How about a Bible Software library?

[Mars Tanumihardja]

Has anyone looked into any bible software libraries to integrate into their application? I've been looking into the SWORD project (http://www.crosswire.org/sword/index.jsp) as a library for indexing various translations of the Bible for fast searching and cross-referencing; however, I discovered that the data-structure is rigid in that it does not support the Deuterocanonicals (Apocrypha) - i.e. the Catholic version of the bible. I was wondering if anyone has come across another online bible framework that does support the Catholic bible? And if it's open source, even better. :)

[Jonathan Aquino]

This probably isn't exactly what you are looking for: I created a Ning site containing each chapter of the Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible, allowing people to comment on it: http://wikibiblica.ning.com . But I suspect you are looking for a component for desktop software.

What are your requirements? Does it have to be in a certain language, like Java? Are you looking for a toolkit that you can call, or a framework that your code can live in? Do you need a GUI, or just an API?

[Mars Tanumihardja]

I was looking for an API much like the WORD project is, but one that supports all Catholic books in the Bible. Language isn't a big deal, but preferably in a newer generation language, like Java or any .NET lang.

Is the Douay-Rheims translation copyright protected? I know that the SWORD project had some restrictions on certain translations due to copyright. I suppose one could just use a relational database, and perhaps store each verse as the smallest unit (record) with a reference to a ChapterID and each Chapter then in turn references a BookID (or you combine the BookID into the ChapterID). But you really want full text indexing too, so you can do quick word searches. For a desktop app, I'd want one of the smaller database libraries like Sqlite or SqlExpress -- not sure if these have full text indexing? Does anyone have experience with Lucene? Would this be overkill?

One nice thing about the SWORD project is that it is compatible even on the PocketPC platform, so there are pocket bible study applications based on SWORD. Wonder if iPhone compatibility would be useful?

[Johan Cyprich]

Hi Mars. Why don't you write your own API. If you use C# and MS SQL Server, the API could be easily ported to Windows Mobile. You could also make modifications for Mono for use on Linux and Macs.

The Douay-Rheims translation has no copyright since its hundreds of years old. The problem with it is that its not an accurate translation. Its a translation of the Latin Vulgate, which is a translation of earlier texts of the Bible. The translation is good for testing your API but most users probably wouldn't use it because of the difficult to read old English. You need to give people the option to buy modern translations in your application.

[Mars Tanumihardja]

@Johan, Thanks for the response. I would probably have to write my own API if I didn't find something out there (wanting to avoid re-inventing the wheel, if I could); plus, importing the data into whatever data-structure I come up with would seem like a lot of work, not to mention wanting to have multiple translations. Having to install SQL Server for a desktop application seems overkill to me, but perhaps the Express version isn't too large a footprint; but I'd have to research if full-text indexing is supported in the Express version.

It would be great if this could be an open-source project and got more contributors to add other translations using the same schema; and support for switching between different translations, and even doing side-by-side comparisons (check out http://www.biblegateway.com)

More research is in order, just thought I'd throw this out there and see if anyone had other ideas.

[Johan Cyprich]

Hi Mars. Using SQL Server isn't as bad as it seems. More apps are using databases these days and the Express version would work well in most instances. As for re-inventing the wheel, I wrote a blog post on this recently: http://www.cyprich.com/2009/03/17/re-inventing-the-wheel/.

The advantage of writing your own API is that you would learn a great deal in this area and you won't be dependent on a third party for the core part of your application. Not to mention if there are defects in the software, you aren't waiting for the third party to fix them. You decide the priority and direction of the API.

[Hugh Luce]

http://www.crosswire.org/forums/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=567

Has bible mods for Windows/Unix and everything in between.

Best I can tell they do not have Deuterocanonicals support in the current version but it is in the next release according the the post post included.

[Mars Tanumihardja]

Thanks Hugh - good to see that they're building support for Deuterocanonicals into the SWORD engine.