boiling point with the pending release of several new and updated Bibles. While updating the data tables that would make these new Bibles work on any version of PocketBible including the new Windows app, I realized I would also have to deal with some of the special cases in the code itself. And that meant doing the very thing that we had told ourselves we’d never need to do again — simultaneously updating the iOS, Android, macOS, and new Windows versions of PocketBible.

The only reasonable plan forward is to finish what we started back in 2015. So for the last couple of months I’ve been working in both our BookBuilder app and the macOS version of PocketBible (since its code is easiest to work with while working on BookBuilder) to move special cases out of the code and into data tables, then adding code to write those data tables into the LBK file, then adding code to read them into PocketBible when necessary. For each special case in the code, the code has to be rewritten to use the data tables instead. All of this has to be tested and will have to be tested on each platform into which we roll this new code.

What this means is that once I finish doing this in the macOS version, I need to do the same in the iOS version (should be quick since it’s the same code that is used in both the macOS and iOS versions), then re-write it in Java for Android, then release all those new versions to their respective stores, then update the new Windows version (re-write for a third time, this time in JavaScript) and test it there.

So that’s what I’ve been doing so far this year. How’s your 2023 going?

Meanwhile…

In the meantime, we’re moving on to Advanced Feature Set features in the Windows version.

The ability to create saved layouts has been implemented similar to how it exists in the macOS version. You can create a new layout, give it a name, and it will appear as a tab across the top of the screen. These tabs can be dragged around to re-order them, and they can be renamed. This will get awkward if you have more than a handful of layouts, but should work for most people who would like to dedicate a screen layout to devotional reading and another to study.

Screenshot showing 3 layout tabs: “Default Layout”, “Greek and Hebrew”, and “Today”. When “Today’s Reading” is selected on the toolbar, we’re taken to the “Today” tab and our devotional goes to the reading for today (which was March 17, 2023). Note that the date at the top of the pane (January 1) is incorrect; this is a debug build with some diagnostic code in place.

Related to the above, we’ve added a toolbar button labelled “Today” that will activate a devotional and take you to today’s reading. If you have a layout named “Today”, this button will activate your layout named “Today” and show today’s reading in the active devotional. This is not unlike the same feature in the macOS version of PocketBible.

Setting voice preferences. Note that we’re running on a Mac here, so the available voices are those from macOS. They would be different on Windows.

Quite a bit of progress has been made on implementing a “Speak” feature. The app uses the synthesized speech voices built into Windows to read to you. You can read the selected text, the selected verse(s), or start reading at the top of the page and continue until you tell it to stop. Toolbar buttons have been added to control this feature. You’ll be able to choose your voice and the rate at which it is speaking. Different voices will be available for English, Spanish, and Greek, assuming you have them installed. This will all be similar to the macOS version, which uses the synthesized voices built into macOS.

Some smaller tasks have also been accomplished:

  • Ability to remove an installed book.
  • Solved some very tricky issues related to date calculations in devotionals.
  • More tricky issues related to going to a particular place in a book (say the reading for today in a devotional) and the program getting confused about where it was at.
  • Better detection of AFS subscription changes and how that affects options you may have selected that require an active subscription.

No, Not That Apple

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden by Wenzel Peter

Because we’re a Bible software company and because we produce software for Apple devices (iOS and macOS), we sometimes hear from people who are concerned because of Apple’s deep connections to evil and the influences of Satan. The most frequent evidence cited is the Apple logo, which is clearly the same apple from which Eve took a bite before handing it off to her husband, thus condemning all of humanity.

First of all, the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not an apple. Apples grow on apple trees. You’ve never seen a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, so you don’t know what its fruit looks like. Or tastes like. And the Bible just says “the fruit”, not “the apple”.

So we could stop there and move on to a more useful topic. But let’s continue.

The Original Logo

Ignoring for a moment that there was no apple in the story of the fall in Genesis 3, and therefore the Apple apple could not refer to the Eden “apple”, it’s reasonable to ask, “Then where did the Apple logo come from?”

The original logo of Apple Computer Co. was this woodcut. In it, we see Sir Isaac Newton about to “discover” gravity when an apple falls on his head. The story is undoubtedly apocryphal, but, just like we imagine naked Adam and Eve gorging themselves on apples behind conveniently arranged foliage, the image of Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree in his Sunday best while reading a book is how we imagine gravity being discovered.

The falling apple inspired Newton to think about gravity. The name “Apple Computer Co.” stands for inspiration and discovery. That’s what the company wanted to be identified with. Hence the incorporation of the apple (and Isaac Newton — a God-fearing Christian, by the way) into Apple’s logo.

The Modern Logo

Very early in their history, the folks at Apple discovered it was difficult to reproduce this complex image on their products. So they reduced it to the essential image of the silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it.

“Aha!” you might exclaim. “That’s the bite by which Eve disobeyed God!” You would exclaim that right before I smacked you upside the head and reminded you that the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not an apple, but rather was the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

No, the bite out of the Apple logo apple serves three purposes. First, it distinguishes the silhouetted apple from the similar-looking cherry (which is also not the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, by the way). Second, it is a play on the word “byte”, the technical term for 8 bits of computer memory*. Finally, it is an homage to famed computer science pioneer Alan Turing, who died by his own hand and was found with a half-eaten apple at his bedside.

