I have some old Bible study software, made for Windows 98, called Quickverse. It was always a little clunky to use, but it came with a big bundle of electronic resources (commentaries, dictionaries, etc.), a small fraction of which are actually quite useful. Those documents are in a format called STEP (Standard Template for Electronic Publishing), developed for Biblical software in 1995 but abandoned in the early 2000s.

In searching for more current software that could read those STEP-formatted documents, I stumbled across an application called e-Sword. It was initially developed in 2000 for Windows, but the latest version (12.1) runs on Windows, Mac, and iOS. Despite having a decidedly hokey slogan (“the Sword of the LORD with an electronic edge”), it really does have some nice features.

To be clear, I still enjoy, and in many cases prefer, the process of pulling a reference book off the shelf, opening it up, and turning the pages. But I do also have to admit that there are times when it’s also handy to have electronic resources, especially for things like lesson and sermon prep. And I really did want to be able to access some of those older STEP reference books, since I already had them in my arsenal of resources.

The “Cadillac” of Bible study software is a package called Logos. Just about any Bible-study-related resource currently (or recently) in print, as well as nearly all public domain resources up to the early 1900s, are available for Logos. (Curiously, most of the public domain resources for Logos cost money – sometimes, a significant amount). Logos costs anywhere from free for the “Basic” package (with no useful resources) up to multiple thousands of dollars for the higher-end packages (with more resources bundled in). Logos cannot open or read STEP documents.

At the other end of the spectrum are the open source Bible study programs (Xiphos, Bibletime, etc.). However, due to the open source ethos, they don’t deal with proprietary file formats (such as STEP), or offer commercial resources. They’ll only open public domain resources that have been converted to work with that particular app.

Somewhere in the middle is e-Sword (along with a few other programs like Olive Tree and Wordsearch). e-Sword is free for Windows (the developer does accept donations). It does cost a few bucks for the Mac and iOS apps. Both within the e-Sword program, and through a sister website (biblesupport.com), nearly all of the major public domain resources are available for free in e-Sword format (including interlinear Bibles for those wanting to get their Greek or Hebrew on). In addition, a selected set of commercial resources are available as well, most of them via a site called estudysource.com, and most of them at a prices significantly lower than the same resources formatted for Logos, Olive Tree, Wordsearch, etc.

An internet connection is needed only to download any desired bibles, commentaries, dictionaries, maps, and other reference works. Once downloaded, the program/app can be used while completely offline.

I was able to get the Windows version of e-Sword running in Linux, but I’ve since also found some additional, older Windows XP-era commentary software as well (used), featuring commercial commentaries not available for e-Sword, so I decided to just run a light-weight Windows XP virtual machine for all of it. It loads up in about 15 seconds.

The main e-Sword screen has 4 panes – for Bibles, commentaries, dictionaries, and an editor pane for study notes. The panes can be resized according to personal preferences, and any of the panes can be temporarily enlarged to the full window. Hovering the mouse over scripture references (shown in green above) brings up a pop-up window containing that passage for instant reference. Text from any of the panes can be copied and pasted into the editor pane (or into any other editing app you have open). A little blue “i” icon shows up in the commentary and dictionary tabs when there’s additional information available for a selected verse or word.

Older STEP-formatted books can be opened in a separate window, and the scripture pop-ups, as well as copy/paste, work just the same in those resources. So between the older free public domain resources, the newer commercially available resources, and my existing STEP resources, it offers a really nice study package. (After experimenting with the Mac version of e-Sword on a MacOS virtual machine, it appears there’s no STEP reader for the Mac. Mac users wanting the full functionality – including the STEP reader – would be better served running the Windows version in a virtual machine. The Windows version also offers a slightly larger selection of downloadable resources than the MacOS/iOS versions.)

I did a quick cost comparison a few weeks ago for some of the commentary add-ons available for both e-Sword and Logos (the “Starter” version of Logos was on sale for $236 at the time of comparison, and seemed the closest in bundled resources to what’s available in e-Sword). Logos regularly changes up their packages, but here’s how they compared at the time: