Sunday, October 7, 2012

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: Which browsers can I use with this site?
A: This site works well with the current versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer (IE), Safari, and Chrome. To make sure you are running the current version, click on the name of the browser you work with: Firefox, IE, Safari, or Chrome.

Q: I'd also like to use your Facebook app, called Bible. How do I get started with it?
A: Visit http://facebook.com/bibleapp

Q: My browser is not displaying the site properly. What should I do?
A: Try the following steps.
  1. Do a full page refresh. Here's how. On Windows, hold down  key and press  or hold down  key and click the Reload button on the navigation toolbar. On Mac, hold down the  key and click the Reload button on the navigation toolbar.
  2. Check if you are using the newest version of your browser. Your browser might be out of date (if so, update it and see if that resolves the problem), have too restrictive security settings (if so, make Bible GT a trusted site), or have an improperly functioning browser extension (if so, try turning off all extensions and see if that resolves the problem).
  3. Try another browser.
  4. Try using another computer (if it works, then the problem is with the original computer).
  5. Try using another network, for example at a local coffee shop (if that works, then the problem is with the original network).
  6. Report the problem to the Bible GT team.
Q: I no longer see color-coded Greek text. How do I get them back?
A: The site color-codes the Greek text by part of speech (verbs are red, nouns are blue, participles are red with blue endings, and so on). This color coding is available only for the Westcott-Hort (WH) New Testament. If those colors are missing, check the WH text's "color" menu and select "on." If you or someone else using your computer is visually impaired, if someone selected a "high contrast" option, try turning it off and see if that restores color for the window as well as for the WH text itself.

Q: How can I get started with Koine Greek?
A: Here are some resources for getting started:
- Bible GT: click the Advanced section, click Lessons. You'll find a series of alphabet and grammar lessons, plus audio resources.
- The many resources at Bill Mounce’ site, teknia.com
- The immersion course by Randall Buth, ideal for learning to think in Koine Greek.

Q: Which Greek grammar books do you use?
A: Here is what we use most often, in the classroom and at our desks:
- Basics of Biblical Greek by William Mounce, for getting started with grammar
- Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics by Daniel Wallace, for looking up points of grammar

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45 comments:

Peter Palma said...

Hey Thanks so much for giving this site for free. I'm a seminary student and I can't afford to purchase Bibleworks or Accordance right now. It is helpful to use this application with regreek.com

Again blessings on your work and thank you!!!!

Pastor Rob Guenther said...

Is there a way that I can share my notes with friends so we can collaborate on a text study? I know we can do that on Facebook, but is there a way to link my comments I already have made into the Facebook App? Thanks for this great service! I love it!

Peter Coad said...

Hi Rob, God bless you. Thank you for your suggestion and for your kind and encouraging words. Sharing notes -- with your congregation at this site, plus with friends on Facebook -- is something that we are actively working on. You'll see new features for making notes and sharing notes, within the next 6 months or so. Pete

Anonymous said...

Hey, i really love your site and i use it when studying a lot, but for some reason every time i've tried to log on in the past 6 months or so it won't let me click any links or do any searches. I've tried it on many different computers using many different browsers but nothing works. Have you ever had something like that before?
thanks again, adra
(adra214@yahoo.com or abarrell1@student.cscc.edu)

Peter Coad said...

Hi Adra,

Let’s track this down together.

Q: What e-address do you use for your account?
Q: Have you tried accessing the site some place outside the university (if you are school)? Sometimes antivirus and parental controls get in the way.
Q: Which browser are you using? Could you check and see if it’s the most recent version of that browser?

Let me know (peter at greekbiblestudy dot org)

Anonymous said...

thank you thank you thank you!
greek bible study is awesome!
i pray for it's longevity and blessing!
it is proving priceless, and yet it is free!!! wow!
i cannot believe it, just can't believe it.
i've spent so much time in study and such, and your site is blowing all that away into only a short time, a mere fraction of the time for the workload.
ryan
p.s. could this be available for download for offline work? perhaps by purchase.

Pablo said...

Great site! Such a helpful resource! Is there a way to only print MY translation from the translate window?? Thanks again!

Peter Coad said...

