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The Study of the Gregorio Billikopf Home | Ancient Manuscripts |
Commentaries
Thus saith the LORD, --Jeremiah 9:23-24 (Yirmeyahu 9:22-23) כֹּה אָמַר
יְהוָה ירמיהו:
כב־כג— These pages are dedicated to the study of the Holy Scriptures (also known as the Old Covenant, or Old Testament) and more particularly to the study of Isaiah and the Prophets. The Talmud reads (view the Talmud, Mishnah, Tanakh, and other Rabbinic Literature in Hebrew, free on-line), "All the prophets prophesied not but of the days of Messiah" (Sanh. 99a). In the New Covenant we read, "...for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (Revelation 19:10). There are so many wonderful free or low cost materials available to help us with our study of the Holy Scriptures. Here are a few of my favorites. These are not necessarily listed in order of importance. Many of these resources are so complete and wonderful that it would take pages to describe them, so I will only provide a few comments about each. Of course, prayer and the guidance of the Spirit will be the most important help we can obtain as we study the Scriptures. 1. eSword (available from Rick Meyers, Equipping Ministries Foundation) This is perhaps the most complete all-in-one package software package for the study of the Holy Scriptures. Not only does it include a series of books such as The Life and Times of Jesus The Messiah by Edersheim, but also has three open windows where you can read a verse of scripture and check one of many available commentaries in another and look up words in one of the many extensive Bible dictionaries or available lexicons. You can download the Bible Versions that interest you, including the KJV, Geneva Bible, Septuagint, Hebrew (unpointed), an English version of the Vulgate, the Vulgate in Latin, and so on. At present there are also three editions of the Bible in Spanish, which are of special interest to me. There are numerous other languages available. You can open multiple versions of the Bible at one time when you are doing a comparative study. Several versions are linked to Strong so you can look up the corresponding number in Strong or several other lexicons that are available. COST= Free. Can download it from http://www.e-sword.net/ Please note that the Bibles, commentaries, books, lexicons, and references included, when purchased in hard copy—if you are fortunate to be able to find them—would cost thousands of dollars. For instance, you will find all ten volumes of Keil & Delitzsch commentary on the Old Testament; John Gill’s, Barnes and several other multi-volume commentaries on the complete Bible, the four volume Standard International Encyclopedia, and many others. I have a hard copy of these, except for John Gill’s commentary, and it sure is nicer to have them all in my screen at the same time than having 15 or more books open on my desk. I still have to have several open books, anyway, but the number is greatly reduced. |
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2. LDS Scriptures Advanced Resource Edition (available from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Contains the King James Version (KJV) Old and New Testament side-by-side with the Hebrew and Greek respectively. Superb search and statistical engine. Can click on any word in Hebrew and obtain the Strong definition. Hebrew has Masoretic points for easier reading. Also, can click on a Hebrew word and see how it is translated in every instance in the Old Testament. Similar tools exist with the Greek and New Testament studies. Those who have not learned how to read the Hebrew or Greek characters can switch the Hebrew for transliterated Hebrew. This software also contains multilingual versions of The Book of Mormon. COST= $6. Can purchase from a Distribution Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, worldwide, or through the Web, Item #50315000 On-Line Distribution Center, or in the USA can also call 1-800-537-5001 (make sure to ask for the Advanced or Resource Edition). |
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3. 3D Holy Land Animation (available from ROHR Productions). With this software you can “fly” over the Holy Land. For anyone who has ever wanted to get a good feeling for the terrain of the Holy Land. The software includes hundreds of photos as well as linked areas so that by the click of a button the plane will fly on its own and transport you from one part of the Holy Land to another. You can also fly on your own, and can control for the speed, elevation, and tilt of the terrain view. The software is composed of photos and satellite shots. One can descend to about 200 meters in some locations and still see pretty well in terms of focus, and not so low in other locations. The Holy Land 2-volume ROHR atlas that comes with this software is one of my favorite Bible atlases. “The satellite database of the Holy Land was made by merging the color data from NASA’s Landsat 5 satellite with the black & white data from the French SPOT satellite.” The new version works well with Vista. COST= $135 (includes CD plus 2-Volume Atlas). Can purchase from Richard Cleave, ROHR Productions, Ltd., P.O. Box 23312 Nicosia, Cyprus. (Telephone 357 22 675082). E-mail Richard for a contact in your country, at info@rohrproductions.com. |