As tempting as it is to don my tinfoil hat and go looking for conspiracies behind every (apple) tree, I’m not biting. Not on this one. Sorry.


* A byte is 8 bits of memory. A half-byte (4 bits) is called a nybble. Yes, we computer nerds are a witty lot.

PocketBible for Windows Progress Update #13

It’s been a while since I posted an update. With the madness of Christmas weekend behind us, I thought I’d take a moment while the house was still quiet to go back through the last three months (yes, it’s been that long) and let you know where things stand.

First, let me say that this was a slow quarter for progress. It has gotten to where I (Craig) am usually the only programmer working on this project and the end of the year has required me to turn my attention to other things. Probably the biggest of these was wrapping up my 7-Minute Bible so that we could finally get that out the door. It was the result of several years of work that required reading all the way through the Bible multiple times, including a very interesting final pass (performed mostly in the 3 months prior to release) to add subject headings throughout the text. If you want an exercise in really learning the Bible, I suggest you create an outline of the entire text for the purpose of adding your own subject headings. I speak from experience.

During this same time I negotiated contracts for 2 new Bibles, 2 significant updates (NRSV and NET), and 2 minor updates. In addition I spent quite a bit of time trying to work with a new publisher (new to Laridian, not new to publishing) who refused to tell us whether or not digital files existed for any of the titles we wanted, refused to provide any sample files so we could understand how difficult they might be to tag, and refused to describe (even in the most basic terms) what value they have added to several public domain titles to justify licensing their version of the text vs. just finding a public domain source. We have been unable to work with this publisher, who insists that the other software publishers just sign the contract without asking any questions about what they’re going to get.

On top of this, 2 of the Bible contracts were perhaps the most poorly written I have ever seen. One wanted a fixed dollar amount per unit sold, to be negotiated later (we’re negotiating now — how about we include a discussion of what this is going to cost). They wanted to write the contract as being between Laridian, Inc. and a “nickname” they have for the imprint under which the Bible is published (that is, not a legal entity). In that situation, they would have no legal obligation to uphold their end of the deal.

The other poorly written contract required that we submit every new update to PocketBible to them for review before releasing it for you to use. And if we ever stopped selling their Bible, we’d have to stop distributing PocketBible. In addition, there were very specific guidelines for how they wanted their Bible formatted. Unfortunately, it was worded in a way so that it applied to every Bible we published. It wouldn’t have allowed you to control the widths of the margins, the font, or the font size. And wouldn’t have allowed us to distribute some Bibles at all. Their response to these concerns was, “Everyone else just signs this.”

Finally, this quarter is when we update our PocketBible Library Edition collections. This year we added a new Emerald Edition with a significantly expanded selection of books. This required both a review of available products that weren’t already in the Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum libraries and a review of royalties and other contract restrictions. It also required revisions to the script that creates the comparison chart on our website. You would think this would be easy, and it isn’t bad. The hard part is that it automatically calculates your personal upgrade price, and that has to be carefully updated to include the new resources in the Emerald and other 2023 collections.

OK let’s get into this…

New Features

The active study tab was made to persist between sessions so that you can exit the app and relaunch it later and the screen should look like you never left.

We added a “new note” button for notes. This seems obvious, but on other platforms, you add a note by right-clicking (or long-clicking) on some text then selecting the option to add a note from the context menu that appears as the result of your right/long click. Adding a Journal note is only a little easier — a button appears on the note editor view. For the new Windows version, we expanded the behavior of that button so that it works for Bible and book notes as well as Journal notes. By default, the new note is added to the “current” verse for a Bible (the top verse on the screen), but you can also just type a Bible reference to add the note to any arbitrary verse.

Throughout development, searching has been a background process so that long searches can happen while you’re doing other things in the app. This has presented some problems related to being able to get this work in a production build of the app (that is, a build of the app that can run on your machine and not just one of ours). It works reasonably well in our internal development builds but since Electron apps are not really designed to be able to spawn new threads, it has been challenging to get a production build to work. To get around this, we moved searching into the main thread. This makes the program less responsive during searches, but searches don’t take very long. We’ll have to continue to work on this but at least we’re in a position where the program could be released as-is and it would be acceptable.

Last time I mentioned the ability to attach custom accelerator keys to most program functions. The user interface for this feature was enhanced significantly to make it easier to find the function you’re looking for.

The new app will have a selection of color schemes much like the iOS version of PocketBible. We took a couple days and finalized the full set of color schemes and divided them between standard and advanced feature sets. We made the custom color scheme feature only accessible if you own an Advanced Feature Set subscription.

One of the reasons we haven’t implemented a custom color scheme option on other platforms is that there are too many variables that have to be considered and too many colors that need to be defined. For example, the shade of red you choose for “words of Christ” could be invisible against a dark background. To help both you and us to create color schemes, we added a feature that displays the WCAG contrast level for each text or icon color along with an indication of its acceptability. There are three levels of acceptance: OK, bad, and bad for small text. This doesn’t address issues related to color blindness or other vision impairment, but we figure you can handle that on your own — if you’re able to distinguish the text from the background, then it must be OK. If you are unable to distinguish text from background in one of our built-in schemes and you don’t own the AFS (and therefore can’t customize the theme), you can probably find a different color scheme that will work.