Thanks Pablo.

To print your translation:
1. Click "Translate"
2. Click "Print"
3. Then select "My Translation" as one of the columns you'd like included in the output.

More support for translation (including more printing options) is coming next month (Oct '09).

MichaelangeloT said...

Peter, many thanks to you and the team for creating your fine resource. I'm telling my first year Greek students here in Cambridge (England) about it in our first class, and wish you every blessing as you continue to develop the Greek Bible Study web site.

Unknown said...

Regarding your statement under FAQ "About the Greek Text":

"A: ... Word-order variants don’t affect what the Scriptures are saying, either ..."

A good blog entry on word order importance and exegesis by Dr. Dennis Wretlind titled: "Word Order—Does It Make Any Difference?"
found at: http://denniswretlind.blogspot.com/

Peter Coad said...

Hi Jim,

Thanks for catching that. I appreciate your help. I've updated that paragraph to read:

Greek texts vary in small ways; these differences are known as variants. Some variants (spelling variants, verse-boundary variants) don't affect meaning. Some variants (word-order variants, verse-order variants) may affect meaning; in these cases, considering context is key.

Pete

pregador27 said...

I have trouble with the Greek text. I saw it on my PC at work, but here on my Mac it is not showing up. Is there a font I need to download? I will try to search while waiting for an answer. I use Firefox as my main browser.

Thank you (and this site is wonderful!)

Peter Coad said...

Hi pregador27, Thanks for your kind words. re Mac, try this: update your browser to the most current version.

Peter Coad said...

Hi rynoyak, Thank you for your prayers and encouraging words. In the years ahead, we may produce a downloadable version. It's on our features list.

Peter Coad said...

Dear Michael Bruce Thompson, God bless you. My team and I greatly enjoyed your encouraging words. Praying for you and your students!

ev liu said...

I also don't get the greek displaying on my firefox (3.5.5). it displays in safari but the mouseover doesn't work on the greek. when i look at a word study, all the words including hebrew displays but none of the greek words display in firefox.

pregador27 said...

Peter, I have the same problem as Evliu. I am at the most current browser (per your advice) and am using a Mac. Safari & Firefox both work the way Evliu described for me as well. At work it works like a charm on Windows XP Explorer 6. I do not use Windows at home.

Thank you for you great work on this.

Peter Coad said...

Hi Evliu and Pregator27,

God bless you. Thanks for letting me know about this problem.

I checked with our chief programmer. It’s a known Firefox bug. Here's the scoop:

First, be sure you're running the latest version of Firefox.

Even after that, on some Macs, Firefox fails to display Greek characters correctly. The workaround: use Safari for this site.

Pete

ev liu said...

the item:

td id="studyNTGreekItem" class="main_menu_item" nowrap

doesn't seem to work in safari, thus the mouseover's on the greek don't work. the mouse icon doesn't change at all like on the english, so it might not even be passing the argument for main_menu_item, but studyNTGreekItem definitely doesn't do anything on safari.

Peter Coad said...

Hi Evliu, Please try the current version of Safari, 4.0.3.

ev liu said...

i am using that version of safari.

pregador27 said...

I am using the latest Safari and Firefox with a PowerMac G4 laptop. Is it maybe an issue with compatibility?

Peter Coad said...

Hi Evliu, I’m running Safari on Mac as I write this and the site works as it should. My hunch is: parental, antivirus, or firewall software is getting in the way. A suggestion: try turning them off temporarily and see if that corrects the problem.

Hi Pregador27, Good observation. That might be it. Select the Apple menu, then "About this Mac;" are you running Mac OS X (ten)? If not, that might be the problem.

pregador27 said...

I am running the latest version of 10.4 on my PowerBook G4. I am also up-to-date on all my browers. It may be a non-Intel Mac compatibility issues, though I did not know of any with browsers.

Peter Coad said...

Evliu, Which Mac are you using? Powerbook (non-Intel) or one of the Intel-based Macs? Pete

ev liu said...

peter: i'm running snow leopard on a macbook pro (early 2008 model), but hardware shouldn't be a problem. The english contextual menu pops up for the ESV and NASB i have up, but not for the greek.