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4. Bible+ for Palm (available from Yih-Chun Hu, Poetry H.C. Poon, Alexander Pruss, Adam McDaniel, Michael Neuhold, J.S. Park, and Antoine R.J. Wright). This team of computer experts have made it possible to carry the Holy Scriptures in your Palm Pilot. A large number of Bible versions are available, which can be viewed two at a time, including the pointed Hebrew, unpointed Hebrew, KJV, Targum, LXX, and much, much more. You will have to work for it if you want to install the Hebrew, as it is not immediately clear how to do it, but it is worth the effort! For instance, I was recently reading a book with a reference to the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. I was able to verify that the author's assertion about a particular reference was correct. In addition, you can download numerous commentaries, versions with Strong numbers lexicons,and an ever increasing number of useful Biblical tools. COST = Free at http://palmbibleplus.sourceforge.net/pbmanual.htm#download Or http://palmbibleplus.sourceforge.net/
Below is a screenshot of the unpointed Hebrew courtesy of J.S. Park,
Primary Biblical Texts on the Palm. |
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5. Google Earth
(available
from Google). With
this software you can “fly” over the Holy Land and extended areas, as well
as over the whole earth. So you fly over the Euphrates or Egypt, as well
as over Israel. Cannot fly as low over Israel as you can over the
USA. I hope this will be remedied soon. Cannot descend as low as
with the ROHR software in the Holy Land. The quality of the images is
otherwise outstanding. Also uses satellite imagery, and also permits you
to fly and change speed or altitude or tilt of view. COST=
Free download at http://earth.google.com/
6. Bible Seeker
is fast. It has a very quick and powerful search engine and is even better than Bible Plus. It also gives you the option of adding other Bibles including Spanish, ASV and others. For searching scriptures, this is my software of choice. Bible Seeker, very compatible with Vista. Bible Seeker may be downloaded at nfrom multiple locations. (Bible Plus is available
from Contact Plus Corporation). Bible
Plus is an excellent KJV software for quickly looking up or copying a
verse or chapter of the Holy Scriptures. I used to use it often with XP but it is unreliable with my Vista. But I am quite attached to this program as it served me well for years.. COST=
Bible Plus is a Free download at Bible Plus.
7. Audio Scriptures in Hebrew (available
from Talking Bibles International Website). This is one of my very favorite references. Download or listen to the complete Old Testament in Hebrew. You can choose a complete book or download chapter by chapter. MP3 files may be listened to in your computer or can burn a CD using the "burn music" rather than the "burn data" option if you wish to listen in your car or CD player. Native Hebrew voice, excellent resource. This site also has "Talking Bibles" in a large number of other languages. Go directly to the Hebrew page.
COST=
Free at http://audioscriptures.org/
I love the audio mentioned above, yet there is one even better in my opinion. The Bible (Tanach): The Law, The Prophets, The Writings, narrated by Shlomo Bertonov in 4 compact MP3 discs. Produced in Netanya, Israel. 992-9-8617874 and also sold in the USA. It is worth every penny, and I like having both programs. It is for sale in the USA, and Israel - The Central Library for the Blind, and I am sure in other countries.
8. Aleph-Bet
9. Hebrew Alphabet
(available
from National Jewish Outreach Program). Like
Aleph-Bet, a good place to practice your Hebrew pronunciation. COST=
Free at http://www.njop.org/html/interactive_hebrew.html 10. The Scriptures
Audio (available from The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). The
King James Version audio may be heard in this site. The link provided
below is linked to The Book of Isaiah, the whole of the Old Testament
being narrated with an exquisite voice quality. You can listen and follow
along with the KJV narration at this site. I own and have listened to a
great variety of audio narrations of the Holy Scriptures (in Spanish and
English), this being my favorite. Also available from the same site are
the New Testament, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants and The
Pearl of Great Price. And more recently, the Spanish Reina Valera 2009 SUD translation is available for free download.( All of these may be purchased in CD form for very little.) COST=
Free at http://www.lds.org/mp3/newarchive/0,18615,5249-1,00.html.
