We’re one of only a few Bible software companies that develop exclusively for mobile, but we didn’t expect to be literally the first Bible App available on Ovi, the Nokia App Store.  You can see it here:  BibleReader 4 at Ovi.com.  Two readers are available today:  BibleReader (Free) and BibleReader KJV Strong’s ($14.99).

BibleReader runs on a wide variety of Nokia devices.  Many of the latest Nokia devices run the Symbian 60-5 operating system, which supports BibleReader 4, our latest and greatest version of BibleReader.  But BibleReader runs on many other Symbian operating systems as well.  If you have a Nokia phone, check your phone’s operating system to find out what Olive Tree resources might be available for it.

Symbian, the operating system used by many Nokia phones, covers a substantial section of the world market.  Look at the graph below to see why we’re excited to have another way to reach Symbian users.

BibleReader: available on 98% of smartphones worldwide.

Edited to add: Check out this review of BibleReader 4 on Ovi, from Nokia Experts. One small correction is that BibleReader 4 on Ovi does not include in-application installation of titles at this time. We plan to add that feature to our future submissions to Ovi.

If you met the Olive Tree crew at the ETS or SBL meetings, you saw that signing up for the Olive Tree Newsletter at those meetings gave you a chance to win a free iPod Touch, preloaded with Olive Tree resources.  Well, the winners have now been chosen.

Congratulations to our winners!

• From the ETS drawing:   Doug Powell of Tennessee
• From the SBL drawing:   Kathy Barett Dawson of North Carolina

We hope each of you enjoy your iPod Touch, and the Olive Tree resources we provide with it.

And we video-recorded both drawings using an iPhone, in case you were wondering how we spend our time at the office.

Drew and Sarah draw the ETS winner

Drew and Stephen J draw the SBL winner

Are you planning to attend one or both of these meetings?  If so, come visit Olive Tree at our display booth:

ETS – Evangelical Theological Society, New Orleans, November 18-20
        Olive Tree Booth # 100

SBL – Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans, November 21-24
        Olive Tree Booth # 808

We’ll be happy to give you a demo of our latest BibleReader release on iPhone, which implements new features especially for original languages.  We’ve also released an entire bookshelf’s worth of original language texts, tools, and resources for iPhone, including

• Greek New Testament (NA27) with Mounce’s Morphology and UBS Dictionary,
• LXX (Septuaginta) with Parsing and LEH Lexicon, and
• BHS (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia) with Westminster Morphology and BDB Lexicon.

Engineers Stephen J (@stephenljohnson) and David T (@dtrotzjr) and original language specialists Drayton B and Steven C (@steventcummings) will be happy to show you around these new resources.

And if you’re interested in seeing the best of BibleReader software for Greek and Hebrew study, be sure to watch Olive Tree in SBL’s Bible Software Shootout.  Side-by-side with Bible software peers like Logos, Bible Works, Accordance, and SESB, Olive Tree will demonstrate how our software answers real-world research questions, like:

I want to study a part of speech, e.g., demonstrative pronouns or interjections. How do I get all of the lemmas for that part of speech, get all the occurrences of those lemmas, and the results organized in such a way that I could write an article/monograph on that part of speech from the data?

If questions like these spark your interest—because of your academic work or your personal study—watch Olive Tree perform at the Shootout, and see how Olive Tree’s latest tools can help you in your own Greek and Hebrew study:

Bible Software Shootout
Saturday, November 21
4:00 – 6:30 p.m.
Rhythms Ballroom 3-SH, at SBL

We’ll also post this presentation on our website later, so everyone can take advantage of the information presented by Drayton and Stephen J.

Monday, September 28, Olive Tree had the privilege of being a part of the 2009 Chatlos Bible Conference at New York Theological Seminary in New York City. The title of the conference was “Linking Sense to Sound and Sight: Bible Study and Technology”.

The conference had a unique structure with the morning consisting of lectures presented by leading biblical scholars speaking about the modes of communication in biblical and post-biblical times. The afternoon sessions were presentations by leading bible software companies, including Olive Tree. Each presenter shared how our companies are working to build on the ever-shifting ground of technology and the study of the Bible.

With advances in technology occurring at such a rapid pace, every area of life is being affected. This includes church life, academics, and the study of the Bible. This conference attempted to present participants both with a philosophical framework and practical tools to address this change. Olive Tree’s BibleReader was just the tool for many of the participants.

Dr. Jin Han, and the NYTS folks extended such warm kindness to the presenters and made the conference a distinct pleasure to be a part of. And, he introduced many of us to our first taste of authentic Korean cuisine! It was something we all thoroughly enjoyed and won’t be forgetting any time soon.

Matt Hudson works for Olive Tree Bible Software as an eBook Architect. He received his M.Div. from Beeson Divinity School and lives in Knoxville, TN.