Toward the end of this reporting period, significant progress was made on supporting multiple saved layouts if you own the Advanced Feature Set. Tabs are displayed for each layout, similar to the macOS version. Tabs (layouts) can be created, renamed, deleted, and re-ordered.

Finally, with respect to creating a production build, we made quite a bit of progress. We believe we can build the app in its final format, but we’ve yet to see it packaged into an exe that can be distributed to users. But we’re much closer to doing that than we have been to date.

Little (And Not So Little) Things

  • Many small tweaks were made throughout with respect to font sizes, colors, and wording of the user interface text.
  • Operations on selected verses (such as “copy” and “add bookmark”) were not retrieving the selected verses correctly.
  • The program was crashing while trying to update the title bar when no book was open.
  • Switching from having the study pane on the left to having it on the right resulted in corruption of the user interface. Ditto switching from right to left.
  • There were versification issues in bookmark lists, highlight lists, and note lists. These items could be appear to be attached to the wrong verse.
  • There were problems being able to consistently open “newer” Bibles (the ones that don’t work with the current Windows versions of PocketBible). This was related to the fact that they carry information with them that makes them work on macOS, Android, and iOS. This information was not always being interpreted correctly.
  • Features weren’t getting added correctly when you upgrade from the standard to advanced feature set or when your Advanced Feature Set expires.
  • The screen wasn’t being updated after searches were complete. Search hits that you could see on the screen were not being highlighted, and highlighted results from the previous search remained visible.
  • Interlinear rows and Strong’s numbers weren’t using the right color.

To-Do List

Since I posted this last time, here it is again…

Bugs

  • Thoroughly test back/forward. May be capturing view state for history too often, like after normal scrolling.
  • If book panes get too small, it’s easy to scroll well past the end and confuse the loader.
  • Go To pane doesn’t appear to scroll to the correct location for devotionals. Current reading is correct but may not be scrolled into view.
  • Handle versification issues when following links. Links that begin or end on verses that don’t appear in the active Bible should still get resolved.
  • Font size changes may not be being recognized when switching to the bookmark list.
  • Manage input focus throughout.
  • Not search appears to start a search on mount(); never finishes.

Note editor/viewer

  • (Low Priority) See if we can honor newlines in plaintext and retain those in the rich editor. Right now they are retained in the viewer but not the editor.

Note search

  • (Low Priority) Switch to enable/disable enhanced search (even for book searches where it defaults “on”)

Search

  • (Low Priority) Figure out how to move search back into its own thread; solve problem of syncing SourceManager and other functionality between threads.

User Data

  • Verify we’re tracking the last-synced customer and don’t sync when it changes.
  • Verify we’re always requesting data from the server when we need to and saving when we should.
  • Use the logged-in customer rather than the test customer.

Advanced Feature Set

We will release the standard “free” version before finishing AFS features.

  • Journal (partially implemented)
    • Handle AFS state changes.
    • Handle delete operation better.
    • Solve duplicate Journal notes problem.
  • Navigator
  • Autostudy
  • Listen (may not be possible due to weird Chromium “security” issues)
  • Library Search
  • Saved Desktops (partially implemented)
    • Today button
  • Preview when hovering over links

Prepare for Release

  • Finish resolving issues related to doing a release build
    • Search task
    • Locations of pre-installed books and images
    • Locations of image caches; rendering caches
  • Onboarding
  • Website
    • Add platform landing page and catalog page for the app.
    • Add catalog page for AFS subscription.
    • Remove other Windows platforms (consider leaving the desktop version for Win7 die-hards).

What’s Your Excuse for Not Reading the Bible? #5

Rubens, Peter Paul. The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek. 1626.
Oil on panel, 65.5 x 82.4 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

This is the fifth in a series of articles on common excuses for not reading through the Bible.

I’ve spent the last 40+ years studying the Bible, but not necessarily trying to read each word from cover to cover. Several years ago I began setting aside time each day just to read the Bible, with the goal of getting through the whole thing over the course of a year. Having spent many years coming up with excuses not to read the Bible this way, I thought I’d record them here for you. But take note: I’ll be shooting them down in the end, so don’t get your hopes up.

Excuse #5: Why bother reading the entire Bible anyway?

It can be reasonably argued that we only need to read the New Testament.

We meet Jesus in the Gospels. One of the things I like about reading a different translation of the Bible is re-reading the Gospels and re-meeting Jesus. Same characters, same events, but different words so that it sounds fresh and makes you think.

The book of Acts is both an adventure story, as Paul travels thousands of miles on foot to establish churches and preach the gospel, and it is where we first see the teachings of Jesus being put into action by his disciples.

The Epistles address the kinds of issues we face in our churches. Your issues will be different from mine, but they’re all covered.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ to the Apostle John tells us about the future. Well, it does with imagery and symbols, but it does nonetheless.

