Bible Study Tools

Access to quality Bible study tools is a perennial challenge for online theological students, even for English-speaking students. Here is a list of sites to recommend to students to help them with their research.

1. Biblia (biblia.com) by Faithlife, the company behind Logos Bible Software. The interface is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), and Korean. Creating a free account provides access to 61 Bibles and 34 other English resources. Signing in with your Faithlife account provides access to any resources you have available in Logos Bible Software.
2. STEP Bible (stepbible.org) by Tyndale House. The interface is available in 60 languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), and Korean. Some languages have been machine translated. Bibles are available in over 250 languages. There is a small collection of public domain English commentaries.
3. Google Books (books.google.com) by Google. The interface is available in over 100 languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), and Korean. Google Books has more than 10 million free books available for users. Some are public domain and have a full-text preview available; others are copyright and have limited text preview (but often up to 75%). They can use Advanced Book Search (books.google.com/advanced_book_search) to narrow down the search results. It can also be used creatively to find related books, such as English language commentaries on Matthew’s Gospel (subject:”Religion / Biblical Commentary / New Testament” intitle:Matthew).
4. Theological Journals Search (oru.libguides.com/theologicaljournalssearch) by Oral Roberts University Library. This custom search engine uses Google to search through hundreds of open-access theological journals and websites. Further, the site links to other sites that list open-access resources for research in biblical and theological studies.
5. Blue Letter Bible (blueletterbible.org). This free, searchable online Bible program provides access to many different Bible translations, including KJV, NKJV, NLT, ESV, NASB. Also, the site provides in-depth study tools with access to commentaries, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other theological resources.