The Wandering Heretic

Since about the latter part of 2003, I have been working on a Bible version for my Palm Pilot. This version is fairly literal, but takes into account the cultural insights of the Context Group scholars. The context group takes many of the concepts in the New Testament and explains how they would be viewed in terms of first century Middle Eastern culture.

For example, “Hesed” in terms of the Middle East has less to do with the emotion we call “love” and more to do with family responsibilities, obligations, and loyalties. For the Bible to say that God shows “hesed” to his people does not necessarily mean “everlasting love” as we would define it, but instead “family loyalty.” In short, God regards us as part of His family and takes on, and expects in response, famial obligation in return. In the same way, “faith” has more to do with trust and “faithfulness” than it does to belief or intellectual assent.

You can read the Context Version online (see the link below). You can also download the Bible version as a file. However, this file will only work with the free Palm Pilot program PalmBible Plus. Links to the BiblePlus program is also below, as is the link to the BiblePlus CGV file.

First download and install PalmBible Plus on your PDA, per the instructions you will receive at their site. I am not a support source for the program, PalmBible Plus, so don’t ask me any installation questions, etc. Also, I have no official connection to that site, so report any bugs or issues to them.

Once the program is installed on your Palm Pilot, then download and unzip my Context Group Version file (CGV) and transfer it to your Palm Pilot. It will work from either a memory card or directly on the PDA itself.

You can get the program PalmBible Plus here.

You can get my Context Group Version for the PalmBible Plus package by clicking here. This file is updated as of 7/20/07.

You can read the CGV Bible online here. (Note, this is a work in process, so please excuse the rugged formatting.)

Any comments, questions, or suggestions can be posted here.