CyberChapel: Links
Christian Literature
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library offers the broadest range of Christian literature on the web. Their collection includes such classics as Edersheim's Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah and The Temple--Its Ministry and Services.
The Ages Library offers a wide range of material at very reasonble prices. Their Calvin CD is an excellent foundation for exegesis.
The most comprehensive and easiest-to-use collection of Christian literature is offered by Logos, but individual works are quite expensive. This system also offers reasonable Bible search tools (but see below).
Here are some of my favorite, free, commentaries:
- John Gill was an eighteenth century reformed Baptist with an extensive knowledge of the Jewish commentators. His commentary on the whole Bible is available from a number of sources; I find the one integrated with ESword the most convenient.
- Matthew Henry's complete commentary (not the abridged version) is also widely available; again ESword's version is very easy to use. He is verbose, but full of deep insights, from a reformed perspective.
- Keil and Delitzsch is a classic Old Testament commentary from two evangelical Lutheran scholars of the 19th century, presuming some knowledge of Hebrew. It's well known to every seminary student, and available free in ESword.
- Tom Constable's detailed notes on the Bible include an extensive collection of observations from other scholars, from a mainly dispensational perspective.
I just came across this treasure from the early 19th century: J.J. Blunt's Undesigned Scriptural Coincidences, a wonderful collection of insights gained by comparing scripture with scripture.
Hymns and Hymn Tunes
CCEL has an excellent collection of hymn tunes, extensively indexed not only by name and meter but also cy incipit (the first few notes, so that if you can hum a tune, you can find it quickly). For hymn words, the best site known to me is the CyberHymnal.
Computerized Bible Study Tools
In the B.C. era (Before Computers), I found the most essential tools for Bible study to be the Bible, an unabridged concordance (I always used Young's, but Strong's is fine too), and the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. With the advent of computerized Bible search programs, you can do everything you could with those tools, and a lot more as well. See my review of Bible study programs.
- For English-language study, you can download some excellent shareware programs at no expense:
- If you can use Hebrew or Greek, I recommend the BibleWorks program for technical exegesis. Its search facilities are both more powerful and much, much faster than those in the Logos software package, and the program itself is much more robust. (However, Logos offers a clearly superior interface for reading books about the Bible.)
- I live in a Windows world, so I can only comment personally on Windows software. The Accordance program for Macintosh comes very highly recommended by people whose judgment I respect.
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