What could possibly be in the Old Testament that would benefit us in any way? I mean, once you have a general idea of what’s there then what’s the point of slogging through it? Creation? Yep; got it. Flood? Know about that. Chosen people? The Jews; heard about ’em. Exodus from Egypt, the Law, the tabernacle, wandering in the wilderness, taking of the promised land, establishment of a king and kingdom, building of a temple, division of the kingdom, good and bad kings, and deportation? Sure, fine, whatever. Return to the land, rebuilding of the temple, promise of a messiah? Yes, yes, I know.

The Familiarity of Home

I was never an athlete, but at 50 years old I started running because my heart was trying to kill me. I started slow. And dumb — the first time I ran a mile, I did it by running straight away from my house, then I had to walk back. It took time for me to figure out that I should run a circular route so I’d end up at home.

Eventually, I ran into parts of my neighborhood that, while just blocks away, were unfamiliar to me. A curious thing began to happen: my concept of “home” was expanding. My “home” went from the yard I mowed every week to an entire neighborhood. My “neighbors” were not just the ones who lived next door to me, whose names I couldn’t remember but whose faces were familiar, but now included a woman a mile away who was always out on her front porch smoking a cigarette. And after you run past the house a few times you happen to see a woman dropping off some kids, and realize the smoking lady is a grandmother who watches her grandkids while mom works.

When we read the entire Bible and not just the few passages our preacher quotes on Sunday morning, our spiritual neighborhood expands. We meet more of our biblical neighbors. We discover Job’s dark sense of humor, not just his suffering. We find that the woman at the well was no unclean Gentile, but, like Jesus, could probably trace her lineage back to Jacob, but through Manasseh and Ephraim. Her debate with Jesus over the correct mountain on which to worship was not the idle babble of some random pagan but accurately stated a religious difference between the remnant of Israel that returned and settled in Shechem, and that of Judah, which settled in Jerusalem.

We also begin to appreciate our own place in history; especially in the history of how God has related to his creation through the ages. Familiar New Testament passages take on new meaning as we see similar thoughts being expressed hundreds of years before. And we’re amazed at the degree to which the Old Testament prophets accurate predicted the events of the New Testament.

Continuity of History

I like to read the Bible chronologically. The more I do this the more I begin to see the entire Bible as one long story. When I start reading Genesis, I will first read John 1:1-5:

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made through him. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.

It reminds me that this is a book that isn’t just ultimately about Jesus, but it’s literally the story of Jesus. I like to describe the logos or “the Word” or “the Word of God” as God’s message — what God has to say. That message was embodied — took on human flesh — in Jesus. Jesus is the embodiment of what God has to say. In Genesis, God spoke and the universe came into existence — that is, without that spoken message from God, that message that we know as the person “Jesus” — nothing was made that has been made.

God wants to have a relationship with humans; humans rejected God; God punished them and selected one family with which to start over; God tried giving them laws, tried living among them in a tabernacle, tried giving them a king they could see — but none of these things restored that relationship he originally had wanted. So he said he would send a prophet, then the “righteous branch” of David.

All of this happens before we even get to the New Testament. When reading chronologically, you come out of the Old Testament reading Malachi, which is as big of a build-up and as big of a cliff-hanger as you get in the Bible.

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me! The Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple. Behold, the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, is coming!”

You come out of the Old Testament knowing that a prophet like Elijah is coming, and you read about John the Baptist. You know how it began in the Garden, how humans messed it up, and you know the only way this is going to every work is if God comes down here and does it himself. And then he does in the next day’s reading. Hollywood couldn’t write this kind of story.

And you wanted to skip the Old Testament — especially the prophets.

Jesus Death Has No Meaning Apart from the Old Testament Law

This is why some people get Jesus all wrong. They haven’t read the Old Testament. They say, “Jesus died as an example.” An example of what, exactly? “Well, Jesus died to show us he loved us.” Couldn’t he have just bought us flowers? How does just dying for some random crime (threatening to destroy the temple, I guess — of which he was innocent) demonstrate ‘love’? “He died for his disciples.” In what way? None of them were being threatened with death — he didn’t die instead of them.

But now insert the Law. Jesus was innocent of his crime, like an unblemished lamb. Jesus died in our place, like that lamb does when it gives its life on the altar to satisfy God’s justice.

At the same time, Jesus’ sacrifice was different. The next day, the Old Testament priest had to sacrifice another lamb, then another the day after that. But Jesus needed to die just once because he perfectly satisfied God’s need for sin to be punished.

The New Testament tells us that Jesus became a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. If you haven’t read the Old Testament, you don’t recognize what the New Testament is talking about. Melchizedek was a priest of Yahweh before Abraham, before Isaac, before Moses, before Aaron, before the Law. (And FYI, he was a contemporary of Job, which you won’t know if you don’t read the Old Testament, and if you did read it, you won’t know it if you read it in Bible order after the book of Esther instead of in chronological order.) He took a tenth of the spoils of Abraham’s battle with Chedorlaomer in the Valley of Siddim before the tenth (or “tithe”) was written into the Law. Jesus isn’t a high priest in the way that Aaron was a high priest; he’s of an entirely different order. An earlier order that wasn’t under the Law.

