There are a few threads about it such as here and here

I did a search on Google with "online KJV php mysql"
I couldn't use "Bible" because it brought up too many php reference books, I chose KJV because it is no longer under copyright and most of the newer ones are.
I found some like:
1 - 2 - 3

here is the search

They are good links Bob. Thanks.

But there doesn't seem to be the "dream": having a package that you can purchase that allows you to serve up the NIV/other copyrighted versions in what ever way you like (well, at a price that is affordable for a small/mid sized organisation. I am sure it will happen one day, just gotta wait until they see the light! I would pay for such a package - I don't believe everything needs to be free, even the Bible. When I pay for something, I can expect support for it, and I am supporting the organisation behind it. But everything is either free (KJV) or ridiculously expensive. The ESV offered by Good News Publishers is a great exception, but I almost wish I could pay something for that to get more freedom in how I use it. There is a real potential market there, if one of the Bible publishers would open their eyes and see it. First in will get best dressed.

Perhaps we don't have it because we never asked for it.

The big sites have the NIV and NLT, so it is possible. It is probably just a matter of cost and request.
Perhaps a request to Zondervan or Tyndale House would be a good idea.

http://www.healyourchurchwebsite.com/archi...es/000221.shtml

and

http://www.healyourchurchwebsite.com/archi...es/000228.shtml

One day...

I agree that would be nice, but still not what I am looking for (not that I am trying to hijack this tread or anything /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> ).

This week, if I get a chance, I will sek out information from Zondervan (NIV), Tyndale House (NLT), and The Lockman Foundation (NASB) about licensing restrictions for online use of their texts.

The NIV's license looks as though it may allow restricted use of its text for something like this, but it is too borderline and subject to dishonesty for me to be willing to try it. They have an open invitation for people to inquire about usage, so that looks like a good start.

Great discussion! I guess it's not my imagination that I can't find commercial software at a reasonable price that serves a small to mid-size church. Thanks so much for the great replies.

- Frank

Bobbymac,

I'm curious, what restrictions do you find onerous about the ESV's setup? In designing the license, we tried to make it as broad as possible, but we're open to changing it if it doesn't fit your needs--especially now that it's been up and running for a while and there's a track record of people acting responsibly with it.

Stephen

Hi Stephen

I didn't mean to sound negative. I suppose it's just perception - when you pay for something, you feel a bit more free with it. And perhaps you could expect more advanced services, being able to search the bible, for example and getting a list of matching verses. I wouldn't expect this for free, and, assuming it was affordable, I would appreciate being able to pay for it to support the service's availability.

I'm not sure where, but I got the impression that we weren't permitted to redistribute the text in any way, and I interpreted this to mean it couldn't, for example, be used in a web site's own daily devotional email that is sent out to subscribed users. I think it is in the API's terms of service. Sure, I understand you don't want people actually saying - "you can get the ESV here!", but I am thinking more of applications of the text than the text itself.

I understand that the Good News website provides many online services, which they wouldn't necessarily want being reproduced elsewhere. But some of these services would be really cool to have on a person's own web site for their visitors too.

The service provided by Good News Publishers, with the ESV, is excellent and is a blessing to the universal church.

Just another question - are there any plans to provide the Good News version (or TEV) in the same way?

Thanks Stephen for your interest

Paul

We've had a couple of requests to be able to search the text of the Bible using the web service. It was mostly technical difficulties that held us back from implementing it right away, not any desire on our part to reserve functionality for ourselves. We're big fans of distributed innovation.

So, as of today, there's a new feature in the API that allows text searching. At the moment, it only returns html, but if there's demand for other formats, we could probably return them, too.

The restrictions on using text from the service in an email devotional are
1) It can't have more than 500 verses or 1/2 a book
2) It can't be more than 50% of the email
I've changed the overview page to make that clearer. I suppose those conditions could be restrictive, depending on what you wanted to do.

We do offer pay subscriptions at $100/year, but they don't offer much you don't get free.

As for the Good News and TEV, we don't distribute them, so I can't say what the future holds for them.

Not to be contentious, but I have always wanted to ask this question of someone who worked with Bible text licensing.

<question type="silly">
Would I be allowed to print the scripture for a devotion on 2 John 1:4-11; or if I wanted to do a devotional on 1 John would I have to skip a bunch of the verses and just allude to them?
</question>
/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

i'm lazy.
but here is a link to a buddy's site who uses E-sword, and how he incorporated it into his site:
http://www.godscircle.net

We have some simple implementations of the ESV web service on our site...
A reference search engine: http://www.toongabbieanglican.org/bible/esv.asp
and a One Year Tract:
http://www.toongabbieanglican.org/bible/oneyear.asp

These are both pretty simple examples, but they show that integration into your site is possible now.

Simon.

MrHerald,

Yes, welcome to the world of Bible licensing. Now that I look at it, our standard copyright actually allows for a whole book (minus one verse) or 1,000 verses, so it's less restrictive than many. (Only eleven books have over 1,000 verses.) I believe the thinking is that if you're going to be publishing a whole book of the Bible, that's a significant portion, and we'd like to know about it. Mostly, we're just following standard practice in the industry.

Oops.
I typed 1 John instead of 3 John.
I doubt I would want to quote all of 1 John for a devotion. Of course 3 John can easily have a verse or two left off in most instances.

I just went through and reread the licenses from several version and I see that I was mistaken. I was thinking that the restriction was up to a certain percentage of a book instead of a certain number as long as not a full book. Meaning that I could really just cut off verse 1 of each of those books and print them up.

The discussion just came up recently since our adult Sunday Bible study follows the International Standard Lesson Commentary series and November 23 is based on 2 John 4–9 & 3 John 3–12. We print up the text for each lesson to hand it out to people in the class so that visitors do not need to feel embarrassed fumbling through a Bible (it amazes me how many adults don't know the order of the books). The mistaklen idea was that we could not print more than 50% of a given book which is only an issue when you come to the Johns.

Thanks for your reply.

I am looking around for the version of the ESV to drop into Quickverse 6. Although with QV8 coming out soon I may just upgrade. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> (QV6 doesn't work on my WinXP laptop)

There is an internet deployed fully featured software releasing this Spring (2009) that is so cool, so innovative and so easily deployed on an intranet (for those of you who want it for your church or school) or individually over the internet.

I have seen the previews - incredible. After 20 years of waiting, an interactive, platform independent, excellent GUI, intuitive, deployable Bible Study Tool with all the classics. The idea was shared with a few people and after seeing the prototype they were so impressed that the project was immediately funded 100% with investors being turned away.

It isn't free but it's cheap. It has the connected tools of the desktop big boys, the deployability of the internet guys and a GUI that hasn't ever been seen in Bible-land.

Anyway - just thought I would let those of you interested know that there is an answer on the way for those who want a deployable, easily shared simple study tool. I am an Accordance and PC Study Bible user who has members who hit the freebies on their own. Can't wait!

@bobbymac

r u running drupal for u r website... if u r running drupal then there is a bible module that is available Bible Module and if you wanted to download the bible it is at bible files

hope that is of help... and it has a lot of good features... you should take a look...