Bringing the Gospel to Your Heathen iPod
by Ted Slater on 04/05/2007 at 2:31 PM
A couple of days ago I went on a rant against MP3s and low-quality headphones. I do appreciate the convenience of MP3 players, but because I'm distracted by the relatively poor sound that they produce, I don't have much use for one.
That all may have changed.
I just became aware of free Bible software that you can load onto your iPod. Created by Brendan Ross and blessed by the generous publishers of the English Standard Version of the Bible (my favorite version, by the way), podBible can be downloaded without cost and installed on your iPod.
I don't see any reason why iPod owners wouldn't want to load this onto their players.
While you're downloading the software, take a look around their site. I think you'll enjoy Ross's sense of humor. I did. (Thanks for the headline, Ross!)
1. xeres said the following at 2:38 PM on Apr 5:
hahaha. Thats ironic. I guess thats is one of the benefits of having an iPod besides music, even though musical quality is compromised hahaha
2. Becky F. said the following at 3:13 PM on Apr 5:
I love the title of this post, very humorous. The ESV is my personal favorite as well.
3. Jordan Peacock said the following at 3:28 PM on Apr 5:
It's all about what's appropriate. My entire musical collection is in FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), as I refuse to sacrifice the quality of the source media; FLAC is an ideal compromise, with some compression, but perfect copies of the source data. Heck, I even hacked my iPod by installing Rockbox on it, and now it'll play any file format I throw at it.
However, I also have a stack of audio books, radio dramas, sermons and lectures that, while valuable, are not worth lossless audio quality. Hence something like Speex, or a lower-bitrate mp3 like your audio bibles above, works beautifully. Again, using Rockbox, I can put speex files on my ipod for convenience.
The codecs are out there, and with Xiph you have 3 fantastic ones to choose from, all free of charge and free from patents. FLAC is good for lossless audio, OGG for music where you're willing to lose some quality [like mp3, aac, etc], and Speex for spoken word. Check them out.
4. Lee said the following at 4:47 PM on Apr 5:
There's many different ways to get God's Word onto an iPod.
One that I find really cool is a podcast called the Daily Audio Bible (www.dailyaudiobible.com), which goes through the whole Bible in a year. There's a new download everyday with pieces from the OT, NT, Psalms + Proverbs. And as an added bonus, the production quality is amazing.
Also, which is what podBible does, you can use the iPod Notes feature to store it as text if you want it that way. The only downside to this is that you can only fit 1000 4kb files on it, so you can't fit the whole Bible on it. But you can always swap out books as needed.
I'm working on converting the NIV to compatible text files. It's a lot of work though, and I've only got a couple books done, so no ETA on when it's gonna be done.
5. V said the following at 8:14 AM on Apr 6:
Though for PDAs/Smartphones, and not for iPods, http://www.OliveTree.com has downloadable Bible software, including various versions of the Bible, commentaries, etc. They have several free downloads as well, including a few versions of the Bible. :-)
6. Emma said the following at 10:09 AM on Apr 6:
SoutheastChristian.org even provides sermons to be downloaded on your ipod
7. Katie said the following at 10:51 AM on Apr 6:
Hey, this is great! Thanks for the post, Ted. ESV is my translation of choice as well, and I also appreciated Ross' witticisms. Hee.
Lee, I'm going to check out the DailyAudioBible site.
Yay for BoundlessLine -- beneficial both for theological discourse and the salvation of iPods!
8. Alex Chediak said the following at 8:47 AM on Apr 7:
Really cool! Thanks!
9. Jon said the following at 7:47 AM on Apr 8:
In addition to putting the Bible on, many sermons are available as podcasts (John Piper probably being the one I listen to the most). Just look up the name of a particular preacher and see if they have anything on iTunes.
10. Brendan Ross said the following at 6:17 PM on Apr 8:
Thanks Ted, and everyone, for the uplifting comments. I appreciate it.
For anyone who may still be following this post, there's now a version up on podBible dot org for the iPod video -- looks a lot better on the wider screen.
I hope it's been as much of a blessing to some of y'all as it has been to me.
11. Leah said the following at 7:33 PM on Apr 10:
ESV all the way :D ("extra special version" lol) not that NIV (notoriously inaccurate version) rubbish ;P Haha yeah I'm just teasing though it does hold some truth :D
I'm not a big fan of podcasts etc, they're great for when they're needed, but I'd rather a real-life experience any day.
Oh and Ted, as for poor quality earphones, my boyfriend bought a set for about $32 the other day (Aus$) and they are BRILLIANT. They have good bass and great sound quality. Not as good as a good set of computer speakers, but miles better than what you'd get on a portable CD player.
12. Jeffrey J. Stables said the following at 12:45 PM on Apr 12:
Hey Ted, thanks for the info! I will be putting this on my iPod shortly. Good thing it's ESV. ;)