Mobile Ministry Magazine

The website Help My Unbelief has done an excellent review on the Amazon Kindle eBook device. While we've touched on it in bits and pieces here, this is the first review that I recall taking the device totally from the viewpoint of an aide to Bible study. Here's a snippet of that review:

...I have two versions of the Bible on my Kindle, the NASB and the ESV. Both of them have very awkward navigation methods. When you open the Bible, you start on whatever page you last left off on. This is difficult because if you are in the middle of a chapter, you will have no idea what chapter you are in or what book you are in. The book/chapter reference is not displayed anywhere on the screen except at the beginning of a chapter. The way around this is to change your habits a little and make full use of the search feature. When you want to read Ephesians 3, simply hit search then type in eph 3 and hit enter. You probably won’t be as fast jumping around the Bible on the Kindle as you would with a paper Bible but once you get the hang of it you won’t have any problem keeping up with sermons or Bible studies where the leaders jump from passage to passage. If you know you are going to be in three or four passages and want to flip back and forth between them, you can bookmark each one and jump between bookmarks easily...

Read the entire post at Help My Unbelief.

Labels: Bible, Kindle, review, software, tech

I was just reading a website that called itself a social networking website for cellular devices and all it did was allow you to SMS a person that you prayed for them and download ringtones. Really, that was all. I wish that I could build one, because I have an idea of something just a bit more effective.

I think of an application where a community of people can gather around the Word (online and offline), and then place time-stamps and bookmarks towards where they are studying. Not just individuals, but groups of people can enmasse study parts of the Word and engage in community-building efforts. Something like what is happening here with the Amazon Kindle.

If you will, taking that idea of sitting in a Bible study, and not just leveraging the fact that some/all can have a laptop/tablet/smartphone to read from, but they would have an ability to share their notes, highlighted items, and anything else as a layer above the "community Bible."

I kind of think of it like the OLPC's mesh networking feature, but built around meeting around the Word. Considering how much we like to get people to meet at various events and places, it would be even better if we could do it in such a way that brings them around the Word, but gives them an incentive to read it, and grow from reading our own experences while we live it.

Labels: community, Kindle, mobile, networking

Amazon's Kindle has developed a good following since its introduction a few weeks ago. The agressively priced, wireless eBook reader has very much made its presence felt however with a very large (and growing library).

Of course, it was only a matter of time before readers would demand to get the Bible on their Kindle readers. In a post at the ESV Blog, this is something that was just announced as being available for $9.99.

So what are some of the features of the ESV on Kindle? Here are a few as stated from the ESV Blog posting:
- Chapter numbers are larger than verse numbers to provide better readability.
- Opening the ESV on Kindle takes you to the table of contents for the Bible, letting you move easily to any book. Once you arrive at a book, you’ll see links to each chapter (right-aligned for easy use with the Kindle cursor), letting you get pretty close to your intended passage.
- The ESV textual footnotes are all hyperlinked in the text, with hyperlinks back to the relevant passage from each note.

According to the ESV Blog, there are also plans to consider "making the ESV Literary Study Bible available on Kindle if demand warrants it." As with most software development, make your voices known by emailing the developers to get a feature request in.

The Kindle and the ESV for Kindle can both be purchased from Amazon.

The ESV (and other Bible versions) on the Kindle and other electronic Bible readers is an excellent way to use technology in ways that just aren't consumer/consumption driven. Even noted on at the same ESV post was a note of a user who thinks on the merits of the Kindle as a Bible study platform. While I am not sure that the device itself will be the key (due to costs), having a platform that makes suitable and versatile formats for the content will go a long way towards helping the Kindle spark a bit of a reading revolution.

- thanks to LJ for the tip

Labels: Bible, ESV, Kindle, mobile

If my history on the printing press is not obscured, one of the first books printed for mass consumption was the Bible (the NT I believe). Books and Bibles have pretty much had a solid relationship. Much like newspapers though, Bibles have felt the digital pinch to be more streamlined, digital, and versatile for all types of studying/reading and users.

Today, Amazon has released the Kindle. This is an ebook reader designed to usher (again) the idea of reading eBooks to a wider audience. While this follows a subscription-based model, one has to wonder what the advent of such "book services" means for the Bible.

- Will Bible publishers move towards subsctition-based publishing methods (like iPocketBible) for connected devices?
- Will Bibles ever adapt a common format for those electronic books (making reader applications the differing factor)?
- Will the Bible be the last major basteon for paper books?

As much as I am a digital nut, just visitng a church this weekend reminded me about how far ahead of the minds of many that having a digital Bible can be. This is not to say that there is a long road ahead, but before devices like Kindle can catch any fire, there needs to a good deal of education and collaborative work.

- thanks to Mobile Read for the tip

Labels: Bible, Kindle, Laridian, mobile, mobiles, tech