You won’t know this if you don’t read the Old Testament.

It’s great that you want to read the Bible, and it’s fantastic that you want to read and understand the New Testament. But it’s just one part of the story. And it’s a part that’s going to seem mighty strange if you don’t know what came before it.

What’s Your Excuse for Not Reading the Bible? #4

Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This is the fourth in a series of articles on common excuses for not reading through the Bible.

I’ve spent the last 40+ years studying the Bible, but not necessarily trying to read each word from cover to cover. Several years ago I began setting aside time each day just to read the Bible, with the goal of getting through the whole thing over the course of a year. Having spent many years coming up with excuses not to read the Bible this way, I thought I’d record them here for you. But take note: I’ll be shooting them down in the end, so don’t get your hopes up.

Excuse #4: I’m not a levitical priest. I don’t need lessons in animal dissection.

Several long passages in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Ezekiel describe, in minute detail, how to cut up, clean, discard, wave, dip one’s thumb into, and burn a variety of animals. These instructions were extremely important to the priests who ministered in the tabernacle and later, the temple. But beyond knowing that these sacrifices were done and what their purpose was, we don’t really need the details. We won’t be donning our ephods and slitting the throats of sheep during the Sunday morning worship service any time soon.

The passages I’m talking about go beyond “sacrifice a bull to Yahweh”. They explain how it is to be done — in detail. This makes sense in context, since these are literally instruction manuals for Aaron, his sons, and their descendants.

5The anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull, and bring it to the Tent of Meeting. 6The priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle some of the blood seven times before Yahweh, before the veil of the sanctuary. 7The priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of sweet incense before Yahweh, which is in the Tent of Meeting; and he shall pour out the rest of the blood of the bull at the base of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the door of the Tent of Meeting. 8He shall take all the fat of the bull of the sin offering from it: the fat that covers the innards, and all the fat that is on the innards, 9and the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the loins, and the cover on the liver, with the kidneys, he shall remove, 10as it is removed from the bull of the sacrifice of peace offerings. The priest shall burn them on the altar of burnt offering. 11He shall carry the bull’s skin, all its meat, with its head, and with its legs, its innards, and its dung 12—all the rest of the bull—outside of the camp to a clean place where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire. It shall be burned where the ashes are poured out. — Leviticus 4:5-12

Yeah, but there’s not a lot of these verses, right?

I counted 468 verses (12,866 words) on this subject. That’s around 1.7% of the text (counting by words). If you’re reading the Bible in a year, you’ll spend just short of one whole week reading nothing but procedures for wringing the necks of doves and removing the lobes that cover the liver of bulls.

But it wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t important!

These details are absolutely important — if you’re a descendant of Levi ministering in the tabernacle or temple. But a more general understanding of the Old Testament sacrificial system is all that is needed for Christians trying to read and understand the Bible today. We need to know that God required a blood sacrifice for sin. Then we can understand what we read in Hebrews:

1For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near. 2Or else wouldn’t they have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins? 3But in those sacrifices there is a yearly reminder of sins. 4For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. — Hebrews 10:1-4

11Every priest indeed stands day by day serving and offering often the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins, 12but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, 13from that time waiting until his enemies are made the footstool of his feet. 14For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. — Hebrews 10:11-14

One of the fascinating things about the Law is that it ostensibly existed as a guide for its followers to make themselves righteous before God, but that in reality its purpose was to teach us the futility of believing that merely following a set of rules can make us right with God. This more subtle and enlightened (i.e. “basic Christian”) understanding of the Law makes the idea of spending a week learning how to dissect a goat in a way that pleases God even less rewarding than it literally is.

Save yourself a week

I skim and skip these passages when I run into them. I give you permission to do likewise. Don’t let a description of the fat around the kidneys keep you from getting all the way through the Bible.

What’s Your Excuse for Reading Bible the #3 Not?

This is the third in a series of articles on common excuses for not reading through the Bible.

I’ve spent the last 40+ years studying the Bible, but not necessarily trying to read each word from cover to cover. Several years ago I began setting aside time each day just to read the Bible, with the goal of getting through the whole thing over the course of a year. Having spent many years coming up with excuses not to read the Bible this way, I thought I’d record them here for you. But take note: I’ll be shooting them down in the end, so don’t get your hopes up.

Excuse #3: The events in the Old Testament are out-of-order and confusing.

Christianity and the Jewish faith from which it sprang are somewhat unique among the belief systems of the world in that they have a rich connection to human history that is essential to understanding them. Christianity isn’t a philosophical system that suddenly developed in the mind of the Apostle Paul some 2000 years ago. It claims to have started in the very creation of space and time. Its details were revealed in God’s work of creation, in direct revelation to selected humans over thousands of years, and in an historical, first-person manifestation of God to humans in the person of Jesus Christ.