Peter Coad said...

Hi Evliu,

Could you check your GBS account on some other Mac? The problem may be specific to your laptop. We checked your account and the site works as it should. We could not reproduce the bug.

Could you send the browser error log?
Steps (in Safari on Mac):
- Safari -> Preferences...
- Advanced tab (button), check Show Develop menu in menu bar
- Go to GBS, mouseover Greek text
- In the main menu, Develop -> Show Error Console
- Select and copy error messages (displayed in red) together with references to program code and send it to me (peter at greek bible study dot org)

ev liu said...

sorry it took so long for me to reply, i haven't used this in awhile. it works on other macs so it's probably something with my system. i attempted the error console procedures in safari but no errors pop up. the mouse icon doesn't even change when i mouseover. this may be due to me installing other greek fonts from the Basics of Biblical Greek course by Mounce. I have the tyndale and the teknia ancient greek fonts. i'll just not use it i guess. thx for all the help anyways!

Peter Coad said...

Hi Evliu, Thanks for sharing that with me; sorry we did not get it worked out, the issues regarding your specific Mac. Meanwhile, we're preparing to launch a major update; once it's online, you may want to try it out, just in case it works better on it. Pete

ev liu said...

thanks a bunch!

Unknown said...

Wow. Just...wow.
This site has been a blessing to me as I started seminary this year. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your labor in the Lord.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Thanks so much for providing this free Greek site. I am a recent Theology graduate with a Biblical Greek minor and personally, I like this site better than any other site or Greek translating program. I appreciate your commitment to bringing people as close to the Word of God as possible. God bless you in your work.

Unknown said...

Hello! Great Treasures is a wonderful bible study tool! I just joined the site after getting familiar with the app on facebook. However, I noticed that the New King James Version translation is missing. When will it be available???

Peter Coad said...

Hi Elan, Thanks for asking regarding the NKJV. We'd very much like to include it in our site. Based upon your note, this afternoon I faxed the copyright holder of the NKJV (Thomas Nelson, Inc) with a second request. God bless you.

Unknown said...

This is such an amazing site. I don't do a sermon without using it! Thank you so much!

universalradio said...

Hi. I see a place to enter a book/ch/vs. It seems that's the only way to search for words.

Is there a place to simply enter an English word, for example "atonement" and have a list of places in the Bible that it is mentioned, or simply bring up the word's/ Greek definitions?

While I'm here, could you point me to a New Testement verse that has the word atonement in it?

Thanks so much in advance for your answer.

Peter Coad said...

In the intermediate section, you can enter a Greek word or a Strong's number.

Try it out. Enter 2643 (that's the Strong's number for the Greek word you are looking for) into the "enter strong's number or lexical form" box. Click "Go."

Future feature: enter word(s) from any version, any language, and see where it occurs.

Skyview Guy said...

A few years ago when I used the site, I was able to hover over a Greek word and it would show the parsing information for that word. I just recently found the site again, but unless I'm not doing it right, that feature doesn't seem to still be there. Are there plans to put this back on the site, or is it there now and I'm just not seeing it?

Peter Coad said...

To see the parsing information for a word, click to open the "advanced" section. Then click a verse number. The parsing information is displayed, word by word. This feature is for NT (also for OT, later this year).

Sarah-Madden-11 (Quora) said...

Pete, I haven't written for a while, but just wanted to say I still LOVE your site and the way you keep updating it. I'm coaching some grad students in Greek, and I've told them about GreatTreasures.org as an extra source of help. Keep up the good work -- to God be the glory!

Tony said...

Hi there,
We would like to have our "New Fijian Translation Bible" (NFTBible.org) included as one of the translations on your website. Please advise if this is possible, Blessings, info@nftbible.org

Anonymous said...

Hi Peter. Very nice site (a mutual friend from our past sent me here). Just a heads up-I clicked on immersion course by Randall Buth and got a 404 error.

Peter Coad said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Peter Coad said...

Hi Sarah, Thank you! You are so kind and encouraging.
Hi Tony, Done!
Hi Ken, Fixed.

Christopher Engelsma said...

There's a totally free Greek (and Hebrew) course here: www.almartin.org