10. Free Books. Two sources of free books on the Holy Scriptures, in PDF and other formats, are Google Books and The Internet Archive. I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of books from these two sources. There are many commentaries that you can pay a couple of hundred dollars when you purchase them in electronic version as part of other software packages, or even as PDF files, or you can just download them for free from the sites above. I have thought about sometime posting a list of the books that I have downloaded, but I keep downloading half a dozen new books each week. So, what sort of books? I have library priviledges at the University of California, Davis, and Berkeley. One of my favorite books on Isaiah is Henderson's commentary, which I used to check out every year from UCD. This book is extremely rare and I looked for it for years. Today (15 May 2010), I see two copies available, both for over $100, one in the UK ($114), the other in the US ($153). It is now available for free PDF download. Other very expensive books, such as Lange's commentaries on the Holy Scriptures, the International Critical Commentaries, and commentaries on specific books of scripture, are all available for free. Little by little I am obtaining copies of my large book collection. Of course I love my books, but I travel extensively, and between my free PDF files, Logos Bible Software, and LDS Library, I take thousands of books with me. But back to free books, beside valuable rare commentaries, I have an extensive collection of free Hebrew lexicons,
grammars, Bibles, and histories related to my Biblical studies. While my interest lies in the Prophetic books of the Old Testament, there are endless books related to the New Testament, as well as the Torah and Writings. If you are interested in ancient manuscripts you are in for a treat. You have Targums and all sort of other books in Greek, and other ancient languages. When using Google Books, make sure to click on Full View Only so that the books can be read on-line or downloaded. There are several types of PDF files, from those that are very heavy and difficult to work with, to fully searchable versions. 11. Learning Hebrew aids. Some of my favorite tools related to Hebrew include DAVAR (free), SAFFA, Logos Bible Software (not cheap, but fantastic), Lingvosoft Dictionary, Byki software, Shibboleth (free), and others. If you need specific recommendations, I will be glad to help you out. Avoid using anything that does not have a native speaker, when it comes to Hebrew and Greek. Feel free to write to me at bielikov@yahoo.com
12. Other
Recommendations (available from Gregorio
Billikopf). There
are too many excellent tools, and books available to mention them all. Anyone who is
interested in additional resources, may contact me.COST
= Free at bielikov@yahoo.com
About the author. Gregorio Billikopf is a Labor Management Farm Advisor with the University of
California and Visiting Professor of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences
of the University of Chile. His agricultural extension research and
teaching efforts have focused on labor management and mediation of
interpersonal conflicts. Billikopf is author of Party-Directed Mediation: Helping
Others Resolve Differences (2009, 2nd Edition, yes, you may download it for free, of course!), Labor
Management in Ag: Cultivating Personnel Productivity (1994, 2003), an article on listening skills taking into consideration the religious views of the listener, as well as other publications. He has been a guest speaker throughout the
United States, as well as in Russia, México, Canada, Argentina, Uganda, Colombia, and
his native Chile and presented papers on mediation in Spain and Japan. Billikopf's paternal grandfather was a Lithuanian Jew and
grandmother was a German Jew. Both of his maternal grandparents were
Chilean, with his family in Chile involved in farming for generations.
Gregorio and Linda Billikopf make their home in Modesto, California, and
are the parents of four children. Gregorio has been a dressage (equestrian
sports) rider and instructor (and is author of A Passion for
Dressage), an amateur radio operator, and a youth soccer referee.
More recently, his deep love for the Scriptures has occupied much of his
free time. One of his projects is a book entitled Yeshayahu Testifies
of Messhiach (or Isaiah Testifies of Christ, which is available free from the ISAIAH link above). Billikopf was
converted and baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints in 1974, after reading the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of
Christ. Last Revised
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