We could choose to ignore the gospels and just read the New Testament epistles to discover Christian doctrine, but our understanding is immensely enhanced when we understand the life and teachings of Jesus from the gospels. We could read just the New Testament, but we won’t understand the work of Jesus on the cross without some knowledge of the job of the Levitical priesthood from the Old Testament. We could try to live lives without sin, but won’t understand the futility of that goal if don’t know about the Mosaic law from the Old Testament. We could simply accept God’s choosing of Abraham, but won’t understand the motivation of this choice unless we have read about antediluvian life and the Noahic flood. We would be bewildered by the expectations of some arbitrary deity that destroyed all life in the flood unless we also understand who that deity is and what he did in the first chapters of Genesis.

How Are the Books of the Bible Arranged?

When we sit down to read the Bible, it appears to begin at the beginning of time in Genesis and end with the eternal state that follows the destruction and recreation of the known universe in Revelation. But once we know the Bible, we realize that everything in between is a jumbled mess.

The books of the Bible are arranged by genre, not by chronology. The Old Testament begins with the Pentateuch, or the books of the Law. Next are books of history, then books of wisdom and poetry, then the prophets. The New Testament starts with the gospels — 4 different accounts of the life of Jesus — then an historical book, Acts, followed by various letters written to churches and individuals, then the record of a revelation given to the Apostle John.

The Messed-Up Chronology of Kings and Chronicles

Constable, Thomas L., Dr.. “Constable’s Bible Study Notes”. Marion, IA: Laridian Inc., 2021.

The Old Testament starts out in chronological order, but fairly quickly gets confusing. The books of Kings and Chronicles cover much of the same material. If you’re reading through the Bible in a year, cover-to-cover, you’ll read 1 Kings in April and 2 Chronicles in May. As a result you’ll be re-reading the same events twice. On top of that, the order of events described within a single book is often not correct. For example, Rehoboam is king in Judah in 1 Kings 12, but isn’t actually crowned king until two chapters later. Then (a month later in your reading plan), he becomes king again in 2 Chronicles 10 before becoming king again two chapters later.

The Messed-Up Chronology of Job

The biblical character Job is among the most ancient persons in the Bible. He is believed to be a contemporary of Abraham (circa 2000 BCE). In the traditional 66-book Bible, the story of Job is found after the book of Esther and before the book of Psalms. The book of Esther describes events in Persia around 480 BCE, around the time that the first remnants of the Jews were returning to Judah after being deported. Most of the Psalms date to the time of King David, 500 years earlier (around 1000 BCE). Based on what you read before and after Job, it would be easy to get the impression that Job was a Jew (he was not), or that he was a contemporary of Saul, David, and Solomon (he was not), or that he lived after the deportation and captivity of Israel and Judah (he did not).

This isn’t just a matter of dating Job correctly. Reading about Job before meeting Abraham helps us better understand God’s relationship with humans at this point in history. Job didn’t have the benefit of God’s direct revelation to Abraham, nor of the Mosaic Law. But he still had an understanding of God’s character and holiness. Like Melchizadek (who may have been a contemporary of Job), he was a worshiper of Yahweh at a time when we traditionally picture humanity in darkness, awaiting the more well-known revelation of Yahweh to Abraham and eventually to Moses. His story challenges us to come to a better understanding of how God’s relationship with his creation morphed over time.

To Whom Did the Prophets Prophecy?

All of the prophets are lumped together at the end of the Old Testament, even though much of their work happened before the captivity of Israel and Judah, and certainly before the return of a remnant of the people to the land.

Conclusion

All of this confusion leads to a paradoxical conclusion: It’s necessary to understand the whole Bible before you can read and understand any of it. You need an historical framework when reading the Bible “out of order” (that is, reading it “in order”) so that you can reorganize it in your head as you read it.

I would strongly recommend finding a chronological reading plan for PocketBible and reading through the Bible in calendar order. You’ll be surprised how much your understanding of God improves when you can put his relationship with his creation in historical order.

What’s Your Excuse for Not Reading the Bible? #2

This is the second in a series of articles on common excuses for not reading through the Bible.

I’ve spent the last 40+ years studying the Bible, but not necessarily trying to read each word from cover to cover. Several years ago I began setting aside time each day just to read the Bible, with the goal of getting through the whole thing over the course of a year. Having spent many years coming up with excuses not to read the Bible this way, I thought I’d record them here for you. But take note: I’ll be shooting them down in the end, so don’t get your hopes up.

Excuse #2: I get bogged down in the endless genealogies (the dreaded “begats”)

If you’ve tried to read through the Bible you know the frustration of happily reading along, then running into a long list of “so-and-so begat so-and-so”. You want to be faithful and read every word, but come on — there are a lot of random, unpronounceable names here.

Somebody told me once that there are only 25 such genealogies in the Bible — suggesting I should just buckle down and keep reading. I think they severely underestimate the problem. Now, to be fair, when trying to count such lists, it is difficult to define what constitutes a purely “genealogical” passage. Some are lists of names are mostly there to describe where people settled. They just happen to be organized by family. Others are lists of related people along with their responsibilities in the service of the tabernacle, temple, or army. A few are census records, which are naturally organized by family. So the exact number of genealogies could be subject to interpretation

In the end it doesn’t matter. When you run into this passage, you know it’s boring, no matter how you classify it (1 Chronicles 1:1-27)

1Adam, Seth, Enosh, 2Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, 3Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, 4Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

5The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 6The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Diphath, and Togarmah. 7The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Rodanim.

8The sons of Ham: Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. 9The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabta, Raama, Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 10Cush became the father of Nimrod. He began to be a mighty one in the earth. 11Mizraim became the father of Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, 12Pathrusim, Casluhim (where the Philistines came from), and Caphtorim. 13Canaan became the father of Sidon his firstborn, Heth, 14the Jebusite, the Amorite, the Girgashite, 15the Hivite, the Arkite, the Sinite, 16the Arvadite, the Zemarite, and the Hamathite.

17The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, Aram, Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshech. 18Arpachshad became the father of Shelah, and Shelah became the father of Eber. 19To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan. 20Joktan became the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 21Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 22Ebal, Abimael, Sheba, 23Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan. 24Shem, Arpachshad, Shelah, 25Eber, Peleg, Reu, 26Serug, Nahor, Terah, 27Abram (also called Abraham).

To make matters worse, this is just the first 27 of 397 verses that make up the first 9 chapters of 1 Chronicles, all of which are lists of names.

Out of curiosity, I made a detailed list of all the genealogies, census records, and lists of people I found in the Bible. I found 38 overt genealogies, 53 other lists of (sometimes related) people, and 5 census records (family names and counts). Together, these passages account for 3.5% of the text of the Bible. 3.5% doesn’t sound like much, but it means that in your one-year trip through the Bible, you’ll spend 13 days just reading lists of names.

Let’s put that in perspective: There are only 8 books in the Bible (all in the Old Testament) that are longer than that list of names. You’ll spend more time reading lists of names than you will reading Joshua, Judges, or Daniel. You’ll spend more time reading those names than you will reading any single book in the New Testament. — more time than you’ll spend in Luke, Acts, or Romans. In fact, you could read Romans through 3 times and have time left over to read more names.

How to Finish 13 Days’ Reading Instantly

So here’s the secret of those lists: The important people are going to be mentioned again. The in-betweeners are not. So if you simply skip those passages, you literally aren’t missing anything. And you’ve saved yourself 2 weeks of laboring through long lists of names.

Yeah, But Look at All You’re Missing!

A hardcore Bible scholar is going to complain that if you skip the genealogies, you could end up missing the fact that Ruth, a gentile, is an ancestor of David (and therefore Jesus). And that Jesus is a member of the tribe of Judah. And that Methuselah, the longest-living person in the Bible, died in the year that Noah’s flood began.

But then, you just read those facts here, so there you go. Problem solved. Skip the “begats”.

What’s Your Excuse for Not Reading the Bible? #1

This is the first in a series of articles on common excuses for not reading through the Bible.

I spent most of my Christian life studying the Bible as needed to teach a class, preach a sermon, or answer a question. I did some whole-book studies on my own or with friends. But other than a couple failed attempts early on, I never made an effort to read through the Bible cover-to-cover. New Testament? No problem. Genesis and Exodus? Sure. But Leviticus, Job, and all those prophets? Yeah, right. Not happening.

Several years ago I was encouraged by a group of people in our church to set aside time each day to read the Bible, with the goal of getting through the whole thing over the course of a year. In our group, you can choose any plan you want, as long as it gets you through the Bible in a year. Every month, we are encouraged to share what we’ve learned and report our progress. That first year was hard, but I repeated the exercise the following year and have done so since.

Having spent many years coming up with excuses, I thought I’d record them here in case you want to use them. Full disclosure: I will be shooting them down in the end, so don’t get your hopes up.

Excuse #1: The Bible is a long book, and I’m a busy person. I don’t have any time to read it.

Have you ever wondered why Bibles are always printed on that tissue-thin paper? Why the text is so small? They have to do those things in order to get it to fit in your hand. It’s a long book.

The Bible contains 1189 chapters and a total of 31,102 verses. Those verses combine to contain over 750,000 words. That’s the equivalent of about 11-12 average-length novels. It’s longer than the first 5 Harry Potter books, and you know how much you hate to read those!

About 25% of us don’t ever read any books. Another quarter of us read fewer than 4 each year. With the Bible equaling 11-12 books (or 5.2 Harry Potters), no wonder reading the Bible seems daunting to most people.

Figuring out how long it takes to read the Bible depends on your reading speed. A quick Web search turned up different estimates for adult reading speed. Depending on the site you visit, you’ll see:

  • 200-250 words per minute
  • 238 words per minute when reading non-fiction; 260 for fiction
  • 200-300 words per minute
  • 100-200 when reading for comprehension

Last year, we at Laridian decided to determine the average reading speed of adults when reading the Bible. We undertook a study of 1000 individuals to measure their reading speed. We used Old and New Testament sample texts and a modern English translation (the World English Bible). Our research suggests that 98% of people read between 229 and 251 words per minute when reading text from a modern translation of the Bible. At that rate, 98% of us should be able to read the Bible in 8-9 minutes per day.

Curious about your Bible reading speed? Take the test here.

That’s 8-9 minutes I don’t have!

Imagine adding 8-9 minutes to your morning routine. Most of us would have to get up 10 minutes earlier, and that’s just not going to happen! We could carve it out of the 3 hours per day we spend watching TV, but then how would we keep up with the Kardashians? One website says we spend 63 minutes each day eating. Maybe we could skip breakfast. Or dessert.

What I did was add it to the tasks I do each morning in front of my computer. Every morning I visit our church’s prayer list site, check for tech support issues that need my attention, visit Facebook and MeWe, and catch up on the news. It wasn’t a problem to launch PocketBible at the start of that session, do my reading, then continue my day. It was very painless.

Reading through the Bible in six months.

I’m a data-oriented person, so after a while I started timing my morning reading sessions. Turns out I was only taking about 7 minutes to read the passage for that day. So I started doing 2 readings each morning. It generally took less than 15 minutes, which wasn’t much more than the original 8-9 I thought I’d need. Next thing I knew, it was mid-July and I was finishing Revelation!

Everybody is different. Some are going to read slower, and some faster. The point is that a lack of time doesn’t need to be a deterrent. We all have 10 minutes we can spare somewhere. For 98% of us, that’s going to be plenty of time to spend each day to get through the Bible in a year.

PocketBible 3 for Windows FAQ

This isn’t an update on the new Windows project but rather we’re just moving the project FAQ here instead of having it be invisible as a dedicated page on our website. As we make updates to this FAQ we’ll bump its publication date so it ranks higher in the list of articles on our blog.

I haven’t seen an update for a while… Are you still working on this project?

Yes.

Don’t hesitate to post a question to tech support or in the comments below if you’re concerned about our progress or whether or not your favorite feature is going to be included. We’ve been trying to be very transparent about this project (even though you may not see updates here every day or every week) because you all contributed to it and thus made it possible.

Can I help with testing?

We’ll announce a call for testers once we get to the point where we can use them. Those who supported the project during the fund-raising period will be the first to know.

Will I need to have Internet access while using PocketBible to be able to use my Bibles and reference books?

No. And we apologize on behalf of our friends at other popular Bible software companies who have designed their apps to require full-time Internet access. “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Obviously, you need access to the Internet to initially download the PocketBible app and an of your Bibles and reference books you want on your device. Once you have done that, you don’t need Internet access to use the program. The exception is when you’ve chosen to sync your notes, highlights, and bookmarks to our server for synchronization to other devices you own. Obviously you need Internet access for that. But even then, if the program discovers you’re disconnected it will just wait and sync once you reconnect.

Is PocketBible for Windows going to be a subscription service?

No. As it is on all platforms (Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows), the new PocketBible for Windows will be free.

We will offer an Advanced Feature Set (AFS) containing additional features such as Autostudy. The Advanced Feature Set is a subscription service. It gives us a way to generate revenue from our apps. Despite the fact that developing our apps is our single greatest expense, realities of the marketplace make it impossible to charge anything for software these days. The AFS gives us a way to do that without resorting to more intrusive monetization schemes, like putting ads in the program.

The current version of PocketBible for Windows Store shifts a couple very important and very basic features into its AFS: The ability to install more than 20 books, and the ability to sync notes/highlights/bookmarks with our server. These will be part of the free features in the new version, and the features of the AFS will match those of PocketBible running on other platforms.

Will my current Windows Store Advanced Feature Set subscription apply to the new version?

Your current PocketBible for Windows Store Advanced Feature Set Subscription will apply to the new version. However, if you own the Permanent Subscription to the Legacy Advanced Feature Set, which you purchased before the AFS became a subscription, you will only be entitled to the features of the new version that are in your current Advanced Feature Set. Some of those features will be moved into the standard features in the new version. Here’s a break-down:

Current Legacy Advanced Feature Set features that will become standard features:

  • Install more than 20 books at a time on your device
  • Split the screen up to five times to view multiple books at once
  • Quick access to recent verses
  • Add your own notes to any verse
  • Highlight verses in a variety of colors
  • Synchronize bookmarks, notes and highlights to the Laridian Server and between your other devices

Undecided:

  • Quickly download all the books you own

These will remain AFS features:

  • Save and re-use multiple layouts, enabling you to save the layout (panes and books) exactly as it was and come back to it
  • Listen to Bibles and books

If you own what we call the Permanent Subscription to the Legacy Advanced Feature Set, your existing AFS will only give you access to those features listed under “These will remain AFS features”. Most of the other features that are currently in the subscription will become standard features. Within the new program, we will refer to this as the Advanced Feature Set for PocketBible 2.x for Windows. The new version will be referred to as version 3.

Again, if you have an active Advanced Feature Set Subscription, it will be honored on the new version.

When you say you’ll “start with the Windows desktop version” does that mean you’re going to make it difficult to use on tablets?

We’re not starting with the user interface elements of the Windows desktop version, but rather we’re starting with the internals of that version of the program — the stuff you don’t see that makes PocketBible do things like search, store notes, sync with our server, read our LBK files, etc. The user interface for the new version will borrow from concepts in the macOS and iOS versions to be more usable on both the desktop and mobile devices.

There is no code from the current Windows Store version in this new version, nor is any code in the new version based on code in the current Windows Store version. We think of this as an upgrade to the older Windows Desktop version that takes the latest version of the code for that program and adds to it a new user interface inspired by our more recent editions of PocketBible.